On June 10th, 1955, Marine Corps veteran and boxer Carmen Basilio of Canastota defeated Tony DeMarco of Boston, Massachusetts to win the world welterweight championship at the Onondaga County War Memorial in front of a crowd of over 9,000 spectators. Basilio earned a TKO at 1:52 in the 12th round. Less than six months later, the two men met again, this time in Boston. Basilio once again defeated DeMarco, earning a TKO in a similar fashion. These victories won the hearts and minds of boxing fans in the 1950s, including the Boxing Writers Association of America, who named him “Fighter of the Year” in 1957. Nicknamed “The Upstate Onion Farmer,” Carmen Basilio was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 in its inaugural class alongside Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, and “Sugar” Ray Robinson.
Relive the fight between Basilio and DeMarco: