Carmine Vingo fights, including a unanimous decision over highly regarded 16-2 contender Joe Modzele on a boxing card at Yankee Stadium in August 1949. A second round knockout of Al Robinson at Sunnyside Garden in Queens, New York, propelled Vingo into the world heavyweight rankings, and a crossroads bout with rising Rocky Marciano to determine a serious 'white hope' successor challenger for former world heavyweight champion Joe Louis and world heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott. On December 30, 1949, at Madison Square Garden, Vingo, then 16-1, and Marciano, 24-0, fought a slugfest. Marciano put Vingo down in the first and second rounds.
Jack Blackburn Joe Louis took the World Heavyweight Championship from Jim Braddock at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois in an eighth-round knockout. Blackburn had trouble with drinking in his later years while training Joe Louis that likely caused the deterioration of his health. In his career, besides his long work with Joe Louis, Blackburn had roles training Light Heavyweight Champion John Henry Lewis, Bantamweight Champion Bud Taylor, as well as Art Lasky, Jackie Fields, Lew Tendler, Sailor Freedman, and Von Porat. While in Philadelphia, Blackburn briefly trained Jersey Joe Walcott. He died on April 24, 1942 of a heart attack while he