Three Rounds in Jersey

The big fight had "gone across the river" to Jersey. In one corner last week, black-browed and confident, sat Rocky Graziano, onetime Army deserter, middleweight champion and boxing's worst foot forward (he is barred in New York and in Illinois). The boys in the ringside seats noticed the pimples on his back and recalled stories that 26-year-old Rocky had been eating high off the hog since people began calling him "champ."

Across the ring squatted elderly (34), impassive Tony Zale, an old foe. They had put on two spine-tingling battles before. Each had knocked out the other once and this was the rubber match. At the bell, Zale advanced stealthily, pawed at Rocky's scowling face like a cat in a tentative mood. Then Zale's left hook exploded on Rocky's jaw. It was a stunner: Rocky's eyes widened and his knees wobbled. With the fight only 30 seconds old, the crowd surged to its feet.

The rest was just a mopping-up operation. By the end of the first round (in which Zale knocked him sprawling with another left), bewildered Rocky was dazed and bleeding. Through the second round, Rocky snarled savagely, but it was the snarl of a wounded animal. At 1:08 of the third round, Zale landed the knockout blow, another sizzling left. Rocky fell flat on his back and lay very still.

Zale, a champion once more and richer by $60,000 (Graziano's share of the purse: $120,000), went back to his dressing room, put in his store-teeth, and announced that he would fight any challenger--anyone, that is, but Roughhouse Rocky, whose one & only claim to glory, the power of his fists, had failed him.

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