Sam Simon: A Remembrance June 6, 1955 – March 8, 2015

Published

9 years ago

March 10, 2015

The first time I met Sam Simon, I didn’t particularly like him. I was at the Sovereign Center in Reading, Pennsylvania, for the February 2, 2002, fight between Bernard Hopkins and Carl Daniels. Sam was managing Lamon Brewster, who was fighting Nate Jones on the undercard.

Sam came over, introduced himself, and told me he liked my writing. There are some people you just don’t take to. Several months later, I saw Sam at another fight. We talked again, and I said to myself, “Hauser, you were wrong. This is a really good guy.”

A friendship followed.

Sam died on March 8. I’d like to share some memories of him.

Sam was born and raised in Southern California. One of his earliest memories, dating to age four, was of finding his mother in pari delicto with Groucho Marx.

“I was a child of Hollywood,” he told me. “If not literally, then certainly in a figurative sense.”

Sam had a privileged upbringing. He went to Beverly Hills High School and was an undergraduate at Stanford, where he worked as a cartoonist for the school newspaper. That led to assignments from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. Next, he was hired as a story-board artist at Filmation Studios, where he worked on a number of projects, including Fat Albert.

“Then I wrote a script on spec for Taxi and sent it in,” Sam reminisced, when I wrote a profile about him in 2004. “They liked it; they made it; and all of a sudden, at age twenty-three, I was producing Taxi.”

The entries on Sam’s resume after that were the stuff of dreams. He was a writer, director, producer, and creative consultant for Cheers, The Drew Carey Show, The George Carlin Show, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Barney Miller, Best of the West, Bless This House, Men Behaving Badly, Norm, and The Tracey Ullman Show.

The latter venture led to Sam’s greatest creative and commercial triumph. Each segment of Tracey Ullman contained a one-minute animated segment. Sam and co-producer James L. Brooks thought that the animated characters were strong enough to support a half-hour series. In 1989, they launched The Simpsons, which became the longest-running animated series in the history of prime-time network television.

“I’m delighted with all the success The Simpsons had,” Sam told me. “But it bothers me that I helped to build Fox.”

When The Simpsons was sold into syndicaton, Sam received tens of millions of dollars. He was a dedicated animal-rights activist, and put most of that money into the Sam Simon Foundation. Through it, he funded a program that rescues dogs from shelters and trains them as companions for the deaf. He donated so generously to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (a global marine conservation group) that the organization named one of its four ships the M/Y Simon. PETA’s headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, are in The Sam Simon Center.

Sam’s bounty from The Simpsons also led to his involvement with boxing.

“I was a fan of two sports: football and boxing,” he told me years ago. “I knew I couldn’t own an NFL franchise, but I thought I might be able to manage a heavyweight champion. I knew Lamon Brewster from the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles. I’d seen him fight. The word around Southern California was that he was a prospect. Then Freddie Roach told me that Lamon was having managerial problems, so I put my lawyer on the case and became his manager.”

Brewster’s first fight under Sam’s guidance was a second-round knockout of Mario Cawley on June 22, 1999. Sam took a modest ten percent of Lamon’s purses, and Lamon lived rent-free in a house that Sam owned. On April 19, 2004, Brewster knocked out Wladimir Klitschko to claim the WBO heavyweight crown. Then Lamon dumped Sam for Al Haymon. That hurt Sam terribly. It wasn’t about the money. He had more than enough money to live in comfort for a dozen lifetimes. He felt betrayed by a friend.

Meanwhile, my own friendship with Sam blossomed. I wasn’t in his inner circle. But I enjoyed our time together and think he did too.

As a bonus; every two years or so, Sam would call and say, “I’m in New York. Do you want to go to the Giants game tomorrow?”

Going to a pro football game with Sam was an experience. You were chauffeured to and from the stadium. Your seats were on the fifty-yard-line. And best of all, you got to spend an entire afternoon with Sam.

In early 2013, Sam telephoned to chat. I asked how he was, and he answered, “I’m fine, except I’m dying.”

I thought he was joking. Sam had a strange sense of humor. It was part of his genius.

“I have cancer. And it’s not good.”

The previous autumn, Sam hadn’t been feeling well. He went to his doctor, hoping it was just a virus. After a battery of tests, he was told he had colon cancer that had metastasized to his liver, kidneys, and lymph nodes.

“The question now is how long the doctors can keep me alive. Some people say, ‘Oh, woe is me,’ and roll over and die. That’s not me. All my life, I’ve been accused of having a bad attitude, of being combative and thinking that rules don’t apply to me. When the best doctors in the world tell you that you have three to six months to live, that’s a good attitude to have.”

The cancer was a particularly cruel twist of fate given the fact that Sam had followed standard medical practice by undergoing a colonoscopy every five years.

“With your family’s medical history, you should have had colonoscopies more often,” one of the doctors told him.

“Now you tell me,” Sam responded.

I never saw Sam again. But we continued our telephone conversations. Sam was one of the people I exchanged ideas with when I wrote essays about The Beatles and Frank Sinatra during the past two years. We talked about boxing and also his illness. With Sam’s knowledge, I took notes on our conversations. His moods encompassed a range of emotions. Some of his thoughts follow:

* “I’ve had a particularly rough time with the chemo. I know chemo is hard on everyone. But for whatever reason, it’s been particularly hard on me. But there are days now when I feel pretty good. Hopefully, something good is happening.”

* “I had a gloomy conversation with my doctor today. I’ll be on chemo for the rest of my life, however long that is. The side effects are pretty unpleasant and will become permanent. I’m on a trial drug now, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

* “I’m pretty good, considering that I’m in hospice care. I had a scare with liver failure last month but bounced back. They found a chemo drug that I’m doing pretty well on. The problem is, they expect it will stop working soon and they’ll have to experiment with something else.”

* “I’m working one day a week now on this Charlie Sheen show. There’s something wrong with that. I spend my career working on some of the greatest shows in the history of television and wind up working on Charlie Sheen.”

Near the end, Sam shared some thoughts with Maria Shriver during an interview on NBC. They bear repeating now as part of his legacy:

“Cancer is a horrible disease. It’s everything that everybody always tells you. But somehow I ended up surrounded by people who love me and take care of me and will do anything for me. That is called happiness. I think I may have had a problem letting it in before. Cancer has been a fight, a journey, an adventure, and the most amazing experience of my life.”

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauer@rcn.com. His most recent book – Thomas Hauser on Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

11 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to liver the from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round time. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

4 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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