Word: zale
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Plump and prosperous at the age of 45, ex-Middleweight Champ Rocky Graziano knocks out little more than clichés these days as a TV "personality." His old nemesis, Tony Zale, also ex-champ, and now 54, reserves his clinches for an occasional guest in the Manhattan pub where he works as "greeter." So when the two retired fighters met last week in a flack-fixed rematch, their panting efforts damaged nothing but the memories of the three Pier Six brawls-among the most savage in all boxing history-that they slugged out from 1946 to 1948. Graziano...
...figured to be the most savage middleweight rematch since Zale and Graziano. Emile Griffith, the tough ex-street fighter from the Virgin Islands, had an elaborate revenge planned for Nino Benvenuti, the Italian fishmonger's son who took away his 160-lb. title last April. For starters, he was going to reshape Nino's roamin' nose. "I'm going to hit it and hit it and hit it," vowed Griffith. "I'm going to bend it. Then I'm going to knock him out." Bene, sighed Benvenuti, quaffing his Chianti...
Producer Ivan Tors hovered weightlessly just out of camera range; fluttering near by were a director, a movie cameraman and a lighting expert. Tors's pretty secretary, Zale Parry, glided about the group, taking notes on a slate. The movie camera, encased in a weightless "blimp," focused on the desperate struggle of Actor Lloyd Bridges as he grappled with a villain who might have come from Mars...
...instructor shows him how to "make hate work for him." In the prize ring, Graziano remains an undisciplined, roughhouse fighter, but now society applauds instead of imprisoning him. The habit of trouble is not broken. He misses scheduled bouts, tangles with gamblers and boxing commissions. Before he meets Tony Zale for the championship, newspapers break the story that Rocky had been dishonorably discharged from the Army for belting an officer...
...film suggests that the headlines were enough to make Rocky think seriously of making a deal with the crooked gamblers, only to be dissuaded by a pep talk from his neighborhood candy-store proprietor and by a fortuitous reconciliation with his father. Somebody ends with Rocky knocking out Zale in a bloody six rounds, but neglects to mention his subsequent run-ins with various boxing commissions or his recent triumphs as a high-paid TV star on NBC's Martha Raye Show, where he plays Martha's lowbrowed but highhearted suitor...