Billy Backus
| Billy Backus | |
|---|---|
| Statistics | |
| Real name | Harold William Backus |
| Rated at | Welterweight |
| Nationality | American |
| Born |
March 5, 1943 Canastota, New York |
| Stance | Southpaw |
| Boxing record | |
| Total fights | 73 |
| Wins | 48 |
| Wins by KO | 22 |
| Losses | 20 |
| Draws | 5 |
| No contests | 0 |
Billy Backus, born March 5, 1943 in Canastota, New York, is a former World Welterweight Champion. In the summer of 2006 Backus retired from his correctional facility job and moved to South Carolina.
Backus, who is the nephew of boxing legend and former world champion Carmen Basilio, started his career by winning only 7 of his first 19 bouts. In 1964, things looked promising when he won four bouts in a row, but then he suffered a three fight losing streak. At this point of his career, he had a record of 7 wins, 7 losses and 3 draws and he retired from boxing. To make things worse, he had lost his last fight, against Rudy Richardson, on his twenty-second birthday.
Backus resumed his boxing career in 1966, but probably never in his wildest dreams could he have envisioned what happened next: in his comeback bout, he knocked out Tod Purtell in the first round, and that marked his embarkment on a seven fight winning streak that included avenging an earlier loss to Dick French. That streak was broken by a defeat at the hands of Percy Pugh in New Orleans, but soon he started on another winning streak, eight in a row, including two over Pugh. Then, Pugh broke his winning streak once again, beating him over 15 rounds, once again at New Orleans. After splitting two fights with Jerry Pellegrini and drawing in four rounds with Ricky Ortiz, Backus embarked on another winning streak, including an eight round knockout over Ortiz in a rematch.
After that last streak, Backus was ranked among the top ten Welterweight challengers of the world at number 10. The year was 1970 and Mexico's José Nápoles had earned the right to make an optional defense of his world title (meaning he could pick any challenger among the top ten to defend against). His management, figuring they'd have an easy fight ahead of them, picked Backus as the challenger for this optional title bout. But Backus landed a punch that opened a cut over Nápoles' eye in round one, causing Nápoles to bleed profusely, and the fight was stopped in round four. Since the cut had been ruled to be caused by a punch, Backus was declared winner by a technical knockout, and he had realized a dream that many fans never thought he would: he had become the world's Welterweight champion. His uncle Basilio, watching from ringside, said: "Billy winning the world title is the best thing ever to happen in my life, even better than me winning the world title."
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Wikipedia