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The International Boxing Club of New York was a corporation formed by James D. Norris and Arthur M. Wirtz in 1949 to promote boxing bouts at Madison Square Garden, Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, St. Nicholas Arena, Chicago Stadium and Detroit Olympia.
In 1949 Madison Square Garden paid Mike Jacobs of Twentieth Century Boxing Club $100,000 to relinquish his rights to promote fights at the Garden. Jacobs had become ill as a result of a stroke and the Garden wanted to turn over promotion to the IBC. The IBC had obtained the contracts of four contenders from Joe Louis for $160,000 on his retirement, and wanted to promote the fight in the Garden.
The IBC developed a stranglehold on championship boxing, promoting 47 out of 51 championship bouts in the United States from 1949 to 1955. Its major revenues were acquired through television of twice-weekly boxing bouts from the Garden.
Norris and Wirtz formed the International Boxing Club of Illinois to discourage the perception that the IBC monopolized boxing. Norris resigned as president of IBC of New York in favor of Truman Gibson and the IBC was bought by the Garden and operated as a wholly owned subsidiary. But Judge Sylvester Ryan of the U.S. District Court decided the IBC of New York was a monopoly and ordered its dissolution. Norris and Wirtz were given five years to divest themselves of their holdings (approximately 40%) in the Garden. Ryan also declared the IBC of Illinois a monopoly and ordered its dissolution as well. The decisions were appealed but confirmed on January 12, 1959 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a surprise move, on January 30, 1959 Norris and Wirtz announced they were selling their interest in the Garden to Graham-Paige Corporation, a New York investment company. The sale became official on February 19, 1959.
In 1960, the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings into organized crime and professional boxing. It was revealed that the IBC had ties to Mafioso Frankie Carbo, a soldier in New York's Lucchese Family who had been a gunman with Murder, Inc. At the time of the hearings, Carbo was imprisoned on Riker's Island, having been convicted of the undercover management of prizefighters and unlicensed matchmaking. The hearings revealed that Carbo's wife was employed by the IBC at a salary of $45,000 a year.
Former world welterweight and middleweight champion Carmen Basilio testified before the Subcommittee, giving evidence on Carbo, Carbo's partner Frank "Blinky" Palermo (a member of the St. Louis crime family, and Carbo's aide, Gabriel Genovese, a cousin of Mafia Don Vito Genovese who was convicted in 1959 of being an unlicensed boxing manager. Calling for a house cleaning of professional boxing, Basilio's testimony revealed that his former managers had to pay off organized crime for his title shots and that he essentially had a behind the scenes manager in Genovese. He also told of meeting with Carbo, who he had first met in the mid-1950s. [1]
Evidence submitted to the subcommittee showed that Basilio's on-the-record managers, John DeJohn and Joseph Netro, paid Gabriel Genovese $39,334.41 and approximately $25,000, respectively, during the time Basilio fought for and defended his welterweight and middleweight titles. [2]
The following year, Gibson Jr. and Carbo, Carbo's partner "Blinky" Palermo, and Los Angeles mobsters Joe Di Sica and Louis Dragna, were charged with conspiracy and extortion against National Boxing Association Welterweight Champion Don Jordan. After a three-month trial, in which U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy served as prosecutor, the defendants were convicted and sent to federal prison. [3]
Roberto Durán Samaniego is a former professional boxer who competed from 1968 to 2001. He held world championships in four weight classes: lightweight, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight, as well as reigns as the undisputed and lineal lightweight champion, and the lineal welterweight champion. He is also the second boxer to have competed over a span of five decades, the first being Jack Johnson. Durán was known as a versatile, technical brawler and pressure fighter, which earned him the nickname of "Mano de Piedra" for his formidable punching power and excellent defense.
Carmen Basilio was an American professional boxer who was the world champion in both the welterweight and middleweight divisions, beating Sugar Ray Robinson for the latter title. An iron-chinned pressure fighter, Basilio was a combination puncher who had great stamina and eventually wore many of his opponents down with vicious attacks to the head and body.
During the 1950s, a couple of relatively new developments changed the world: World War II had only been over for five years when the 1950s began, and television was beginning to make a major impact internationally. In boxing, changes connected to these developments could be seen too, as boxers who fought at the 1940s conflict returned to their homes and many of them were back in the ring. Television producers were in love with sports, which provided the viewer with an opportunity to observe sporting events live, and boxing was not the exception to the rule; many television networks began to feature fights live during the weekends, and the Gillette Friday Night Fights proved to be one of the most popular boxing television series in American history.
Isiah "Ike" Williams was a lightweight world boxing champion. He took the World Lightweight Championship in April 1945 and made eight successful defenses of the title against six different fighters prior to losing the championship to Jimmy Carter in 1951. Williams was known for his great right hand, and was named to The Ring magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time as well as The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year for 1948. Williams was The Ring magazine's Fighter of the Year for 1948, was inducted into The Ring Boxing Hall of Fame, and was an inaugural 1990 inductee to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Don Jordan was an American boxer born in Los Angeles, California and was the Welterweight Champion of the World from 1958 to 1960. His nickname was ‘Geronimo’. He was of Mexican and African American descent.
Virgil Akins was an American boxer who won the Welterweight Championship of the World in 1958. Nicknamed ‘Honeybear’, Akins was the first World Champion boxer from St. Louis.
Arthur Michael Wirtz was an American entrepreneur. He was the founder of Wirtz Corporation, a holding company that owned Chicago Stadium, the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago, the Chicago Black Hawks, and the Chicago Bulls. He was the father of the late Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz, as well as the grandfather of the late Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, who died on July 25, 2023.
Thomas "Tommy Ryan" Eboli was a New York City mobster who eventually became the acting boss of the Genovese crime family.
James Dougan Norris was an American sports businessman, with interests in boxing, ice hockey, and horse racing. He was the son of James E. Norris and half-brother of Bruce Norris and Marguerite Norris. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Paul John "Frankie" Carbo was an Italian-American New York City Mafia soldier in the Lucchese crime family who operated as a gunman with Murder, Inc. before transitioning into one of the most powerful promoters in professional boxing.
Johnny Saxton was an American professional boxer in the welterweight (147lb) division. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, learned to box in a Brooklyn orphanage and had an amateur career winning 31 of 33 fights, twice becoming World Welterweight Champion.
Billy Graham was an American boxer from New York City who had an impressive professional record of 102 wins and 15 losses. Though a leading lightweight contender, Graham was never the recipient of a world title. Graham did however, have the remarkable distinction of never having been knocked off his feet in his long career. He was elected into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1987, and is also in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
William McKinley Fox, better known as "Blackjack" Billy Fox, was an American light heavyweight boxer who is best known for having won a controversial fight against future middleweight champion Jake LaMotta.
Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. is an American sports holding company based in New York City.
United States v. International Boxing Club of New York, 348 U.S. 236 (1955), often referred to as International Boxing Club or just International Boxing, was an antitrust decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. By a 7–2 margin, the justices ruled that the exemption it had previously upheld for Major League Baseball was peculiar and unique to that sport and that it did not apply to boxing. Since it met the definition of interstate commerce, the government could therefore proceed with a trial to prove IBCNY and the other defendants had conspired to monopolize the market for championship boxing in the United States.
John Joseph DiGilio Sr. also known as "Johnny Dee",, was a New Jersey mobster with the Genovese crime family who became a powerful organized crime leader in the New Jersey faction.
Truman Kella Gibson, Jr. was an African-American businessman, attorney, government advisor, and later influential boxing promoter who played a unique and unheralded role in the Civil Rights Movement, primarily as a member of the "Black Cabinet" of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Troy Weston Waters was an Australian light middleweight boxer and member of the Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame. Waters fought for the world title three times during his career, losing to Gianfranco Rosi, Terry Norris and Simon Brown. He was the son of Cec Waters and the younger brother of boxers Dean and Guy.
Frank "Blinky" Palermo was an American organized crime figure and boxing promoter who surreptitiously owned prize fighters and fixed fights; he was best known for fixing the Jake LaMotta–Billy Fox fight in 1947. An associate of the Philadelphia crime family, Palermo also ran Philadelphia's biggest numbers racket. Palermo's partner was Mafioso Frankie Carbo, a soldier in New York's Lucchese family who had been a gunman with Murder, Inc.
Tommy Freeman was an American professional boxer who competed in the 1920s and 1930s. He won the welterweight world championship on September 5, 1930, when he defeated reigning champion Young Jack Thompson. He lost the title to Thompson the following year, on April 14, 1931. Remarkably, the majority of his recorded wins were by knockout, and his losses were few, at under ten percent of his total fights.