Pound for Pound he was one of the toughest fighters of all time. A HOF Boxer.
To our younger posters: Boxing in the 1950s (before my time but my Dad/others told me) was a huge draw on TV (Boxing was easy to produce back in the infancy of TV) and in the arena. Syracuse was an "A-list" major league town for fights back then and hosted numerous important fights. Syracuse was mentioned in the same breath as NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc...for being a fight town despite being only about the 45-50th biggest city in the country.
Carmen was the most famous fighter from the Syracuse area
Another Syracuse fighter at that time Joey DeJohn was a top contender in the 50's and could've been a champion save for some bad luck.
Later in the early 70's Billy Backus (Carmen's Nephew) was a Champion for a short stint.