THE ROCK’S TRAILING FOREARM by Mark Hatmaker

[Excerpted from our book Boxing Like the Champs, Round Two, to be released Fall of 2020.]

Rocco Francis Marchegiano.


Rocky Marciano


The Brockton Blockbuster.


Yeah, yeah, we all know, the only undefeated heavyweight champion. 


Retires with a perfect record.


A strong, powerful fighter with a big heart, tremendous work ethic and a good character to boot.


Usually we start all of these mini-lessons with a reminder to the cognoscenti or an introduction to those new on the path. 


Rocky Marciano is one of those rare few who seems to need little of that “Gather around, let me tell you about…” noise.


So, in this case, let’s not talk about what he did well, but something that he did poorly.

And….how that poorly done thing often made him perform so well.


Contradictions abound there, huh?


The legend, while graceful in character, has never been accused of grace in movement.


He was an awkward lunging fighter. Some labeled his style clumsy, but it’s hard to rectify the epithet “clumsy” with the results inside the ring.


And yet…


What else could you call the fact that he sometimes swung with such power in his early days that he would fall down on the miss.


Commitment to punch?


Oh, hell, yeah.


Clumsy?


Well, that, too.


Trainer, Charley Goldman helped trim a lot of that awkwardness off of Marciano, but he was careful not to trim too much.


He recognized that what made The Rock so effective, was this “go for broke” commitment to throwing hands.


Now, let’s examine one aspect of this “clumsy” style and how this seemingly poor technique was turned into a plus for Mr. Marciano.


FYI-What we are discussing isn’t strictly legal. Rocky was not a dirty fighter by intent, but he landed more than a few elbows, head-butts, and forearms by dint of that legendary punch-commitment.


So, where he wound up “dirty” with accidental or incidental blows, we will examine one aspect as if we were to develop it in an intentional manner.


In other words, the following is for entertainment purposes only.


[Wink.]


Rocky Marciano’s Trailing Forearm

There is a famous photo of Marciano slamming a big left hook into the crafty Jersey Joe Walcott. If we look closely at that photo, we see that after the punch has landed that lead forearm “trails” right behind and adds to the wallop.


You can find instances of this “trailing forearm” all over The Rock’s fights.


Again, his “use” of the tactic was likely accidental or incidental, part and parcel of a 100% slamming style.


But…let’s say if you wanted to throw such a trailing forearm purposefully, how would one go about doing it?


In the early days of boxing, the bootleg days, the boombattle days, the days when some fighters had more than a few extra tools at their disposal or there were no regulating bodies to decide this is or ain’t kosher, such a forearm would be called a Hacksaw. [See our Tracks Publication Savage Strikes & our DVDs Illegal Boxing, Extreme Boxing, and RAWs 196 forward for the lowdown on such “illegal” blows.]


By strict definition, a hacksaw would be an intended forearm, whereas a “trailing” forearm was “well, thems the breaks in the fight game.”


Round One-

·        Get in front of the mirror and throw your standard lead hook.

·        With standard proper form we allow the fist to do all the work.

·        That’s good form and good sportsmanship.

Round Two-

·        Now take it to the bag and repeat proper hooking.

·        Make no attempt to trail at this time.

·        Let’s just pay very close attention to how we “throw it correctly.”

Round Three-

·        This time, let’s get on the bag and stand, say, 10-12” outside of our standard hook range.

·        Let’s take a lunging step to get that hook to the target, again make no attempt to trail just yet, simply execute the lunging hook.

Round Four-

·        This time set up for the lunging hook, but aim at the bag for the fist to just skim the surface of the bag, if you have a good bag swivel you’ll likely set the bag to spinning with each hook.

Round Five-

·        Let’s repeat that lunging/skimming hook on the bag but allow your forward lunge to carry you “awkwardly” to the bag, so that your skimming fist rolls off the bag, that trailing forearm is right behind raking the radius and, sometimes, a bit of elbow over the bag.

Again, the Rock never seems to be skimming his hooks, he means them all and the trailing forearm is part of his lunging style. But by learning to skim on the heavy bag, then on the pads [or an opponent if you are a little less than reputable in character] you mean both the hook [no skim] and the trailing forearm.


Again, for entertainment purposes only, but that’s how it was done.

[Wink]

[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service.]