Graciano Rocchigiani - RIP
Posted: 03 Oct 2018, 06:55
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.
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.
