[Rocco Del Sesto]

About 3 weeks after downing Herbert Hair in Ravenswood, West Virginia, Tunney traveled to Charleroi, PA to take on Emil Brtko, a heavyweight out of the western PA area who was nearing the end of his career that saw some success until he tried to move up in competition with the middle and upper class of the HW division. Brtko was good enough though to handle Tunney as he KO'd Hunsaker in the 2nd round.

Emil Brtko USA Rating 1
Heavyweight 1953-59
24 wins / 11 losses / 0 draws / 13 KO

Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA

Rating by: Rocco Del Sesto

Started out career 12-0-0 and 15-1-0,9KO's against the local club fighters around western Pennsylvania. Then in May 1955 he ran into Sonny Liston in the ring in Pittsburgh. Liston 9-1-0 at the time knocked Brtko out in the 5th. The rest of Brtko's career starting with that defeat to Liston marked a decided improvement in the competion he faced and thus a fall off of only a 9-10-0,4KO record during the later half of that career.

Defeats were faced against Mike DeJohn twice, Buddy Turman, George Chuvalo and Ernie Terrell who was starting out his career and was 6-0-0 in Feb 1958 when he faced Brtko. After the loss to Terrell, Brtko managed to put together 3 straight wins in early/mid 1958 including a 2nd round KO of Tunney Hunsaker. Those wins were followed though by a 5th round KO by Alonzo Johnson, a 4th round KO win for Brtko of JOhnny Pratt, before Brtko called it quits after getting knocked out again in the 5th round by Terry Lewis in August 1959.