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ROCKY BIDDERS BELT IT OUT

Auctioneers are hoping someone out there likes Rocky Graziano.

The championship belt the late boxer snared in the most storied fight of his legendary career will go on the block at a sports memorabilia auction next month.

“Hey, Ma,” Graziano crowed from the boxing ring that sweltering Chicago night 61 years ago. “Your bad boy done it. I told you someone up there likes me.”

That line begat the title of a Paul Newman biopic of the New York City fighter who rose from petty crook and ex-con to world middleweight champion – a title Graziano earned by knocking out Tony Zale.

Fighters’ most prized championship belts in the 1940s came from The Ring magazine and typically were made of silk or satin with gold-plated shields.

“It’s pretty heavy,” auctioneer David Hunt said of the belt, built of smooth red, white and blue fabric laden with three large engraved shields and two smaller enameled ones.

The belt stayed in the Graziano family after the epic July 17, 1947, fight, and now a grandson is putting it up for sale. It’s expected to draw up to $75,000 at auction Nov. 15 in Louisville, Ky.

Graziano grew up on the Lower East Side. He was a thieving sixth-grade dropout who served several years in prison and was kicked out of the Army for slugging an officer.

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