Tony Graziano knew all about toughness.
During World War II, he served with Company E of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the famed 82nd Airborne Division.
His unit helped clear the way for Allied ground troops during the invasion of France on D-Day.
“They jumped into action again the following December during the Battle of the Bulge,” Syracuse.com reporter Don Cazentre wrote in a 2019 profile of Graziano, “and came under fire during the invasion of Germany itself shortly before the European war ended in April 1945.”
“It was hell,” he said.
Graziano earned two Purple Hearts.
A photo behind the bar at Graziano’s Restaurant in Canastota, NY shows Tony Graziano with members of his paratrooper unit two days after D-Day. Graziano is third from left.
After the war, he came home and immersed himself in the rugged sport of boxing.
First, he fought with his bare knuckles before becoming a manager and a promoter.
“He was in the corner for the two greatest fighters to come out of the small village of Canastota,” Cazentre wrote, “welterweight champions Carmen Basilio and Billy Backus.”
He was a tangible link between the village’s two great champions and a force behind Canastota being recognized as boxing’s “Title Town, USA.”
“All of my fighters came out of the muck,” Graziano said in 2006 about the hardscrabble future fighters he found picking onions in Madison County. “They were physically strong kids.”
Tony Graziano, owner of Graziano’s Restaurant in Canastota. He is a World War II veteran who parachuted behind enemy lines on D-Day — June 6, 1944.
Anthony Felix Graziano, known to everyone as “Tony,” or “Graz,” passed away at his home in Canastota, N.Y. on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025.
He was just weeks away from celebrating his 104th birthday.
“Tony Graziano meant so much to the boxing history of Canastota. He was a great ambassador for the village and for the sport he had such a passion for his whole life,” said Boxing Hall of Fame director Edward Brophy. “We are saddened to learn the news of his passing and we offer our condolences to the entire Graziano family.”
According to his obituary, Graziano was born on Jan. 18, 1922, in Verona, N.Y.
He stayed in the area for the rest of his life, eventually settling in nearby Canastota.
He served in World War II right out of high school and lived to tell the tale, though like many veterans preferred not to.
Graziano lost many of his comrades. In 2019, he held a photograph with a couple of them and said simply, “I’m the only one who came back.”
“He helped liberate concentration camps and the stories from that era stayed with him for the rest of his life,” his obituary said.
He found his footing in two arenas after the war.
– A photo behind the bar at Graziano’s Restaurant in Canastota, NY shows Tony Graziano with members of his paratrooper unit two days after D-Day. Graziano is third from left. Don CazentreDon Cazentre
He became a boxing promoter, manager and trainer for more than 60 years and guided Canastota’s Billy Backus to the World Welterweight title in 1970. Over the years, he traveled the world and guided countless numbers of amateur and professional boxers, including NABF junior middleweight titleholder Rocky Fratto during the early 1980s.
To train fighters, he opened gyms in Florida and Central New York. His East Side Gym, in Canastota, was located on Center Street, above a bowling alley.
Many of his best fighters came from Canastota High School. In 2006, he joked that the school’s football coach used to get mad at Graziano for stealing his players. Together, they made up the Canastota Boxing Club.
He once had 60 fighters in his stable, and toured the globe with them, making stops in Australia, Europe and South America.
“It was one of the greatest amateur boxing clubs in the country,” Graziano said.
He was in the corner for all of Billy Backus’ 73 professional fights, even the ones in France and Germany and Australia. And, by promoting card after card in the 1960s and ’70s, he helped the Onondaga County War Memorial become one of the sport’s meccas.
He was instrumental in the creation of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota.
(Graziano was inducted into the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame in 2012.)
“Tony has really played a part in making Canastota the capital of boxing,” Edward Brophy said in 1993 after awarding Graziano the Central New York Boxing Appreciation Award.
“Being in boxing practically all my life and involved with a couple of fighters, it’s something that comes along once in a lifetime,” Graziano said.
He said those words at his Canastota restaurant, Casa Mia, which rivaled the actual Hall of Fame for amount of boxing memorabilia.
After World War II, in addition to boxing, Graziano dabbled in nightclubs before establishing himself as a restauranteur, first in Oneida, and then in Canastota.
He owned his Casa Mia Restaurant for 54 years.
“In the mid-80s, he built a hotel behind the restaurant, and appropriately, the Boxing Hall of Fame was built across the street from there,” his obituary said. “The Casa Mia was already a gathering place for boxing aficionados when the Hall was built. The restaurant became a mecca for boxers and fans alike on Hall of Fame weekend, and they enjoyed sharing stories with Tony and hearing his own.”
“If you’re tired of cookie-cutter chain restaurants with corporate-approved interior design, head straight for family-owned Graziano’s in Canastota,” a Post-Standard review said in 2010. “Where else could you find a cooler in the dining room labeled ‘Wine Cellar’ but holding the dessert tray instead, big posters of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland, and paper place mats with ads for a local plumber and auto transmission specialist?”
The restaurant let him continue his unbreakable connection with Canastota.
Tony Graziano was the grand marshal of the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s annual Parade of Champions in Canastota, N.Y., on Sunday, June 12, 2022.
“The Canastota area drew me and keeps me here,” he told a reporter in 2000. “I love the change of seasons. I’m scared to retire because I’ve seen so many people go by the wayside when they retire. I love people and love to work. I like mingling with the folks in the evenings.”
Graziano worked well into his nineties.
Away from the village, his favorite place was the St. Lawrence River where he spent his summers.
“Though he traveled all over the world with his boxers,” his obituary said, “you would hear him say on a regular basis, ‘There’s no place like the St. Lawrence; it’s the best place on earth.’”
He loved fishing and boating and cherished his time in Fishers Landing.
In his retirement, Graziano enjoyed football, something he could not watch much of when he was at the restaurant He rooted for the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs.
He was the Grand Marshall for the Boxing Hall of Fame parade in 2022.
He enjoyed cooking Italian food from sausage to pizza fritte, loved hot peppers and eating out at places where people knew him and could visit with him. He proudly wore his “World War II Veteran” baseball cap and was rarely seen without it.
He also enjoyed cookouts at his daughter and son-in-law’s condo, especially hot dogs, preferring charred coneys to the regular frank.
Graziano is remembered as a father, grandfather, great grandfather and, to many, a friend and mentor.
He is survived by his daughter, Valerie, and her husband, Peter King Steinhaus; his granddaughter, Antonia G. Tabenkin (Andrew); his great granddaughter, Sylvia Tabenkin; his loyal and loved niece and nephew, Christine and Edward DuBois; his nephew, Tony Graziano (Holly) and a great many nieces, nephews, cousins and countless friends and admirers.
“He appreciated those loyal and faithful friends who showed up with food, care, and companionship in his last few years,” his obituary said.
Graziano was predeceased by his wife, Edna (White), in 1973.
At his request, funeral services will be private.
Donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a place where Graziano would write checks to as he sat in his restaurant office late at night.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.