Rooky's Road Back

After the fight, Roughneck Rocky Graziano swaggered to his dressing room, wearing a big grin. It contrasted with the bellicose look of his tousled mop of hair and two-day growth of beard. The champ dunked his swollen hands in a hot pail of water and said: "We gettin' good, real good, ain't we? Gimme that bottle." He took a swig: "Ahhh--damn good. Lemon juice, honey and brandy. Warms up the body. I don't drink though, really I don't. Here, pass it around, Doc."

Croaked one of his hangers-on: "You pulped him, champ--pulped him." The world's middleweight champion scowled back coldly: "Gwan. I licked him with my brains. He didn't think I could box. I showed him. I sure showed him. For a lousy buck, too." A photographer wanted him to kiss the dollar (Rocky's purse for fighting Sonny Home last week in Washington), but the champ's attention wavered. He answered another question: "Yeah, so my timing was off. What of it? I win, don't I?"

Picking Up Butts. It was Rocky Graziano's return to the ring after nine months of exile. Banned in New York for failing to report a bribe offer, banned in Illinois and 13 other states as a wartime deserter, he had gone to the Washington boxing commission and explained that business about being AWOL: "Do I look like the kinda guy who'd duck a fight? They put me to work pickin' up cigarette butts and orange peels at Fort Dix. I wish to God now I picked 'em up." Rocky promised to give all but one dollar of his earnings to charity, if they would just let him fight. Washington gave in.

Said one commissioner: "We're sticking our chin out but we're right. A champ's gotta fight." Added Chief Commissioner Col. Harvey L. Miller: "O.K., the kid runs away from the Army. But then he paid his debt to the country. He serves ten months in the Fort Leavenworth disciplinary barracks."

In the ring, Rocky looked rusty from his layoff. He fought clumsily but cleanly, missing with a lot of roundhouse rights. But by the fifth round, he had connected often enough to bloody his opponent's eyes, and Rocky's white trunks looked like a butcher's apron. Home, a shifty boxer, managed to last out the ten rounds. Rocky won, by a decision, and then rushed over to hug & kiss the man he had been trying to decapitate a moment before--and 5,181 fans roared approvingly.

Picking Up $120,000. With that performance, Rocky got his foot in the door. Three days later, at Toots Shor's restaurant in Manhattan, a battery of publicity men escorted tieless Rocky into a room filled with cold cuts and sports reporters. He and ex-Middleweight Champion Tony Zale signed a contract to fight for the title on June 9 in Newark's Ruppert Stadium, Rocky's guarantee: $120,000.

Said he, cautiously: "I ain't sore at nobody. I just wanna fight. Somebody give me a reaming. Whoever got it in for me, I don't care. Was you a juvenile delinquent when you was nine? Well, I was. Never had no breaks. All I wanna do is fight. Hey Doc, ya see me fight?"

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