Summary
This primitively balletic photo covers the invitations to Wednesday, Sept. 19's celebration, "Syracuse Pays Tribute to [Carmen Basilio]," and the cover of Gary Youman's biography, soon to be published by Syracuse University Press, The Onion Picker and Boxing in the 1950s. More importantly, the photo freezes an instant in the championship bout of Sept. 27, 1957, when Basilio, the welterweight champion, challenged [Robinson] for his middleweight title in Yankee Stadium. The OnCenter event will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Basilio's victory, a 15-round split decision, with a continuous running of the original fight film on two screens.
Rothchild, who now runs the Auto Dealers Association ("I always wanted to promote a fight," she lamented, "but now I'm doing this."), sees the importance of the event. "The focus is to recognize Carmen Basilio," she said of the 80-year-old boxer. "Carmen Basilio is probably the greatest athlete ever to come out of Central New York. He deserves recognition. You got to do for them when they're alive."Candid peeks at both the cast of characters and the circumstances, bolstered with lots of quotes and Basilio's career statistics (56-16-7) flesh out [Youmans]' look back at this turmoil. "There's no room in the ring for two fighters, a referee and pity," Basilio quipped "It's him or me." Ironically Youmans let the story end after the March 1958 Basilio/Robinson rematch, when Robinson regained his middleweight title. Basilio had seven more fights after that, losing by knockout to [Gene Fullmer] twice, and then a decision to middleweight champion Paul Pender in 1961.See the full content of this document
Extract
Ring of Fire
It is certainly one of the most dramatically evocative photographs in the history of boxing. Taken from somewhere above the top rope, it captures the combatants in a perfectly mirrored image of choreographed malice, each about to launch a hard hook toward the other off the back foot. Toe to toe, knee to knee, glove to glove, eye to eye, Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Bas...
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