MIDDLEWEIGHT RIVALS

Golovkin and Canelo follow a long line of middleweights who went to war more than once. As Matt Bozeat identifies, what happened the first time is rarely duplicated in the return

TONY ZALE vs ROCKY GRAZIANO

IN the space of 21 months, between September 1946 and June, 1948, Zale and Graziano [left] went to war three times.

“Man of Steel” Zale came out on top 2-1 against the street-scrapping former delinquent from the New York ghetto known as “Dead End Kid.”

The majority of the 40,000 who squeezed into Yankee Stadium for their first fight were praying for a Graziano win.

That looked unlikely when he hit the deck hard in the opener, but by the end of the second, Zale was in desperate trouble. The back-and-forth slugging went on, with Graziano getting the better of it.

So dazed was Zale at the end of the fifth, he struggled to find his corner at the bell. Manager Art Winch reassured him: “He’s more tired than yoo. Take a chance with him in this round.”

Zale drove a right hand into the pit of Graziano’s stomach that straightened him up and left him defenceless to a left hook that swept him off his feet – and the fight was over.

Ten months later, they waded into each other again and this time it was Graziano who rallied from the brink of defeat.

“Somebody up there likes me,’’ Graziano famously gasped after pulling off a dramatic sixth-round turnaround, though as he said those words, it didn’t look like it.

His left eye was swollen shut and cut and he had also been dropped before finding the right hands that turned the fight his way.

The rubber match was all Zale and he ended the fight – and the rivalry – with a third-round knockout. Graziano didn’t move as the referee counted him out.