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Ringside Remembers World Welterweight Champion Tony DeMarco (1932 – 2021)



By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

His photograph on his Wikipedia page shows a man of a certain age who has the swarthy looks of an Italian unlikely to out of sorts in an appearance in the likes of The Sopranos. Fortunately, he has the name to go along with it, Tony DeMarco, 58-12-1, 33 KO’s.

His real name, Leonardo Liotta is not any less Italian and the “Boston Bomber” at only 5 foot, 5 inches was a world champion welterweight of his time with which to conjure; not to trifle with…
Two of those pesky immigrants from Sicily, his parents brought him into the world in 1932, and watched him grow to be that world welterweight champion in a career which began before it should and ended at probably the right time. In between he had 71 fights which was immense. He won 58 of them.

The beginning was like a scene out of The Soprano’s as he needed to use his friend’s birth certificate so he could box as he was only 16: the man who’s certificate he gave was the legal age to box of 18. The man he was to represent. Tony DeMarco.

In one round, he announced himself on the scene as he knocked out his very first opponent, Meteor Jones on the 21st of October 1948, in only one round, at home in the Boston Gardens!
He was obviously now stuck with the damn name!

During the 1950’s DeMarco was taking on top contenders, including the lightweight champion Jimmy Carter which ended in a split decision draw, and beating most of them which leading in 1955 – April Fool’s Day no less – to winning the world welterweight championship against Johnny Saxton by TKO. It was by all accounts, a tough contest with DeMarco who was a southpaw, fighting orthodox at the start and trading close in. One exchange, as he was to later tell ESPN, led to a change in his approach. “I felt a pain in my right hand. I switched to southpaw, which was natural for me. I started hitting him with left hooks and uppercuts: boom, boom, boom.” At the Boston gardens, boom, boom, boom saw Saxton being pummeled until the referee called the fight off.

As always capturing it was one thing, keeping it was another.

In 1955 he was to have two defining fights which would cement the legacy he has retained ever since. Both were against Carmen Basilio, a man destined to go into the Hall of Fame himself.

Remembered for both fights being edge of your seats, back and forth scraps, but both ended with DeMarco losing. In the first he lost his belt in front of 9,000 fans, in the second failed to recapture it in the rematch. The second fight was destined to be the fifth of the year for Ring Magazine in 1955.

He was stopped in the 12th round in both fights! DeMarco speaking to ESPN was sanguine about the whole affair when he reflected, “People talk about me having a short title reign, but I’d have been happy to be champion for just one day. That was a dream come true for me,” DeMarco told ESPN. In between he had to take on Chico Vejar in an eliminator in September which he won in the very first round by stoppage.

In 1957 and 1958 he fought twice for an unusual version of world welterweight champion – against Virgil Akins, twice for the Massachusetts version of the world welterweight title. Basilio was now at middleweight but on both occasions, he fell short – knocked out in the first and stopped in the second.

DeMarco continued to fight right up until 1962, when his last fight – a 10 round win – was to seal the cap on a remarkable career and seal his return to the Bostin Gardens in Boston. He had put the city on the map and his inauguration into the National Italian Hall of Fame was always assured, before in 2019 he made it all the way to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

DeMarco published his autobiography, “Nardo: Memoirs of a Boxing Champion,” in 2011 and it’s  true to say that Boston fighting was put on the map partly thanks to the success and the personality of DeMarco. After his fighting career he went on to own real estate and be something of a presence in his home city. They honored him back with a statue, a street named after him and many a building having been owned or had his imprint upon it. He lived to the ripe old age of 89 before passing away earlier this year and in many of those obituaries it is a swarthy Italian look staring back at you from the peak of a career that was well worthy of a tribute – because his contribution was well worthy of all the plaudits he received.

Tony DeMarco passed away at the age of 89 on October 11, 2021. RSR sends our condolences to Tony’s family in their time of grief.

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