Best Moments from the 2019 IBHOF Induction Ceremony

Published

6 years ago

June 11, 2019

IBHOF:-Teddy-Atlas-Recognized-as-"Observer"

The capstone of the annual Hall of Fame Weekend at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, a four-day event, is the ceremony for the new inductees. Eight new members were formally ushered into the Hall this year and the acceptance speeches of the seven living honorees were captured on YouTube.

Boxers (Modern Era)

James “Buddy” McGirt

Known for his high ring IQ, McGirt won world titles at 140 and 147 pounds and finished his career with a record of 73-6-1 (48 KOs). Five years after his final fight he was named Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America, largely for his work with Arturo Gatti. As a trainer he has been associated with 11 world champions including Gatti, Vernon Forrest, Sergey Kovalev, and Antonio Tarver, the latter of whom was seated on the dais.

McGirt was the main event of sorts as he had the privilege of speaking last. A loud round of applause greeted him as he took the podium.

At times McGirt had difficulty keeping his composure as he was overwhelmed by the moment, especially when he reflected on the influence of his late mother, but of all the inductees he injected the most humor into his acceptance speech. He said that 30 years ago to this very day he had his first date with his wife who was there to share the moment with him. “I went from making out in a parking lot in Seacaucas, New Jersey, to making out at the Boxing Hall of Fame,” he quipped. “A woman who stays with a boxer even 30 days deserves a medal,” he added.

Donald Curry

The Lone Star Cobra was 34-6 (25 KOs). His heyday was brief but spectacular. “At the pinnacle of his career, Curry was as skilled as any fighter I ever saw in any weight division,” said the noted boxing historian Frank Lotierzo.

Reportedly 400-4 as amateur, Curry’s signature win was a brutal second round KO of Milton McCrory on June 12, 1985, at Caesars Palace. With that win he became the unified welterweight champion.

“I really don’t have words for this, but eventually they will come,” Curry reportedly said when informed that he had made the Hall after a lengthy wait. But the words never did come. He spent less than a minute at the podium but did manage to thank his longtime trainer Paul Reyes. His speech was thick.

Julian Jackson

A world title holder at 154 and 160 pounds, The Hawk was one of the hardest punchers of all time. He finished 55-6 with 49 knockouts in a 17-year career that began in 1981. He continues to work in boxing as a trainer and coach in his native Virgin Islands.

Jackson was accompanied to Canastota by many members of his large extended family and by a good-sized delegation of government officials from the U.S. Virgin Islands where he is a national hero.

Jackson compensated for Donald Curry’s brevity, as it were, with the longest speech of the afternoon. An ordained minister of an evangelical persuasion, his speech had two parts, the second part a sermon that he had undoubtedly delivered before, an inspirational talk that gave the ceremony the feel of a tent revival meeting. The gist was that a man must be willing to take risks, putting his trust in God for whom all things are possible. Promoter Don King was among those that Jackson thanked.

Boxer (Old-Timer)

Tony DeMarco

Born Leonardo Liotta in Boston’s North End, DeMarco (58-12-1, 33 KOs) won the world welterweight title on April 1, 1955, with a 14^th round stoppage of Johnny Saxton. Before the year was out, he had two toe-to-toe wars with Carmen Basilio sandwiched around a first round stoppage of talented Chico Vejar. His second fight with Basilio was named Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine.

DeMarco was introduced by Al Valenti, the grandson of Hall of Fame promoter Anthony “Rip” Valenti. He noted that unlike other Boston sports heroes such as Ted Williams, Bobby Orr, and Larry Bird, DeMarco, the son of Sicilian immigrants, was actually born and raised in Boston which enhanced the affection the locals felt for him. DeMarco, noted Valenti, often walked back and forth to his engagements at Boston Garden where he fought 26 times. He was a true icon in Boston’s Italian-American community, said Valenti, who noted that there is a street named for DeMarco and a statue of him in Boston.

DeMarco, who worked as a security guard at the Massachusetts Statehouse after leaving the sport, spoke briefly. Now 87 years old, he seemed to be in very good shape for a man of his vintage. His wife was there and he made certain to have her stand up and take a bow.

Non-Participants

Guy Jutras

Montreal’s Jutras, who turned 87 (some say 88) in March, is a boxing lifer who has been involved in all facets of boxing including a 31-year career as a ringside judge during which he judged dozens of world championship fights involving many of the brightest stars in the sport.

In a rather curious speech, Jutras noted that there were a lot of unsavory characters in boxing at one time and credited the IBHOF, founded in 1989, for helping clean up the situation. “Some sources recognize that boxing (today) is one of the cleanest sports on earth,” said Jutras, a comment that drew a round of applause.

Lee Samuels

Known as one of the good guys in boxing, Samuels joined Top Rank as a publicist in 1983 after his paper, the Philadelphia Bulletin, went belly-up and he is still associated with Bob Arum’s organization today.

Samuels reflected that he first became captivated by boxing after listening to Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) fight Doug Jones on the radio. He was hired by Arum to assist in promoting a series of ESPN Thursday Night fights. Several years later he spent three months with Marvin Hagler at Hagler’s training camp in Palm Springs where Hagler prepared for his date with Sugar Ray Leonard. He then performed the same role for Donald Curry. It pleased Samuels greatly that both Hagler and Curry were on the dais with him.

Samuels thanked all of his Top Rank colleagues, acknowledged his late mentor, legendary publicist Irving Rudd, and gave a shout out to MGM Grand publicist Scott Ghertner, a frequent collaborator.

Don Elbaum

One of the last of the Runyonesque characters in boxing, Elbaum, who won’t reveal his age, promoted his first fight at age 17 and is as frisky as ever now that he’s in his eighties. He is thought to have participated in more than a thousand fights (mostly club fights in Pennsylvania and New Jersey) as a promoter, co-promoter, and/or matchmaker.

Elbaum related that he was first drawn into boxing at age seven when an uncle took him to a show in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Willie Pep was in the main event and he couldn’t take his eyes off him. “He made beautiful music,” said Elbaum, whose mother was a concert pianist.

In 1963, Elbaum, who grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, took Erie’s Johnny Bizzarro to Manila to fight unified junior lightweight champion Flash Elorde. Bizzarro lost but went the full 15 against a fighter that Elbaum said was better than Manny Pacquiao.

Elbaum noted that he has known Teddy Atlas for 30 years and said “it’s a shame and a disgrace and an embarrassment to the fans that Teddy is not back on the air.” This drew a hearty round of applause.

Observer

Teddy Atlas

Atlas, who needs no introduction, was recognized as an “observer,” a category set aside for “journalists, photographers, artists, and screenwriters.” Perhaps equally well known as a trainer, he coached Michael Moorer and Timothy Bradley, among others, to world titles, and currently works with lineal light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk. As a TV commentator he has covered the last five Olympiads. In addition, the Staten Island resident is a noted philanthropist.

The classy Atlas noted that 300 or so volunteers help make Hall of Fame Weekend in Canastota a special occasion and he started by acknowledging their efforts. Many of Atlas’s behind-the-scenes TV colleagues made the trek to Canastota to support him and he thanked them.

As would be true of Buddy McGirt, Atlas choked up when he acknowledged his wife and children. His work, he noted, often kept him away at special moments in their lives such as graduations, birthdays, and even one Christmas, and he expressed his gratitude that their bond was never ruptured.

Mario Rivera Martino

Martino died in 2017 at age 93 and was inducted posthumously. A U.S. Army veteran who spent his formative years in New York City, Martino returned to his native Puerto Rico where he lived the last six decades of his life, working as a boxing correspondent and ultimately serving as the President of the Puerto Rico Boxing Commission.

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Arne K. Lang

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

20 hours ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-Boxing-Recap-and-More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

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Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Published

3 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.

Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.

“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.

Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.

After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.

Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.

One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”

Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.

“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”

Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.

A real fight was happening.

Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.

Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.

In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.

“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”

Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.

In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.

“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”

Espinoza Wins

WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.

“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.

Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.

Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.

It was Espinoza’s third title defense.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

Published

3 days ago

May 4, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.

The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.

The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.

Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.

Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.

A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.

In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.

Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.

Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.

In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.

Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.

Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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