Graziano Hit the Top, Had the Last Laugh

Only rarely does the modern professional fighter impinge on the cultural history of his time. More than one great champion has been spotted in training reading the funnies, caught red-handed by reporters delighted to find someone even less literate than they.

The old-time middleweight, Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, used to travel with a secretary and could claim a tenuous link with literature by having once punched John O’Hara’s father through a dining-room door, all in the spirit of brotherly love.

Gene Tunney became a confidant of Shaw, lectured on Shakespeare and went on a walking tour with Thornton Wilder.

But no pug this century has ever approached the distinction of Rocky Graziano, who finally took the long count Tuesday.

Through no fault of his own, it was Graziano’s bizarre fate to become a matinee idol by proxy. To this day his image is hopelessly confused with that of Paul Newman, of all people.

Graziano, whose career was pure grand guignol from the first street fights to reform school, proved irresistible to the moguls in Hollywood. The result was “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” in which Newman portrayed a genial slugger with the heart of a lion.

Graziano was what is known in the trade as a crowd-pleaser. His theory of life was simple to the brink of imbecility. He once explained his style by saying he figured that he could hit people at least three times as hard as they could hit him, so that it was good sense to take two shots in order to land one. That strange method brought about a transmutation from slob to star, in a series of punishing contests culminating in the three awesome arguments with the middleweight champion, Tony Zale.

It was rumored by his backers that Zale was made of solid teak, including his head. But in the second of his three debates with Graziano, the street fighter hit him so hard that the man of teak folded up like an accordion. The unthinkable had happened. Graziano was champion of the world, an eminence so dizzying that it gave him at last the social acceptability he had always pined for.

Zale regained the title in their third fight, but it is doubtful if Graziano minded much. He had been the champion, and nobody could ever take the distinction away from him. No more the bum, not even after he challenged Sugar Ray Robinson one night and hit Robinson so hard in the glove with his head that he fell into a deep slumber.

But Graziano had the last laugh on all his opponents. When he retired from the ring he went into show business and, like Max Baer and Maxie Rosenbloom, became a popular buffoon in television comedy shows.

Rocky Graziano (Rocco Barbella), born Jan. 1, 1922; died May 23, 1990.