Last night I watched the movie "Somebody Up There Likes Me," and I really enjoyed it. How accurate is it.
Accurate as RAGING BULL, tB -- lots of creative license, for entertainment sake, but Rocky did stop Zale in the return.
A friend of mine, who passed away recently at age 86, claimed that Zale and Graziano pretty much ruined each other. True or not?
Ruined is a strong word. Graziano was always overrated and always going to have a rough way to go against legitimate middleweights. Zale was already on the downside and looking to pad his bank account before retiring after his stint in the war.
this sounds like agenda. you have to look at the film and trust your own eyes. Zale still looks a great fighter on film knocking out graziano. perfect right hand left hook combo, good solid stance and moves. If graziano was so bad how come before he fought SRR rocky had a beter resume against their common opponenets? robinson was bood against marty servo getting a split decision. rocky flatened servo decisivly. henry brimm drew with a peak SSR and rocky knocked him out as well as fusari who lasted the distance with Ray.
Been a resident of the LES of NYC since 82. I recall years ago sitting in a local cafe and chatting with an older woman LES born and raised. She related the violence and anger and meanness of Rocky and his crew. Her face was like..cringing from the memory. Good thing they got him in the ring!
Robinson fought Servo four and five years before Graziano got to him and they weighed the same when they fought, Graziano outweighed Servo considerably as he was in the middle of his little string of fighting welterweights despite being a MW. It was a well known fact at the time that Robinson carried Charlie Fusari in order to give the fans who attended the bout as part of a charity promotion their moneys worth as well as make the motion pictures of the fight more marketable. Its also a well known fact that Graziano was very carefully matched as was Zale after WW2. You can spin it any way you want but Graziano is and was overrated based on wins over smaller fighters and aging fighters (and a few notable fixed fights such as his rubber match with Green) and Zale was past his prime after the war and in no hurry to face legitimate middleweights who earned their ranking over the previous 5-6 years by actually taking risks.
Thats bull****. If Graziano could have made the WW limit he would have and would have jumped at that title. He knew he couldnt and so did his handlers Sam Piam and Art Winch. There was no LMW back in 1947. If you weighed in the mid 150s you were a MW and more to the point he was weighing well into the MW division and cherry picking on WWs and not always beating them. Every fight he had from 1944 on with the exception of Sonny Horne Graziano outweighed his opponent until he fought Tony Zale. He got his title shot at the MW title without ever legitimately beating a top ranked middleweight contender.
Dont you mean Sam Pian and Art Winch were Tony Zale's managers. Irving Cohen was Rocky Graziano's mgr. along with his trainer whitey Bimstein' ?
have to agree with you man (though your knowledge of graziano far exceeds mine). I didn't realize he outweight opponents but he was way overrated fact is, zale was almost done by the time he met graziano and still knocked him out 2/3 graziano opponent fought two great middleweights: zale and robinson. and they both knocked him out. straight up the sad thing is that last 3 rounds against SRR is held as a good achievement. for an "all time great" middleweight, he should have done better
Im sorry yes I get Cohen confused with Sam Pian and Winch all the time because of how closely Graziano is tied to Zale. You wouldnt even know who Graziano was if it werent for the Zale fights. He'd be a footnote.