RECALLING A SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP

Rocky Graziano and I became good friends some 70-years ago 

 

By Howie Katz

Rocky Graziano TKO'd Charley Fusari on 9-14-49 at the NY Polo Grouns.

Rocky Graziano was one of the hardest punchers in boxing history. Rocky had 83 fights.  Of his 67 wins,  52 came by knockouts.

 

I am not going into how we got to be good friends and I am not going to go into the history of his bad behavior.  The Rocky I knew was a kindhearted and decent man who adored his wife Norma and daughters Audrey and Roxee, and would give anyone in need the shirt off his back.  

  

(Left) Rocky flattened Johnny Greco in the 3rd round on 5-21-51 in Montreal,

(Right) Rocky and me in the champ's basement man cave in 1950. 

 

I was privileged  to visit Rocky and his family at their home many times and to stay with Rocky at his training camps in Ellenville, NY and Chatham, NJ.

The three fights he had with Tony Zale were among the most brutal fights in boxing history. He was KO's in the first one, won the world middleweight championship in the second one, and got KO'd in the third one.

 

Rocky defeats Tony Zale on 7-16-47 to win the world middle weight championship. 

 

 

Zale regains title on 6-10-48 with a 3rd round KO

 

Rocky's rise to fame and fortune began on March 9, 1945 when he stopped a heavily favored Billy Arnold.  All the boxing experts predicted Arnold would become world champion, but after the beating he took from Rocky, he was never the same again.

Rocky' last two fights were with the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson and Chuck Davey.  Robinson came off the floor to knock Rocky out and Davey avoided his punches to win the 10-round bout.

I attended the Davey fight at the Chicago Stadium with a seat on the front row.  Seated to the right of me were about a dozen well-dressed, cigar-smoking men. Suddenly, during one of the preliminary bouts, Chicago cops swooped down on the men and carted them off to jail.  The next day I learned from the papers that the men were part of Al Capone's mob.

Rocky wisely retired after the Davey fight.  Rocky went on to appear in several movies and TV shows.  He played Martha Raye's husband on her TV show. He also raked in a good amount of money by doing commercials for a number of businesses.

Thanks to his wife Norma, Rocky did not blow his accumulated wealth away.  Norma managed his finances by making sure he did not leave their home with a large amount of cash in his pocket.

Norma's father Ray Unger was the host of a restaurant in the Times Square area that served cheese cake to die for.  Just before I went on one of my trips to see my mother in Galveston, I went to the restaurant and asked Ray to get me the cheese cake recipe.  He said "no problem" and proceeded down the stairs to the kitchen.  Suddenly he came rushing up the stairs white as a ghost.  He told me the baker came after him with a meat cleaver when he asked for the recipe.

Rocky died of a heart attack on May 22, 1990 at age 71.  Norma passed away on April 16, 2009 at age 83.  

My friend ship with Rocky constituted the best years in my life..  Why was that friend ship special?  How many people get to pal around with a world champion fighter?