SWC75
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The Ring record book records Carmen’s first bout a third round KO of Jimmy Evans in Binghamton on 11/24/48 but the fight wasn’t covered in the Syracuse papers. Ashford had arranged the fight. In the Youmans book, Carmen describes Evans as “an old timer, but he wasn’t aggressive enough.” Carmen floored him with a left hook in the third round, the first of many to visit the canvas that way.
The first mention of Carmen in a Syracuse newspaper is in the 11/25/48 edition of the Post Standard, which says that he will be “making his first professional debut” against a lightweight named Bruce Walters at the Coliseum, (I assume this is the State Fair Coliseum), “next Monday night”. Carmen is described as “a former Gold Glover” There was an article on that day hyping the card but focusing on Cliff Hart, a local kid who had had Gold Gloves success but lost his first match and was now on the comeback trail, being guided by Chris Dundee, Angelo’s brother. Hart was matched with veteran Frankie Abrams in a middleweight bout. Hart won a decision in a “hot bout” but Carmen wowed the crowd by scoring a “surprise” first round KO. He had to “absorb a two fisted attack” from Walters but decked him with a left to the jaw and knocked him down twice more before the referee stopped it at 2:55.
On 12/15/48, the paper hypes a Joey DeJohn fight with “new knockout sensation Carmen Basilio going against Rollie Johns of Albany in an “attractive prelim”. There is no mention of Carmen’s previous bout on 12/8, when he KO’d Eddie Thomas in two rounds in Baltimore, although that no doubt contributed to Carmen’s reputation as a “knockout sensation” as it brought his record to 3-0 with nothing but knockouts in bouts that lasted a combined 6 rounds. Carmen’s knockout string ended vs. Johns but he still won the bout, despite a 5 pound weight deficit, (142-147). The paper said Carmen forced the action in a 6 round fight that “began slowly but ended as a slugfest”.
In the Youmans book, Carmen says “When I started out, I made fifty to seventy-five dollars a fight. If I had a couple of guys in the corner, I would give them thirty bucks and they would split it. I was having fun doing what I wanted to do. I was still working at the cable company during the day and chasing my dream at night.” Ed Linn: “His first managers, who were really promoters, rarely bothered to put him in their main events even though they were cutting his purse. When they did, he was such a poor attraction that they neither had the money nor the inclination to pay him….He discovered that the trouble with having a promoter for a manager was that there was no middleman to collect the money he had coming to him. After the fought in main event, Carmen would sometimes be told that the show had lost money and that they would have to ‘owe’ him part of his purse. Once, he was paid off entirely in change.”
He ended his first year as a professional boxer at 4-0 with three knockouts.
The first mention of Carmen in a Syracuse newspaper is in the 11/25/48 edition of the Post Standard, which says that he will be “making his first professional debut” against a lightweight named Bruce Walters at the Coliseum, (I assume this is the State Fair Coliseum), “next Monday night”. Carmen is described as “a former Gold Glover” There was an article on that day hyping the card but focusing on Cliff Hart, a local kid who had had Gold Gloves success but lost his first match and was now on the comeback trail, being guided by Chris Dundee, Angelo’s brother. Hart was matched with veteran Frankie Abrams in a middleweight bout. Hart won a decision in a “hot bout” but Carmen wowed the crowd by scoring a “surprise” first round KO. He had to “absorb a two fisted attack” from Walters but decked him with a left to the jaw and knocked him down twice more before the referee stopped it at 2:55.
On 12/15/48, the paper hypes a Joey DeJohn fight with “new knockout sensation Carmen Basilio going against Rollie Johns of Albany in an “attractive prelim”. There is no mention of Carmen’s previous bout on 12/8, when he KO’d Eddie Thomas in two rounds in Baltimore, although that no doubt contributed to Carmen’s reputation as a “knockout sensation” as it brought his record to 3-0 with nothing but knockouts in bouts that lasted a combined 6 rounds. Carmen’s knockout string ended vs. Johns but he still won the bout, despite a 5 pound weight deficit, (142-147). The paper said Carmen forced the action in a 6 round fight that “began slowly but ended as a slugfest”.
In the Youmans book, Carmen says “When I started out, I made fifty to seventy-five dollars a fight. If I had a couple of guys in the corner, I would give them thirty bucks and they would split it. I was having fun doing what I wanted to do. I was still working at the cable company during the day and chasing my dream at night.” Ed Linn: “His first managers, who were really promoters, rarely bothered to put him in their main events even though they were cutting his purse. When they did, he was such a poor attraction that they neither had the money nor the inclination to pay him….He discovered that the trouble with having a promoter for a manager was that there was no middleman to collect the money he had coming to him. After the fought in main event, Carmen would sometimes be told that the show had lost money and that they would have to ‘owe’ him part of his purse. Once, he was paid off entirely in change.”
He ended his first year as a professional boxer at 4-0 with three knockouts.
