Graciano Rocchigiani Tragically Killed, Run Over By a Car in Italy

[Ruthless-RKO]

Former two division world champion Graciano "Rocky" Rocchigiani died on Tuesday in Italy after being hit by a car.

According to Bild newspaper, Rocchigiani was walking as a pedestrian in Italy when he was run over by a car and killed.

The 54-year-old won the IBF super middleweight championship title in 1988 and 10-years later secured the WBC light-heavyweight title. Born to an Italian metalworker in Germany,"Rocky" won 41 times in 48 professional matches. Nineteen wins were by KO.

Bild reported that the German boxing legend had an Italian girlfriend with whom he had two children, and that he had regularly traveled between the two countries.

In recent years Rocchigiani worked as a boxing commentator and coach.
Promoter Kalle Sauerland of Sauerland Event told Bild he was 'speechless'.

"He was our first world champion. I grew up with him, so to speak. He was a wild guy with a big heart," he said.

[adislav123]

wtf! Always liked the guy, was cheering for him when he was fighting mr. Superclean henry maske and "superchamp" michalchewski (they tried to fornicate him over whetever they could being the underdog)They always tried to make some dumb thug out of him in the build up. He was just a real though kid from the streets who didn't give a fornicate and called bullshit where calling bullshit! is due. One of my favourite fighters! Shit!! really! He was analyzing/co-commenting the latest string of corrupted embarrassements of tv-fights on Sport1(german tv). Abraham-Nielsen, mock-yildirim, feigenbutz etc. and called them out on live-tv as what they where: corrupted, bought decisions, him not giving a fornicate!! Really sad shit! fornicating cars!

[Dancin' Dan]

RIP!

[Ilya Muromets]

[Ruthless-RKO]

Had some good fights. Fought some good boxers. Fought m Eubank Sr. too..

Lost to Dariusz, eventually won the WBC belt instead, then instead of defending that, tried to take the WBO of Dariusz again.

[dagilechia]

He was stripped (or declared interim champion) and WBC confirmed RJJ a champion, Rocchigiani sued WBC for 31 million $ and won which almost led to bankrupcy of WBC

The gap between his Nunn fight when he won WBC title and the second fight Michalczewski was actually 2 years.

the first fight vs Michalczewski he was winning, then Michalczewski played a fake KO when was hit by 'Rocky' after the break command. It was a big joke! I was a fan of Michalczewski, after that i lost a lot of respect to him.

Before the rematch there was a lot of trash talk, Graciano called Dariusz a "stupid Pole", Michalczewski won easily, this time without any controversies, Graciano retired on stool after 9.

Rocchigiani was one of the best among the German "Universum" champions.

[greg]

He was stripped (or declared interim champion) and WBC confirmed RJJ a champion, Rocchigiani sued WBC for 31 million $ and won which almost led to bankrupcy of WBC

The gap between his Nunn fight when he won WBC title and the second fight Michalczewski was actually 2 years.

the first fight vs Michalczewski he was winning, then Michalczewski played a fake KO when was hit by 'Rocky' after the break command. It was a big joke! I was a fan of Michalczewski, after that i lost a lot of respect to him.

Before the rematch there was a lot of trash talk, Graciano called Dariusz a "stupid Pole", Michalczewski won easily, this time without any controversies, Graciano retired on stool after 9.

Rocchigiani was one of the best among the German "Universum" champions.

yup, I remember all that as if it happened yesterday..he never got that money from WBC, right?

[dagilechia]

He was stripped (or declared interim champion) and WBC confirmed RJJ a champion, Rocchigiani sued WBC for 31 million $ and won which almost led to bankrupcy of WBC

The gap between his Nunn fight when he won WBC title and the second fight Michalczewski was actually 2 years.

the first fight vs Michalczewski he was winning, then Michalczewski played a fake KO when was hit by 'Rocky' after the break command. It was a big joke! I was a fan of Michalczewski, after that i lost a lot of respect to him.

Before the rematch there was a lot of trash talk, Graciano called Dariusz a "stupid Pole", Michalczewski won easily, this time without any controversies, Graciano retired on stool after 9.

Rocchigiani was one of the best among the German "Universum" champions.

yup, I remember all that as if it happened yesterday..he never got that money from WBC, right?

It is said that Rocchigiani and WBC made a secret agreement - it was never revealed how much he actually received from the federation, but i heard he got almost as much as the 31.000.000$ he sued them for but paid in instalment (i mean, paid in small parts in a fixed period of time, not sure if the word "instalment" is correct because my english is not perfect, i hope you know what i mean).

[Ruthless-RKO]

Former German boxing star Graciano Rocchigiani died in a road accident yesterday in Italy at the age of 54. Some reports suggest he was struck by a car while walking; others, that he was a passenger in a car which crashed. He was in Italy to visit his Italian girlfriend.
Like Carlos Monzon, Rocchigiani was always destined to die violently because the Berliner lived on the edge and served jail time for various drunken assaults and for resisting arrest. It took six police officers to subdue him after he punched a taxi driver outside a hotel in 2006 but it all added to the Rocchigiani legend and it was very easy to like “Rocky” when he nearly sank Jose Sulaiman after winning a court payout of $31,000,000 in 2003. (Sulaiman had chosen to ignore Rocchigiani's win over Michael Nunn for the vacant WBC light-heavyweight title by reinstating former champion Roy Jones when Jones dropped down from heavyweight.) Sulaiman and his WBC simply couldn't pay, so Rocchigiani accepted a lesser payment in instalments. He never boxed again.
Southpaw Rocchigiani went unbeaten in his first 35 contests before dropping a 12-round decision to Chris Eubank in Germany in 1994 for the WBO super-middleweight title, which I regard as Eubank's greatest win. Rocchigiani moved up to light-heavyweight and outscored Nunn in Germany in 1998 for the WBC title but he never got the chance to defend it and he did tend to lose the big ones - to Eubank, twice to Henry Maske and twice to Dariusz Michalczewski, although all three winners knew they had been in a brawl. Pushing 40, Rocchigiani's last fight came against Thomas Ulrich in May 2003, who outpointed him. Rocky held the IBF super-middleweight title for a brief spell in the late 1980s.

Written by Bennie in the B&I Section

[man]

i watched his fights with dariusz back in the day.
graciano was a hell of a fighter and a man who
could not help but speak his mind, a greater than
life personality.

i hope he died at least without suffering too much,
although i could imagine he gave even death a
fight he won't forget.

[adislav123]

An fornicating smart ran him over!