Joey Giambra (Veteran)

The son of Sicilian immigrants, Joey Giambra was born in Buffalo in 1931.

Giambra was a middleweight boxer and was known as one of the top boxers in his weight class. Despite this, he was never given a shot in a championship bout, earning him the title of “uncrowned” king of the middleweight division.

During his career, Giambra fought and defeated most of the top contenders. He beat Rocky Castellani twice, but it was Castellani who was given the opportunity to fight in an elimination bout for the world title against Sugar Ray Robinson. He also defeated future middleweight champion Joey Giardello in two out of three matches and claimed on a popular Minneapolis Morning Show that he was “robbed” in the first bout.

On August 26, 1955, world middleweight champion Bobo Olson agreed to fight Giambra in a non-title match on national TV. Giambra rocked the champion throughout the fight, but at the end Olson was awarded a split decision win.

Giambra retired after 77 fights with a 65-10-2 record with 31 knockouts. He won his first 17 fights while half of his losses came in the final eight bouts of his career.

After retiring as a boxer, he later became a referee and was the third man in the 1977 Jerry Quarry-Lorenzo Zanon heavyweight bout.

Giambra was inducted into Buffalo’s Ring44 Hall of Fame in 1999, and posthumously into the National Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020.

Joey Giambra passed away in Las Vegas in 2018.