Thomas Rocco Barbella, better known as Rocky Graziano, was an American professional boxer and

Thomas Rocco Barbella, better known as Rocky Graziano, was an American professional boxer and actor who held the World Middleweight title. Graziano is considered one of the greatest knockout artists in boxing history, often displaying the capacity to take his opponent out with a single punch. He was ranked 23rd on The Ring magazine list of the greatest punchers of all time. He fought many of the best middleweights of the era including Sugar Ray Robinson. His turbulent and violent life story was the basis of the 1956 Oscar-winning drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, based on his 1955 autobiography of the same title.

EARLY LIFE
Graziano was the son of Ida Scinto and Nicola Barbella. The elder Barbella, nicknamed Fighting Nick Bob, was a boxer with a brief fighting record. Born in Brooklyn, Rocky later moved to an Italian enclave centered on East 10th Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A in Manhattan's East Village. He grew up as a street fighter and learned to look after himself before he could read or write. He spent years in reform school, jail, and Catholic protectories. Barbella, sr., who got occasional work as a horseback rider, kept boxing gloves around the house and encouraged Rocky and his brothers to fight one another. When he was three years old, Barbella would make Rocky and his brother, Joe (three years his senior), fight almost every night. At age 18 Rocky won the Metropolitan A.A.U. welterweight championship. Despite the fame and money that professional fighting seemed to offer, Rocky didn't want to become a serious prize fighter. He didn't like the discipline of training any more than he liked the discipline of school or the Army.

AMATEUR CAREER
Graziano heard from a couple of his friends about a tournament going on with a gold medal for the winner. He fought four matches and ended up winning the New York Metropolitan Amateur Athletic Union Boxing Competition (1939). He sold the gold medal for $15 and decided that boxing was a good way to make cash.

In 1940, just weeks into his amateur fighting career, Graziano was arrested for stealing from a school. He 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. After he got out of the reformatory, he headed back to the gym to earn money and while there, met Eddie Cocco who started his professional career. He entered the ring under the name Robert Barber. A couple of weeks later, Graziano was charged with a probation violation and sent back to reform school where he was charged with starting a minor riot. He was then sent to Rikers Island.

When Graziano got out of jail he enlisted in the military but went AWOL after punching a captain. He escaped from Fort Dix in New Jersey and started his real boxing career under the name of "Rocky Graziano". He won his first couple of bouts. After gaining popularity under the name of Graziano, he was found by the military. After his fourth bout, he was called into manager's office to speak with a couple of military personnel. Expecting to be prosecuted and sent back to the military or jail, he fled. He returned to the military a week later. In 1941, he turned himself in, was court-martialed and dishonorably discharged from the Army then sent to The federal penitentiary (nicknamed the “Big Top” for its dome), founded in 1875 as a military prison ( Now known as USP Leavenworth), is located at Fort Leavenworth is where "Rocky" Graziano started his boxing career while housed at the FCP (Minimum/Low)building adjacent to the main facility.

Ultimately he was pardoned and given the opportunity to fight under the army's aegis.

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Graziano

TAGS: Rocky Graziano, Boxers from New York City, American male boxers, Recipients of American presidential pardons, Sportspeople from Brooklyn, People from the Lower East Side, Middleweight boxers, International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees, Deaths from respiratory failure, Burials at Locust Valley Cemetery, American boxers of Italian descent

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