BACKUS, BILLY SIGNED LETTER AGREEMENT (1982)

Billy Backus, born March 5, 1943 in Canastota, New York, is a former world boxing champion. Backus, who is the nephew of boxing legend and former world champion Carmen Basilio, started his career by winning only 7 of his first 19 bouts. In 1964, things looked promising when he won four bouts in a row, but then he suffered a three fight losing streak. At this point of his career, he had a record of 7 wins, 7 losses and 3 draws and he retired from boxing. To make things worse, he had lost his last fight, against Rudy Richardson, on his twenty-second birthday. Backus resumed his boxing career in 1966, but probably never in his wildest dreams could he have envisioned what happened next: in his comeback bout, he knocked out Tod Purtell in the first round, and that marked his embarkment on a seven fight winning streak that included avenging an earlier loss to Dick French. That streak was broken by a defeat at the hands of Percy Pugh in New Orleans, but soon he started on another winning stre