The International Boxing Club of New York was a corporation formed by James D. Norris and Arthur M. Wirtz in 1949 to promote boxing bouts at Madison Square Garden, Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, St. Nicholas Arena, Chicago Stadium and Detroit Olympia.
The IBC developed a stranglehold on championship boxing, promoting 47 out of 51 championship bouts in the United States from 1949 to 1955. Its major revenues were acquired through television of twice-weekly boxing bouts from the Garden.
In a surprise move, on January 30, 1959 Norris and Wirtz announced they were selling their interest in the Garden to Graham-Paige Corporation, a New York investment company. The sale became official on February 19, 1959.
In 1960, the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings into organized crime and professional boxing. It was revealed that the IBC had ties to Mafioso Frankie Carbo, a soldier in New York's Lucchese Family who had been a gunman with Murder, Inc. At the time of the hearings, Carbo was imprisoned on Riker's Island, having been convicted of the undercover management of prizefighters and unlicensed matchmaking. The hearings revealed that Carbo's wife was employed by the IBC at a salary of $45,000 a year.
Former world welterweight and middleweight champion Carmen Basilio testified before the Subcommittee, giving evidence on Carbo, Carbo's partner Frank "Blinky" Palermo (a member of the St. Louis crime family) and Carbo's aide, Gabriel Genovese, a cousin of Mafia Don Vito Genovese who was convicted in 1959 of being an unlicensed boxing manager. Calling for a house cleaning of professional boxing, Basilio's testimony revealed that his former managers had to pay off organized crime for his title shots and that he essentially had a behind the scenes manager in Genovese. He also told of meeting with Carbo, who he had first met in the mid-1950s.[1]
Evidence submitted to the subcommittee showed that Basilio's on-the-record managers, John DeJohn and Joseph Netro, paid Gabriel Genovese $39,334.41 and approximately $25,000, respectively, during the time Basilio fought for and defended his welterweight and middleweight titles.[2]
The following year, Gibson Jr. and Carbo, Carbo's partner "Blinky" Palermo, and Los Angeles mobsters Joe Di Sica and Louis Dragna, were charged with conspiracy and extortion against National Boxing Association Welterweight Champion Don Jordan. After a three-month trial, in which U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy served as prosecutor, the defendants were convicted and sent to federal prison.[3]