Tony Graziano, the former boxing manager and owner of a popular Hall of Fame linked restaurant, died Sunday at the age of 103.

The news was announced by the International Boxing Hall of Fame, which is located just a few blocks over in Canastota, New York from where Graziano lived until his death.

“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 Hall director Edward Brophy.

Graziano, who was born January 18, 1922 in Verona, New York, first found success in boxing as a manager, guiding fellow Canastota resident Billy Backus to the undisputed welterweight title with a fourth round stoppage of Jose Napoles in December of 1970. He was also the original manager for future welterweight and middleweight champion Carmen Basilio when he turned pro in 1948. Among the other boxers he worked with out of his Canastota Boxing Club was Rocky Fratto, a Syracuse, New York based boxer who narrowly lost a vacant WBA junior middleweight title fight in 1981 to Tadashi Mihara.

It was through his restaurant, Graziano’s Casa Mia, that Graziano touched generations of boxing fans. The restaurant, which he owned and operated for 54 years, was the unofficial gathering place where boxing fans mingled with legends during Hall of Fame induction weekend until it was bought by the Oneida Nation in 2018, and then closed in 2021 after the then 99-year-old Graziano retired from managing it. The restaurant, which was located across the street from the Hall of Fame, also housed a hotel which was in high demand during induction weekend.

Graziano also promoted professional and amateur bouts upstate New York.

Prior to his work in boxing and restaurants, Graziano was a paratrooper in World War II, earning two Purple Hearts while participating in the D-Day Invasion of France and the Battle of the Bulge, both in 1944. He served with Company E of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was part of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Graziano recounted the details of one incident during the war, in which the plane he was carried in was shot down by Germany troops, and he survived by playing dead while hanging by his harness in a tree, in a 2018 interview with the Oneida Daily Dispatch.

“We were caught up in the trees and shot up really bad. I had Germans shooting at me, and one shot the heel off my boot, another twisted my helmet around. A third shot got me in the shoulder,” said Graziano.