How good was Billy Backus ?

B+ at best.

But at least he tried.....and had uncle Carmen Basilio as an "advisor'.

 

You have to have a reason now?

As for Backus, he was a fine journeyman who was capable of giving all but the very best a super competitive bout. And even against the very best, he generally got a few rounds out of them.

As far as how he rates amongst those few men who have held THE Welterweight Championship: Some would be cruel and say he was the worst; I will be kinder and say he was the luckiest...

 

At the moment Napoles-Backus I was stopped, Jose was surging forward with an attack on a retreating Billy. It was strictly a hometown stoppage at the War Memorial Auditorium in Syracuse which made Backus a champion. At best, I think he was a borderline world class fighter. He did win at least once over 15 rounds, but lost twice over that distance to Hedgemon Lewis, got taken out in back to backs by Dagge and Mattioli, then went on a career best ten match undefeated streak which ended when Cuevas crushed him with a succession of lead rights from the opening bell, fracturing his orbital bone and ending his career.

The best we saw of him might have been the rematch title loss to Napoles, which showed the true degree of separation between them. Final career record looks somewhat similar to Braddock's, although Jimmy had names on his like Slattery, Griffiths, JH Lewis, Farr and the Larruper. 20 defeats against less than 50 wins does not look stellar on paper. Billy was just 29-10-4 when that title winning upset was awarded to him.

Footage of Backus is certainly available on youtube for checking out.

 

Basically a tough, gutty journeyman who scored a big upset win over Manny Gonzalez to get a title shot, then scored an even bigger upset when he busted up Napoles to get a stoppage. After losing the title in a rematch with Napoles, he slipped back into journeyman status, though he was surprisingly given another title shot at Pipino Cuevas at the end of his career (and was duly crushed). Essentially, you could consider him the WW Mike Rossman.

He was somewhat limited and prone to cuts/swelling, but I don't think he was quite as bad as he's often made out to be.

 

He was certainly worse than other guys in the business. He is the standard bearer for bad guys in the business.

 

For every good word you hear about King, there s another twenty that describes him as a **** head!

 

I still blows me away that he was voted into the HOF. Boxing has an almost comical self loathing at times.

 

Yes Billy was miles below HOF status. A tough journeyman who had a lucky win over Napoles and did decently with several others, never spectacular but did make it into the Ring's top ten twice which is an accomplishment for any fighter.

 

Twice? Not sure what you mean. Billy was ranked in Ring's top ten almost every month from '68 - '72.

 

Whoops! Big misunderstanding! My fault.

I was referring to DON KING!

One can debate Billy's qualification but Don King.?!