I think Giardello wins a tough decision. He was a great boxer (obviously) and had a great chin to weather Basilio's storms, but Basilio was game enough to get inside and go to work. Ultimately though, I think Giardello was good enough to prevent that from happening frequently enough to lose the fight.
I think Giardello wins. But Basilio gets so underrated on this forum. Not really appropos to this thread but he's so underrated on this forum that I feel I have to end every Basilio thread by saying that he's underrated.
Dick Tiger was 2/4 with Joey Giardello. I have a feeling that Carmen could split a series of four fights with Giardello as well. Fullmer fought Basilio when the Onion Farmer was at the end of his career and I feel too much emphasis is placed on those fights of Basilio being not strong enough to compete with Gene or the other middleweights. Would have been interesting to have seen the Basilio of the first Robinson fight in there with Fullmer, Pender or Giardello.