\u201cIt was hell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Graziano earned two Purple Hearts.<\/p>\n
![\"D-Day](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3DEBICJWMRBIPAUBKTJWKQYKOE.jpg\")
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.<\/p>\n
After the war, he came home and immersed himself in the rugged sport of boxing.<\/p>\n
First, he fought with his bare knuckles before becoming a manager and a promoter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in the corner for the two greatest fighters to come out of the small village of Canastota,\u201d Cazentre wrote, \u201cwelterweight champions Carmen Basilio and Billy Backus.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was a tangible link between the village\u2019s two great champions and a force behind Canastota being recognized as boxing\u2019s \u201cTitle Town, USA.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of my fighters came out of the muck,\u201d Graziano said in 2006 about the hardscrabble future fighters he found picking onions in Madison County. \u201cThey were physically strong kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RT6MJ6SKJZFIZCSUONOAPSEG44.jpg\")
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.<\/p>\n
Anthony Felix Graziano, known to everyone as \u201cTony,\u201d or \u201cGraz,\u201d passed away at his home in Canastota, N.Y. on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025.<\/p>\n
He was just weeks away from celebrating his 104th birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTony 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,\u201d said Boxing Hall of Fame director Edward Brophy.<\/a> \u201cWe are saddened to learn the news of his passing and we offer our condolences to the entire Graziano family.\u201d<\/p>\n According to his obituary<\/a>, Graziano was born on Jan. 18, 1922, in Verona, N.Y. <\/p>\n He stayed in the area for the rest of his life, eventually settling in nearby Canastota. <\/p>\n He served in World War II right out of high school and lived to tell the tale, though like many veterans preferred not to.<\/p>\n Graziano lost many of his comrades. In 2019, he held a photograph with a couple of them and said simply, \u201cI\u2019m the only one who came back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe helped liberate concentration camps and the stories from that era stayed with him for the rest of his life,\u201d his obituary said.<\/p>\n He found his footing in two arenas after the war.<\/p>\n He became a boxing promoter, manager and trainer for more than 60 years and guided Canastota\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Many of his best fighters came from Canastota High School. In 2006, he joked that the school\u2019s football coach used to get mad at Graziano for stealing his players. Together, they made up the Canastota Boxing Club.<\/p>\n He once had 60 fighters in his stable, and toured the globe with them, making stops in Australia, Europe and South America.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was one of the greatest amateur boxing clubs in the country,\u201d Graziano said. <\/p>\n He was in the corner for all of Billy Backus\u2019 73 professional fights, even the ones in France and Germany and Australia. And, by promoting card after card in the 1960s and \u201970s, he helped the Onondaga County War Memorial become one of the sport\u2019s meccas.<\/p>\n He was instrumental in the creation of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota. <\/p>\n (Graziano was inducted into the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame in 2012.)<\/p>\n \u201cTony has really played a part in making Canastota the capital of boxing,\u201d Edward Brophy said in 1993 after awarding Graziano the Central New York Boxing Appreciation Award.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing in boxing practically all my life and involved with a couple of fighters, it\u2019s something that comes along once in a lifetime,\u201d Graziano said.<\/p>\n He said those words at his Canastota restaurant, Casa Mia, which rivaled the actual Hall of Fame for amount of boxing memorabilia.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n He owned his Casa Mia Restaurant for 54 years. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the mid-80s, he built a hotel behind the restaurant, and appropriately, the Boxing Hall of Fame was built across the street from there,\u201d his obituary said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re tired of cookie-cutter chain restaurants with corporate-approved interior design, head straight for family-owned Graziano\u2019s in Canastota,\u201d a Post-Standard review said in 2010. \u201cWhere else could you find a cooler in the dining room labeled \u2018Wine Cellar\u2019 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?\u201d<\/p>\n The restaurant let him continue his unbreakable connection with Canastota.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Canastota area drew me and keeps me here,\u201d he told a reporter in 2000. \u201cI love the change of seasons. I\u2019m scared to retire because I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Graziano worked well into his nineties.<\/p>\n Away from the village, his favorite place was the St. Lawrence River where he spent his summers. <\/p>\n \u201cThough he traveled all over the world with his boxers,\u201d his obituary said, \u201cyou would hear him say on a regular basis, \u2018There\u2019s no place like the St. Lawrence; it\u2019s the best place on earth.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n He loved fishing and boating and cherished his time in Fishers Landing.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n He was the Grand Marshall for the Boxing Hall of Fame parade in 2022.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cWorld War II Veteran\u201d baseball cap and was rarely seen without it. <\/p>\n He also enjoyed cookouts at his daughter and son-in-law\u2019s condo, especially hot dogs, preferring charred coneys to the regular frank.<\/p>\n Graziano is remembered as a father, grandfather, great grandfather and, to many, a friend and mentor.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cHe appreciated those loyal and faithful friends who showed up with food, care, and companionship in his last few years,\u201d his obituary said.<\/p>\n Graziano was predeceased by his wife, Edna (White), in 1973.<\/p>\n At his request, funeral services will be private.<\/p>\n Donations may be made to St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital<\/a>, a place where Graziano would write checks to as he sat in his restaurant office late at night.<\/p>\n![\"Today's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/JXW3MGQSOREU7CITDVEADMV7JE.JPG\")
– 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<\/p>\n![\"International](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/R4IPSOD4QJFH3LTT662MGGFBFU.JPG\")
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.<\/p>\n