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KELLIE BY KO Promoter Frank Maloney Stuns The Fight World
The revelation, delivered in a Brit tabloid on Saturday, does make one who knew Frank Maloney when he was a top-dog boxing manager and promoter in the UK, heading up Lennox Lewis’ promotions re-evaluate who he was, how he acted, what he said, back in the day.
When Maloney drew a deep gulp of breath, and shared with the world that he has really basically always felt like he was a female trapped in the shell of a man’s body, the legendary fightmakers’ legacy veered sharply, from that of a Hall of Fame level mover of pugilists and marketing and salesmanship and such, into a whole ‘nother realm.
When the person formerly referred to as “Frank Maloney” allowed a photog to take some photos that showed off, to a world he had to know wouldn’t be universally embracing of his choice, his new look, and his new identity, which he told us is “Kellie,” the man showed as much courage as any of his boxers did walking up those four steps toward an uncertain fate.
The 63-year-old Maloney, who many US fight fans might remember as a smallish fellow who’d stand and exult by the side of Lennox Lewis as the long, tall Brit of Jamaican heritage showed off his stuff and had his hand raised in triumph, downing the likes of Evander Holyfield while advertising proudly his homebase in a Union Jack blazer and slacks outfit, told the Sunday Mirror that he’s been taking female hormones for about two years.
“I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman,” the 5-3 Maloney, aka “Kellie,” told the paper. “I can’t keep living in the shadows, that is why I am doing what I am today. Living with the burden any longer would have killed me.”
The dealmaker, who walked away from the sport last year, citing burnout, said he had a hard time living a lie, and grew quite depressed, and self medicated his sorrows with booze. When assessing his life arc, one can now look at Maloney’s chapters, and be tempted to ponder what choices he made under the influence of his hidden duress.
Younger Maloney contemplated the priesthood but didn’t cotton to a stint at a seminary. He tried the jockey life, gave football a go, tried cooking as a trade, but all along, he stuck with the boxing thing, after taking it up in grade school. Makes sense, we all understand that the sport, with its low barrier to entry, attracts square pegs and drifters and loners and even the most refined and mannered and psychologically grounded, to boot…
Armchair analysis aside, Maloney and Lewis worked together and got along well enough that they partnered from 1989, when LL debuted as a pro, til 2001. Maloney’s star brightened immensely when Lewis was handed the WBC crown Riddick Bowe dumped in a trash bin, in December 1992. The diminutive Maloney showed a big bark and could bite when defending Lewis, who naysayers sometimes said fought too cautiously. He drew sympathy when he absorbed the slurs from the likes of Don King, who termed him a “mental midget” and in fact gave Maloney a free boost in recognition a $100,000 retainer to a top firm couldn’t have managed.
The 6-5 Lewis, now 48, stood up for the helmer, taking to Facebook to post his support for the ex manager’s new path. On Sunday, Lewis wrote, “I was just as shocked as anyone at the news about my former promoter and my initial thought was that it was a wind up. The great thing about life, and boxing, is that, day to day, you never know what to expect. This world we live in isn’t always cut and dried or black and white, and coming from the boxing fraternity, I can only imagine what a difficult decision this must be for Kellie (formerly Frank Maloney). ?However, having taken some time to read Kellie’s statements, I understand better what she, and others in similar situations, are going through. I think that ALL people should be allowed to live their lives in a way that brings them harmony and inner peace. I respect Kellie’s decision and say that if this is what brings about true happiness in her life, than so be it. #LiveAndLetLive.”
Maloney’s last top drawer client was heavyweight David Price. Last October, the boxing lifer exited the sphere, saying, “For the last year I have gradually fallen out of love with boxing and my passion has been missing. I did much soul searching over the summer and my heart is no longer in the sport that I loved so much. If I continued as his promoter it would be unfair as I cannot give the commitment and love for the sport that is needed to get his career back on track. When I saw (Price) in the gym last week it was my first visit to one for months and I no longer got the buzz I used to get. The sport has changed so much over the last few years. So many boxers listen to the last person they meet, and trainers who give time but invest no money into the sport are afforded too much power. It has also been a tough time for me personally and I feel a lot more at ease with myself by reaching this decision.”
At the time, I thought it…odd…that he put the word out that he didn’t want to be bothered, and wanted to simply step away, and let that statement speak for him. No interviews or requests to chat about legacy or such, he said. Now we know better why, I suppose…
Maloney is not to be confused with the still-in-the-game Frank, Frank Warren, the head of Box Nation, who has a smaller than it used to be but still respectable stable. He and Maloney sparred regularly, and then would make up, and do some business together. Maloney took one to the chin and heart when his boxer Paul Ingle was brain damaged in a 2000 bout. But he kept at it in this most dangerous game, though his fondness was dealt a blow when he and Lewis parted ways in fall 2001. There was friction in the partnership when Lewis lost his crown to Hasim Rahman in April 2001, as trainer Emanuel Steward said Maloney has been too MIA when it came to Lewis. Maloney shifted his gears and took up politics, running for the Mayoral seat in London. He stepped in when he went on the attack against gays, in 2004, saying, “I don’t (gay people) do a lot for society. I don’t have a problem with gays, what I have a problem with is them openly flaunting their sexuality…I’m more for traditional family values and family life. I’m anti same-sex marriages and I’m anti same-sex families….I don’t think it’s right for children to be brought up that way. I don’t think two men can bring up a child. ..If you are homosexual, you are homosexual – just get on with your life and stop bitching about things.” He finished fourth in the Mayoral hunt. By 2006, he was back all-limbs in the boxing waters, getting then cruiserweight David Haye to sign on, while also steering feather Scott Harrison to a title. He was tested in 2009, when he had a heart attack after finding his boxer, Irishman Darren Sutherland, dead from hanging in the fighters’ apartment. His split from second wife Tracey, at the end of 2012, took something from him, as well.
Maybe he was feeling some tension from home stuff when he made the beyond-tasteless crack that Wladimir Klitschko was probably happy he didn’t have to pay a trainer cut to Emanuel Steward for his fight against Mariusz Wach in November 2012, soon after Steward passed away. In October of 2013, Maloney had enough, and waved adieu to the sport.
Maloney’s decision will bring up recollections and discussions of the former Richard Raskind. The New York born Raskind was a tennis ace, and showed off mad racquet skills at Yale. Raskind went into opthamology, but gender orientation issues plagued him, and by 1975, he was a she. As “Renee Richards,” she sued to be able t play in the US Open. She won, and rose as high as 22 in the ranks on the pro women’s circuit. It is clear that such decisions and stories as this Maloney development aren’t happening in a vacuum. The boxing family warmly embraced Orlando Cruz, who came out as a proud homosexual in October 2012, and while there were the odd Twitter cracks by lunkheads, as we’ve seen in reaction to the “Maloney-Kellie” affair, the buzz stirred up lasts less and less every time a Jason Collins (NBA, came out April 2013 to the world) or Michael Sam (NFL, came out as gay in Feb. 2014) break new ground.
Maloney said in the Mirror stunner that he isn’t in a mode to think about a romantic romp or anything of the sort. The now avowed transsexual was twice married and has three children.
To wrap up, I will leave it to Lewis, who threw a tight flurry on Facebook, stating, to those getting wound up over the Maloney-to-Kellie deal, “There are more important things in this crazy world 2b mad about! Starving children, poverty, conflict. LeBron leaving Miami.”
Amen, Lennox. I wish Kellie nothing but the best of luck, and admire the ration of gumption it took to surrender to the truth.
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Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.
The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.
What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.
In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.
Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.
The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.
In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.
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Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.
Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.
When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.
This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.
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The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)
The Fights
There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.
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In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.
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I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.
On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.
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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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool
In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.
This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.
The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.
The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.
Semi-wind-up
A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.
Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.
The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.
Other Bouts of Note
In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.
In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.
A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.
In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.
Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.
A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.
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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney
IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.
Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.
Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.
Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.
The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.
Semi-wind-up
Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).
A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.
Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).
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