Carmen Basilio dies

Phil D. Jay
WBN Editor

Middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson, left, shakes hands with welterweight title holder Carmen Basilio at weigh-in ceremony Sept 23, 1957 for their middleweight title bout in Yankee Stadium in New York.

Two-weight great passes aged 85

It has been announced that former world welterweight and middleweight champion Carmen Basilio has dies aged 85 in Rochester, New York after being hospitalized with pneumonia.

The 'Canastota Clouter,' as he was fondly known, began his career in 1948, winning world belts in 1955 against Tony DeMarco and more famously, against Sugar Ray Robinson in 1957, before retiring in 1961.

President of the Rochester Boxing Hall of Fame, Tony Liccione stated that all were ‘devastated’ as the news of Basilio, who died at Rochester General Hospital at 3am this morning.

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