Though the evening's show at Chicago Stadium featured "5 World Champions," none of them boxed.  The gathering included Charles, who held the NBA world heavyweight crown, and "The Bronx Bull" LaMotta, world middleweight champion since his defeat of Cerdan in Detroit in June.  The "Will'o'the'Wisp" Pep had just wrenched the undisputed world featherweight title from Saddler in 1949's Fight of the Year in February, while Sugar Ray had successfully defended the world welterweight championship against the ever-determined Kid Gavilan in Philly, and New Jersey lightweight Ike Williams earned the world honors over Bolanos in L.A., both the past July.
  In 1 of the two professional 10-round matches on the card, Boston-born former world featherweight champion Sandy Saddler earned his 100th win over the Chicago native Harold Dade, who had briefly unseated Ortiz as the world bantamweight king in early 1947, but had had less fortune since.  Lloyd Gibson, a Cincinnati light heavyweight who had gotten the best of the "Old Mongoose" Archie Moore a year earlier, so disappointed the crowd in his bout lost to the New York middleweight Artie Towne, an associate of Sugar Ray Robinson who occasionally boxed under the name of "Sonny Tufts," that the press of the day called it a "fiasco."