1. Thomas Rocco Barbella, better known as Rocky Graziano, was an American professional boxer and actor who held the World Middleweight title.
32 Facts About Rocky Graziano
1. 2.
Rocky Graziano was ranked 23rd on The Ring magazine list of the greatest punchers of all time.
3.
Rocky Graziano fought many of the best middleweights of the era including Sugar Ray Robinson.
4.
Rocky Graziano was the subject of the 1956 film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, based on his 1955 autobiography, starring Paul Newman as Graziano.
5.
Rocky Graziano was the son of Ida Scinto and Nicola Barbella.
6.
Rocky Graziano grew up as a street fighter and learned to look after himself before he could read or write.
7.
Rocky Graziano spent years in reform school, jail, and Catholic protectories.
8.
Rocky Graziano did not like the discipline of training any more than he liked the discipline of school or the Army.
9.
Rocky Graziano heard from a couple of his friends about a tournament going on with a gold medal for the winner.
10.
Rocky Graziano fought four matches and ended up winning the New York Metropolitan Amateur Athletic Union Boxing Competition.
11.
Rocky Graziano sold the gold medal for $15 and decided that boxing was a good way to make cash.
12.
In 1940, just weeks into his amateur fighting career, Rocky Graziano was arrested for stealing from a school.
13.
Rocky Graziano went to Coxsackie Correctional Facility, where he spent three weeks with boyhood friend Jake LaMotta, and then he went on to the New York City Reformatory, where he spent five months.
14.
Rocky Graziano entered the ring under the name Robert Barber.
15.
When Rocky Graziano got out of jail, he enlisted in the military but went AWOL after punching a captain.
16.
Fort Leavenworth is where Rocky Graziano started his boxing career while housed at the FCP building adjacent to the main facility.
17.
Cohen scheduled fights against increasingly challenging opponents with the apparent goal of overmatching Rocky Graziano to teach him the value of conditioning.
18.
Rocky Graziano even demanded a match against Sugar Ray Robinson.
19.
In March 1945 at Madison Square Garden in New York City Rocky Graziano scored a major upset over Billy Arnold, whose style was similar to that of Sugar Ray Robinson: he was a slick boxer with lightning-fast combinations and a knockout punch.
20.
Rocky Graziano absorbed a beating in the early going, before going on to batter and knock Arnold out in the third round of the scheduled eight-round bout.
21.
Rocky Graziano fought three middleweight title bouts against Tony Zale, losing the first before capturing then surrendering the championship.
22.
The referee almost stopped the second fight in the third round because of a severe cut over Rocky Graziano's left eye, but Rocky Graziano's cutman, Morris Bimstein, was able to stop the bleeding.
23.
Rocky Graziano's last shot at the middleweight title came against Sugar Ray Robinson in April 1952.
24.
Rocky Graziano dropped Robinson to his knee with a right in the third round.
25.
Rocky Graziano retired after losing his very next fight, a 10-round decision to Chuck Davey.
26.
In 1946, Rocky Graziano was suspended by the New York State Athletic Commission for failure to report a bribe attempt.
27.
In 1948 Rocky Graziano was suspended for "running out" on a scheduled December 1 bout with Ruben Shank.
28.
Rocky Graziano was a semi-regular on The Martha Raye Show, as Raye's boyfriend.
29.
Rocky Graziano portrayed Packy, an ex-boxer, in the 1967 film Tony Rome.
30.
Rocky Graziano briefly operated a bowling alley in North Babylon, New York.
31.
Rocky Graziano married Norma Unger, of German-Jewish descent, on August 10,1943.
32.
Rocky Graziano is interred at the Locust Valley Cemetery along with his wife, who died in 2009.