He had gone into New York from Connecticut by train, disembarked at Grand Central, and as he was getting into a cab, two young punks got in on either side of him and tried to mug him.
He KO'd them both in the first round.
Mid 70’s aged Jack Dempsey did kayo two punks once. It is a very well known true story known about by long time boxing fans. Rocky Marciano very well might have clobbered a pair of punks also, somewhere along the line, but I do not remember that story.
Marciano died in a plane crash the day before his 46th birthday.
While he might have knocked a couple of punks out in the last year of his life, he certainly wasn’t elderly at the time.
Can’t find any reference to such an incident with the Rock. Here’s the one about Dempsey.
“In 1971, Dempsey recounted an incident when he was mugged while walking home at night. According to Dempsey, the two young muggers attempted to grab his arms, but Dempsey broke free and laid them both out cold on the sidewalk. The story of the encounter appeared in the Hendersonville Times-News in July 1971. In the print-story, the incident was reported to have taken place “a few years ago”.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Dempsey