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OLYMPICS ASSESSED: Shields Rocked, The Men Stumbled Badly in London

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 Shields RockedThat gold tasted sweet to the Flint Fury, Claressa Shields. But her effort can't mask the sour taste of a medal-less effort from the men's side in London.

From an American perspective, the 2012 London Olympics will be remembered as Claressa Shields' Games. Better that, better to look on the bright side that is the gold medal obtained by the 17 year old brashtalker from Flint, Michigan than to ponder for too long the ignominy that is the performance by the men's side of the squad.

Zero medals. The nine guys didn't take home so much as a bronze, and if not for the high schooler from Flint, and a bronze taken home by fellow female Marlen Esparza, the US would have been saddled with the buzzkill fact that every US squad came back home with at least a bronze. (In the first year boxing was in the summer Games, 1904, only Americans took part. Ah, the good old days…)

I refuse to diminish middleweight Shield's feat, her 19-12 win over Russian Nadezda Torlopova, and I haven't heard anyone suggesting Shields' or Esparaza's wins get an asterisk, but the women's side featured 12 boxers apiece in three weight classes as opposed to 10 classes of up to 30 men apiece. Yeah, it was a thin debut class. Still, I like Shields, with her solid basics and asskicking 'tude to bring home the top medal even in a deeper field.

The nine guys who gloved up for the US I hope chipped in for at least a decent gift basket for Shields, the Flint Fury, daughter of a streetfighter, because if she didn't win a gold, the snapback on the guys would have been bordering on vicious.

Rau'Shee Warren's opening round loss, his third in a row, is a negative standout from the London fiasco. The Ohioan got a bye to start, but was dumped out by Nordine Oubaali, a Frenchman, 19-18. Probably time for the three-time loser to exit the am ranks; he's just 25, so he could of course try again, and aim for Brazil in 2016, but perhaps his style is better suited for the pros. “It's kind of telling me it's time to move to another level,” he said after the loss, an indication of the direction he will head in.

Bantamweight Joseph Diaz Jr. gave reason for optimism, before the men's chances funneled down the drain, with a 19-9 opening round win over Pavlo Ishchenko of the Ukraine. The kid from Cali, who started boxing at age eight, showed some nice traits and skills, as the 19 year-old lefty put his punches together quite often against the loser, and used body work to good effect. In the round of 16, he was paired with Cuban Lazaro Alvarez, age 21, who took bronze home with him. The judges said Diaz lost, 21-15, but Teddy Atlas and Bob Papa of NBC didn't love their tally. Atlas thought Diaz should have won the second round, and had a cushion entering the third round. “I though Diaz carried the fight,” Atlas said. Many are high on Diaz' chances as he pivots to the pro game; the kid with a six-grader's face has a nice back story, having learned to box after being bullied in school. No reason some promoter doesn't market him to the same folks who revere Justin Bieber.

Californian lightweight Jose Ramirez, age 19, got off to a solid start, winning a 21-20 decision over Frenchman Rachid Azzedine in the round of 32. He showed a long jab, exhibited some decent footwork at times, but had a tendency to get a bit wild against a semi-crude foe. Ramirez met up with Uzbek Fazliddin Gaibnazarov in the next round. He started slowly, a trait that annoyed many watchers of the US crew. (Volume is key in this scoring system, and history doesn't often favor patient tacticians. I mean, the scorers might miss a scoring blow during a flurry, but you can be sure they won't give you a point if you aren't throwing but rarely.) Down 12-5 entering the third, Ramirez got hungry and aggressive, while Gaib tried to run and hold to run out the clock, but it was too little, too late, and the Uzbek scored a 15-11 win. “Most likely I'm going to go professional,” he told KFSN, of Fresno. “I'm going to step up to a pro career and we'll see where that takes me. I know it's going to be exciting. I know a lot of companies have been looking at me for a long, long time. And now they're excited to know that I'm going to turn pro.”

Jamel Herring, the 26-year-old Marine out of Long Island, didn't make it out of the first round. In his light welterweight tangle, he lost 19-9 to Daniyar Yelessinov of Kazkhstan. He could have in retrospect tried to be first more during the fight. Props to the captain of the squad for not getting down, though, and keeping on encouraging his mates after he lost his tussle. Does he have a pro career in him? Let's see how he does if he works with a top-level trainer.

Texan Errol Spence was the last hope for the men's team, but he lost a 16-11 decision to Russian Andrey Zamkovoy in the welterweight quarterfinals last Tuesday. He'd actually lost his opener to India's Krishan Vikas, but that loss was overturned on appeal, because Vikas held excessively. In the loss to the Russian, Spence too often let the winner be first, and will need to fix that moving forward.

“It leaves a bad taste in all our mouths,” Spence told NBCOlympics.com after his loss. “We all have great athletes. We didn't think we were going to come out here and not be winning medals. After this Olympics, our whole organization needs to get together and come up with a new gameplan to get back on top.” Sensible words from the Texan, who will head to the pro ranks.

Cleveland's Terrell Gausha, who trains in California, got our hopes up with a stoppage win in his opener. The middleweight, who has some issues with wildness, and balance, took out Armenian Andranik Hakoyan, displaying a nice aggressive streak. But he got stopped out in the round of 16, by Indian Vijender Singh, by a score of 16-15. “I disagree with that decision,” Teddy Atlas said after. “I disagree with much of what I've seen in the Olympics boxing competition.” He used the “C” word, “corrupt,” when talking to a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and he delved deeper into that to TSS, which you can check out a bit later. The 24 year-old is leaning toward turning pro, and Atlas singled him out as one of the guys he liked, especially for his aggression and desire.

Marcus Browne of Staten Island, NY liked his chances to leave London with a medal, telling me before his first match, “I'm not cocky, but confident. I'm not going to say I might lose, settle for silver. I know I have what it takes to win gold, but I got to put the work in. I've put my foot in my mouth a couple times, and don't like the feeling.” But Aussie Damien Hooper outworked the 21 year-old light heavyweight, who wasn't able to ramp up in the crucial third round, when Hooper turned on the juice, after being down 6-5. Hooper scored a standing eight late, while the New Yorker spent too much time avoiding contact rather than causing it. At the end, Hopper scored a 13-11 victory. One can see Browne having better luck with smaller gloves and no headgear, however.

Our heavyweight entrant, Michael Hunter II, didn't manage to get the gold he wanted to honor his dad, the late Michael Hunter I, who is remembered as a decent pro and mainstay on USA's “Tuesday Night Fights.” Against Russian Artur Beterbiev in the round of 16, the opener for both men, he fought on the back foot a great deal, engaged in regular clinches and looked to be gassed out a bit more than you'd like after three rounds. The score after three stood at 10-10 and the Russian got the nod through a tiebreaker against the Las Vegan. Being a heavyweight, you expect that he will sift through a few offers and transition to the pro game, always on the lookout for a Klitschko Killer, or at least, someone who can test the Brothers K. Or someone who can at least be presented to the people as a plausible foe.

Californian Dominic Breazeale made the leap from football to boxing, but it is hard to picture the super heavyweight who played QB at Northern Colorado as being a factor in the near future as pro, let alone a Klitschko Killer. Dom got a bye, but then was handed a tough task in the round of 16, in Magomed Omarov of Russia. The 26 year-old didn't register a point in the first round, and his form lagged as his energy waned, and he lost by a 19-8 score. Does he he really dig boxing, or does he see boxing as a so-so substitute for an NFL career? That remains to be seen.

Cover Girl Marlen Esparza, the flyweight from Houston, defeated Karlha Magliocco from Venezuela in the quarters, 24-16, and clinched a bronze then and there. Her stellar smile dimmed in the semi, against China's Ren Cancan, who defeated the 23 year-old. Ren, a 10-8 winner, waited and countered Esparaza in a bout which featured warnings to both boxers for inactivity. Esparza has nice basics, punches in bunches, is a slick mover and could clean up in the endorsement arena. She says she's leaving boxing and heading off to college. “My body is falling apart already,” she said to KHOU.com. “I’m in sports medicine four hours a day.”

Queen Underwood, a lightweight from Seattle, Washington has to be seen as a winner, just for getting to London. Her dad was jailed for a sex crime, she started running with a druggy crowd and tried to commit suicide, before getting her head together, and finding structure in boxing. yes, yet another of the hundreds of people annualy who use boxing to better themselves, give them structure, purpose and a concrete goal. Great Britain's Natasha Jonas beat Underwood, 21-13, in the round of 16. She was visibly emotional in a post-fight interview, needing time to collect herself and stave off tears, showing an admirable level of desire.

The lady who leaves London as the standout star in the States, Shields, just 17, showed some of the fire, and fury and desire that was too often absent in the guys' efforts. She downed by a score of 18-11 vet Anna Luarell, age 32, of Sweden in the quarters, showing some of the best pure boxing instincts of any fighter, male or female, on the US squad. Next up was Marina Volnova of Kazakhstan, who was no match for the Flint Fury. Shields scored two knockdowns, won all four rounds and exited with a 29-15 win. Her foe had ample international experience, something the US team, with shoddy leadership and funding, hasn't enjoyed of late. Volnova since 2008 fought in China, Turkey, Russia, Greece and Poland, while Shields has never crossed an ocean. But that same fire and resolve that had her deciding to leave her parents house to live with her aunt in Flint carried her to a win over a more tested opponent. “I didn’t have to, I just decided,” she told NBC regarding the move to her aunt's. “I’ve always wanted to live with Tammy to help my boxing.” Contrast that sort of confident decision-making and candor with some of the knucklehead yapper pros who are Twitter legends, and it just makes you like Shields that much more. Last Thursday, Shields became the youngest Olympic boxing champion since 1924, as she downed Nadezda Torlopova, a Kazakhstani boxing for Russia. Shields didn't have a problem showing an elder, age 33, that all US teens aren't bloated gamers. Shields' body work, which didn't show up in the points column, affected Torlo, who didn't know how to handle bunches of punches flying at her face and gut. No one couldn't love Shields' head movement as she slipped a Torlo combo in the final round, in which she stayed aggressive, but smart, while protecting a 15-10 lead going into the final frame. She's been fighting for six years, but you either have an instinct for fighting, or you don't, and Shields just does. Her brain contains the knowledge to do it the right way, physically, and her character is of a variety that I dare say a few of the guys from this London squad would do well to emulate.

Check back a bit later, and hear what Teddy Atlas, who called the boxing for NBC, has to say about the US showing; warning, Teddy pulls no punches. We'll ask a couple other smart folks what can be done to get the US boxing program back to a respectable level.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

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Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.

This is huge in British boxing.

Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

This is about family pride.

The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.

Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.

Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.

Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.

Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.

Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.

This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.

Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.

“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”

Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.

“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.

Eubank smiles.

“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.

Supporting Bout

Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.

“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.

McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.

It’s youth versus experience.

“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.

Monster in L.A.

Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.

It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.

Pomona Fights

Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.

Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.

Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).

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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.

Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”

Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.

Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.

The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.

It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.

Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.

Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.

When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.

Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”

Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.

Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.

Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.

Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.

It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.

Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.

For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”

It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.

Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.

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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

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The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put  words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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