Frankie Carbo enjoyed killing people; it was his profession even after he got into boxing. He spent 20 months in prison for killing a cab driver. Shortly after his release, he went to work as a hired gun for Murder Incorporated, taking his orders from Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, the only mob leader to be executed in the electric chair. Carbo killed a series of gangsters in New Jersey and Philadelphia. By 1939, he had been arrested 17 times. Former Philadelphia mob boss, Ralph Natale said that Carbo killed one-time Murder Inc. partner, Bugsy Siegel, on the orders of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. That was in 1947.
By the time he became a boxing promoter in the early 1940s, Carbo was a force to be reckoned with. He partnered with Frank ?Blinky? Palermo (the ?Numbers King of Philadelphia?), Eddie Coco, Champ Segal, and Felix Bocchicchio. These guys were the four horsemen of apocalyptic crime. They controlled the welterweight and middleweight divisions through the 1940s and 1950s. If managers wanted their fighters to fight at Madison Square Garden, they had to deal with this combination. If they wanted their fighters to have title shots, they had to accept the inflexible terms that Carbo etched into their minds.
When Jake LaMotta wanted a shot at the middleweight title, he had to make a deal with Carbo: lose to Billy Fox, then have a few more bouts, and you?ll get your shot. LaMotta went along, because he had no choice. His loss to Fox was such an obvious fix that fans booed, hissed, and shouted FIX! FIX! FIX! That may have been the most obvious fight that Carbo and his cohorts fixed, but it was far from the only one.
In addition to fixing fights, Carbo profited handsomely from televising fights on Wednesday and Friday nights. However, when Ray Arcel started televising fights on Saturday nights from Boston, he was threatened to stop. Arcel initially ignored the threats, and so one night in 1953 on his way to Boston Arena, a man walked up behind him and cracked his skull with a lead pipe. Arcel spent weeks in a hospital and was fortunate to have survived. He understood that he better get out of boxing. He waited until 1972 before signing on to train Roberto Duran and then Larry Holmes.
Two fighters who successfully resisted Carbo were Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio. He had tried to control both of them, but they managed to stay free from Carbo?s snares and go on to become world champs. Such instances of success were not permitted, were neither to be imitated nor tolerated. Such attempts at freedom by other fighters would bring down the furious wrath of the combo.
Managers and trainers were not fighters. They were vulnerable to the threats of the combo. They could lose control of their fighters. So either they went along with Carbo or they saw their careers headed for the toilet, their fighters excluded from important bouts. With his threats and control of venues, Carbo was able through front men and intimidated managers to own numerous boxers, even if they didn?t know they were owned. Perhaps the toughest fighter in his stable was Sonny Liston, who became the heavyweight champ in 1962 and who lost two controversial bouts to Muhammad Ali. The second one in Lewiston, Maine was made notorious by Ali?s famous phantom punch. Ali stood over a supine Liston, shouting, ?Get up sucker. No one?s gonna believe this.? Back in his corner, Ali could not believe it either, for he asked his corner men: ?Did I hit him?? The FBI believed that Liston took a dive on orders from the mob, but that Ali was unaware of the circumstances. He didn?t need to be included in the fix.
Life turned sour for Carbo after he tried to strong-arm the manager of welterweight champion Don Jordan. He had threatened Jordan?s manager unless he signed over the boxer. The manager wore a wire, and the Justice Department had the evidence it needed to prosecute Carbo. Attorney General Robert Kennedy won a conviction against Carbo, sending him to prison for 25 years.
It was the end of the boxing career of the man known as Mr. Gray (for his ability to hide in the shadows) and alternatively known as Mr. Fury (for his hair-trigger temper and furious assaults on those who defied him). There has not been another man like Frankie Carbo in control of boxing, and the sport is light years away from the those dark years.
Jeffrey Sussman is the author of the new book, Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science.
