Rocky Graziano, a desperate, dead end guy from the streets of New York, was middleweight champion of the world today. His luck and his gameness turned seemingly certain defeat into a technical knockout victory in the sixth round over gallant Tony Zale in their tumultuous return title match before 18,547 at Chicago Stadium last night.

Rocky Is Lucky

Rocky was lucky because he got the licking of his life in at least the first three rounds, after which Dr. John J. Drammis, the boxing commission physician, came into the ring to investigate whether challenger Graziano — with the deeply gashed left brow and nearly closed right eye—should be permitted to continue.

It seemed at the end of that third round, in which Graziano had been driven to one knee for a "one count" by a terrific right to the chin, that he must lose on a technical kayo—must suffer his second knockout at the hands of the champion from Gary, Ind., who had belted him out for the full count at 1:43 of the sixth round their first title brawl at New York's Yankee Stadium last Sept. 27.

But Sheldon Clark, chairman of the Illinois Boxing Commission, received the physician's report and ordered the bout to continue.

This gave 25-year-old Graziano a new lease on his pugilistic life in this make-or-break battle with 33-year-old Zale. It enabled the desperate "Happy Hoodlum" to continue the battle that might win him the world's 160-pound crown and might get back his license to fight in his home state of New York, where he had been barred last Feb. 7 because of his failure to report three offers of $100,000 bribes.

When the muscular, square-shouldered New York Italian with the mop of unkempt brown hair entered the  ring a 6 ½ to 5 underdog last night, he knew that his career was at stake; for if he lost he had no chance of getting back his New York license. He knew he would be washed up on the big time. And this would have been a bitter result for the glory-loving former "golden boy of Mike Jacobs' promotions.

Graziano Rallies

Although Graziano was on the verge of "queer street" at the end of the third round, he rallied to fight back with surprising strength in the fourth session — and to slow up Zale with body blows and head hooks, although he lost that round by a slim margin.

Perhaps Rocky was heartened in that fourth session by the sight of the usually accurate Zale missing a punch and falling to the floor. Anyway, Rocky came storming out in the fifth with such a barrage of heavy hooks to the head that he had the champion staggering several times and bleeding from a gashed lower lip.

For those who had witnessed last September's bout and had seen Zale come back from an inhuman head-beating in the fifth round to win on a knockout in the sixth, it was still anybody's fight when last night's coincidental sixth round began.

But this was a desperate, grimly determined, blood-smeared Graziano who was fighting last night. He swung his fists like a hammer slayer on the loose as he went after "Zale for the "kill." He shook off Tony's counter punches to the body and shook 'he champion with all-out hooks to the head that had the veteran swaying this way and that. He smashed Zale into a neutral corner, where Tony surely would have fallen on his back, had not the helpfully angled ropes held him up when he was slumped half-down.

Zale managed to lurch out of the corner; but Rocky was after him, Bludgeoning his head with blows that might have felled an elephant. A succession of those punches spun Zale and sent him slithering sideways  into the ropes and left him draped over the second strand face down, while savage Graziano continued to smash away at his body.

Referee Johnny Behr of Chicago famous Golden Gloves coach stepped in to prevent a possible recurrence of fatalities which occurred recently at Cleveland and Los Angeles. He helped extricate Zale from the ropes and at the same time motioned Graziano back to his corner, notifying him with frantic semaphores that the fight was over, and that he had won the championship on a technical knockout at 2.10 of the sixth round.

Since this was Chicago's biggest betting fight since the "long count' heavyweight title battle between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey in 1927, there naturally was some criticism of Behr's merciful action But the cool-headed and correct referee explained, "I should have stopped the bout when Zale was slumped in the corner in the sixth round because his eyes had ceased to focus. But, because he was champion, I let him continue until he was a completely helpless target—with absolutely no hope of recuperating."

In the dressing room, the managers of the new champion and the vanquished ex-champ disclosed to reporters that there had been a private contract between the two fighters that guaranteed Zale a rematch within 90 days, in case of Graziano victory. No site was designated in the contract