Heavyweight Carmine Bingo Vingo Dies at 85, Career Ended with Loss to Rocky Marciano
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
New York, NY (June 14th, 2015)– Carmine ‘Bingo Vingo’ Vingo, whose career ended on December 30, 1949, when he got knocked out in the sixth round of his bout with rising Rocky Marciano in a heavyweight war, died on June 2, 2015 at age 85 in Bronx, New York. Vingo survived his near tragedy of going into a coma after the Marciano bout and later coming out of it, by 65 years, unassisted by and long forgotten by the American boxing establishment.
Nicknamed ‘Bingo Vingo’ for his willingness to take chances to win in the ring, Vingo started his career by winning 16 of his first 17 professional bouts, losing a only a questionable decision to undefeated Brooklyn heavyweight prospect Joe Lindsay at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York in April 1948. Vingo won 12 consecutive fights, including a unanimous decision over highly regarded 16-2 contender Joe Modzele on a boxing card at Yankee Stadium in August 1949. A second round knockout of Al Robinson at Sunnyside Garden in Queens, New York, propelled Vingo into the world heavyweight rankings, and a crossroads bout with rising Rocky Marciano to determine a serious ‘white hope’ successor challenger for former world heavyweight champion Joe Louis, and world heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott.
On December 30, 1949, at Madison Square Garden, Vingo, then 16-1, and Marciano, 24-0, fought a slugfest. Marciano put Vingo down in the first and second rounds. Vingo fought back well, and by the end of the fifth round, was hurting Marciano with right hand power shots, and seemed to be gaining momentum. Marciano later described his bout with Vingo as “The toughest fight of my career.”
At 1:46 of round six, Vingo was knocked out by a Rocky Marciano uppercut. Unconscious, Vingo had two be carried on a stretcher to a hospital two blocks away as no ambulance was available at the scene. Marciano paced the corridors of the hospital, praying for Vingo’s life, in what became a public media event. Administered last rites by a priest, and given only a 50-50 chance of survival after slipping into a coma, Vingo eventually recovered and went home from the hospital several months later. His left side was slightly paralyzed, ending his promising boxing career.
Vingo’s name faded from public recognition. After getting out of the hospital, Vingo married his high school sweetheart and worked at an office building on Broadway in Manhattan as a ‘security porter’ as it was called (a combination of both positions) for many years.
After his health improved, Vingo visited Rocky Marciano’s training camps, attended Rocky Marciano’s wedding as an invited guest, and attended Rocky’s second fight with Jersey Joe Walcott as Marciano’s guest in May 1953. In September 1969, Vingo attended the funeral of Rocky Marciano in 1969 in Florida at his own expense. In a 1971 interview, Vingo described Marciano as “One of the nicest guys you’d ever want to talk to.Vingo was, in every sense of the word, a determined gritty survivor, both of the ring and in the real world of life. If not for Marciano, Carmine Vingo might have become a worthy world heavyweight champion in his own time, but it was not to be. Vingo was forgotten in time.
Vingo and Marciano both were supposed to get paid one thousand five hundred dollars each for fighting each other. Vingo’s medical expenses were four thousand dollars. Vingo never got his purse, and never knew who paid his medical expenses. In a higher sense, Vingo was lucky. Vingo walked out of the hospital alive with his faculties in New York. Benny Paret, Beethaeven Scottland, Willie Classen and Magomed Abdusalamov are among those boxers who did not.
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