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Avila Perspective, Chap. 93: Best of Prizefighting

Avila Perspective, Chap. 93: Best of Prizefighting
Boxing powers are suggesting a return could be imminent but minus the clatter and chatter of a live audience. The threat of death by virus still looms large.
No fans allowed.
Television and streaming devices pay for the bulk of major prize fight confrontations so promotion companies like Top Rank, UFC, and Matchroom Boxing are considering a return next month, but minus the fans.
It got me thinking.
Though the actual combat participants may or may not be affected, whether its boxing or MMA the audience or fans will truly be missing a major reason they love prizefighting.
Watching a prize fight live in person just cannot be beat by any other sport. Though I love baseball, basketball, football and soccer without the flopping, when it comes to watching a world championship fight those other sports take a back seat.
Over the years Iâve witnessed some incredible feats in person. Watching fights on television is fine, but watching in person Iâve witnessed remarkable displays of physical talent that stand out. Here are some of the things Iâve seen:
Fastest Combinations with Power
Manny Pacquiao, Roy Jones Jr. Oscar De La Hoya
Manny âPacmanâ Pacquiao could reel off a powerful combination faster than most people could think. He did it against Marco Antonio Barrera and then did it again. There are a lot of fighters that have fast hands, but few could muster up a fast combination with power behind it. Pacman could. Today, not so much, but when he began mowing down the featherweight division it was something to behold. He seemed like a freak of nature.
Roy Jones Jr. could hit you with a lightning combination as could Oscar De La Hoya in their primes. Any one of their lightning blows could result in seeing another fighter unconscious.
Fastest Feet
Mark âToo Sharpâ Johnson, Roy Jones Jr., Guillermo Rigondeaux
When Mark âToo Sharpâ Johnson dominated the flyweights, he was near impossible to hit. He would dart in and out quicker than anyone I have ever seen. If he didnât want someone to hit him, they could not hit him. But he did occasionally take some chances or else everyone in the audience would have fallen asleep from boredom. In his prime, he was untouchable.
Roy Jones Jr. was pretty fast on his feet too. What makes Jones special was he did it in the light heavyweight division for years. When those legs got older and heavier is when the competition finally caught up to Roy Jones. I still remember when he fought the late Julio Gonzalez at the Staples Center and though 10 feet away Jones covered the 10 feet distance in the blink of an eye and connected with a left hook. I couldnât believe my eyes.
Cubaâs Guillermo Rigondeaux also has very quick feet and deserves honorable mention.
Best Left Hook
Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, Mike Tyson
It was a sound Iâll never forget when Oscar De La Hoya connected with a left hook to the jaw of Rafael Ruelas in their lightweight unification battle in Las Vegas on May 6, 1995. It sounded like a bazooka blast. De La Hoya could unleash a left hook so potent and seemingly from any angle. When he knocked out Oba Carr that blow was almost invisible and left the talented fighter unable to defend himself. But that knockout against Ruelas when they met outdoors at Caesars Palace remains the single loudest punch Iâve ever heard in person. That sound remains vivid in my memory.
Puerto Ricoâs Felix Trinidad also possessed a lethal left hook and it was fully loaded when he dropped and stopped David Reid outdoors at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
âIronâ Mike Tyson also had one heck of a left hook too. I only saw Tyson fight once live and witnessed his speed and power when he eliminated Orlin Norris when they met in Las Vegas. He was a human tornado.
Best Right Cross
Floyd Mayweather, Roy Jones Jr. Juan Manuel Marquez
Floyd Mayweather rarely knocked out opponents after he entered the welterweight division, but in his super featherweight and lightweight days that lightning quick right cross was deadly. Nobody throws a more perfect right cross than Mayweather. It is short, concise and undetectable. Itâs also one of the hardest punches to land when the opposition knows itâs coming. Yet, Mayweather could land the right cross better than anyone Iâve ever seen. Just look at his knockdowns of Diego Corrales when they fought.
Roy Jones Jr. was cat-quick with his right cross, but needed his legs to deliver it. Because of his overall quickness, he was able to deliver a right cross from across the ring.
Juan Manuel Marquez had his right cross cocked and loaded at all times as he showed against Manny Pacquiao in their last fight that ended in knockout.
Best Uppercut
Vernon Forrest, Randall Bailey, Nonito Donaire
The late, great Vernon Forrest had one of the best uppercuts Iâve ever seen and when he delivered it the opponent was usually out. He caught Shane Mosley with that uppercut and almost turned out his lights. Forrest was a technically perfect fighter and his uppercut was a thing of beauty.
Randall Bailey was able to win world titles years apart thanks to his power punching. But when things got nasty Bailey could end the fight quickly via the uppercut. He won his first world title in 1999 against Carlos âBolilloâ Gonzalez by knockout. Lost the title in 2000 and kept his place in line via the uppercut until he regained a world title in 2012 against Mike Jones in Las Vegas.
Nonito Donaire had lightning in both fists but his uppercut was a thing of beauty. You never saw the punch coming. Whether his knockout win over Vic Darchinyan was a true uppercut or a slightly tilted left hook is debatable. But the uppercut he dropped Fernando Montiel in a world title unification battle in February 2011 was scary good. That was an uppercut to remember.
Best in the Pocket Defensive Fighters
James Toney, Winky Wright, Paulie Ayala, Floyd Mayweather
James âLights Outâ Toney was a master at fighting in close distance and making an opponent miss. Watch his fight against Evander Holyfield and be amazed. Or take a look at his fights against Mike McCallum or Iran Barkley. Amazing stuff. His defense is why I consider him the greatest fighter in the last 60 years. And his offense is not shabby either. He could write a master thesis on the subject.
Winky Wright often gets overlooked but if you need proof watch him disable Felix Trinidadâs offensive tools round by round when they fought. Wright might be one of the most under-rated fighters of all time. Nobody had an easy fight against Winky. Nobody.
Paulie Ayala is another who gets overlooked because he fought in close. But he could catch and parry with the best of them. Recently, Showtime televised some of his fights and it was a revelation. He could fight toe-to-toe and come out looking fresh as a daisy. Even CompuBox stats were bamboozled by his abilities to block, catch and slip. They seldom got the numbers right when Ayala fought.
Best Counter Punchers
Floyd Mayweather, James Toney, Juan Manuel Marquez
All three of these fighters are so equal in talent especially when it comes to counter-punching. Mayweather, Toney and Marquez could be lumped into one when it comes to delivering counter blows effectively.
All three of these fighters mentioned had so many examples that itâs needless to point out any single fight. My favorite of Mayweather was his single punch knockout of Ricky Hatton on Sept. 8, 2007. That night thousands of Brits invaded Las Vegas and saw Mayweather deliver his counter-punching magic.
Toney introduced his counter-punching skills to the boxing world when he knocked out the speedy Michael Nunn in May 1991. He brought back a surgical fighting style used by Ezzard Charles, or Jersey Joe Walcott, and dumped many a bigger man using his  counter-punching style throughout his career.
Mexicoâs Marquez was another counter-punching master. He showed that speed is good, but timing is everything.
Best Chins
James Toney, Vitali Klitschko, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Shane Mosley
These fighters, all now retired, displayed chins made of granite during their careers. I vouch for all five of these retired fighters who absorbed some of the biggest blows and remained standing.
Klitschko, for example, took tremendous punishment when he fought Lennox Lewis in Los Angeles. He was tougher than his brother who was the technician. Vitali had one heck of a chin.
Toney was a middleweight fighting heavyweights when he finally retired. He never came close to hitting the floor.
De La Hoya began at super featherweight and showed his chin could withstand middleweight power. Mayweather also began at super featherweight and even super welterweights could not knock him out.
Mosley was another who fought incredible wars and remained standing despite fighting killers like Miguel Cotto, Saul âCaneloâ Alvarez, Fernando Vargas and De La Hoya.
Best Jabs
Floyd Mayweather, Joe Calzaghe, Oscar De La Hoya, Vernon Forrest
All four of these fighters could win a fight by merely using his jab. Mayweather, in particular, did it on several occasions. De La Hoya could split an opponentâs eye open with his jab. Forrest was one of the best and could have posed a big problem for smaller welterweights like Mayweather had he lived. We will never know. Calzaghe could fire off a four-jab combination jab like a machine gun. The guy retired undefeated because of his jab. So did Mayweather.
Best Body Punchers
Marco Antonio Barrera, James Toney, Julio Cesar Chavez
Iâm starting with Barrera because I saw him fight in person many more times than I saw Chavez. But, of course, Chavez was a master of the body shot or the âgancho.â
Barrera stopped two world champions, Johnny Tapia and Paulie Ayala, with body shots that still send shivers down my spine. If you have ever been hit with a good body shot you will never forget the pain. The Mexico City assassin was as good a body puncher as Iâve ever seen.
I only saw Chavez fight a few times live and he was not the young destroyer that used his body attack to render his opponents helpless.
Toney showcased his skills, especially when he broke down the bigger Evander Holyfield and defeated the gladiator by knockout via the body shots. Those body blows were fearsome and enabled the much smaller Toney to invade and defeat bigger competition throughout his Hall of Fame career.
Most Flamboyant
Prince Naseem Hamed, Jorge Paez, Hector Camacho Jr.
Who can forget Prince Hamed descending into the boxing ring dangling from a steel line at the MGM when he fought Marco Antonio Barrera. The speedy Brit was probably the most flamboyant fighter to ever come out of Europe. And he was as quick with the word as he was with his fists.
Jorge Paez, âEl Maromero,â was the king of flamboyant when he fought and often to the point of distraction. More than once he fought in a dress. But the boxer from Mexicali, Mexico was a world champion. He could truly fight and was quite a character.
Hector Camacho Jr. once arrived to fight on top of a camel. I donât think his pops did that.
Smartest Fighters
Ricardo Lopez, Bernard Hopkins, Joe Calzaghe, Floyd Mayweather
When it comes to intelligence these guys reign supreme. The quickest at analyzing and dissecting an opponent in my estimation was the little guy Ricardo âFinitoâ Lopez. The Mexican minimum and light flyweight world champion had a variety of moves and flinches that would open up an opponentâs defense. Once he figured it out, that guy was gone in an instant.
Perhaps the most spectacular was his one punch knockout over Thailandâs Anucha Phothong (Ratanapol Sor Vorapin) at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on Dec. 2, 2000. Both were two feet apart and frozen when Lopez fired a crisp uppercut and down went Phothong for a knockout loss. It was so quick and effortless that it left the audience amazed and dumbfounded. I asked one world champion what he thought happened and he said âthe other guy blinked.â I felt that was a good enough answer.
Lopez never lost a fight and retired undefeated.
Talk about smart fighters, Bernard Hopkins and Joe Calzaghe were two of the smartest fighters to ever meet. They used every trick in the book against each other when they fought in 2008 in Las Vegas. It was like watching two warlocks cast spells on each other and sometimes it was difficult to decipher. But the busier fighter Calzaghe won by split decision and eventually retired undefeated. Hopkins was just getting started. He would fight for the light heavyweight world title and win when the odds were against him. According to odds makers Hopkins was not supposed to beat Kelly Pavlik, Roy Jones Jr., Jean Pascal, Tavoris Cloud, or Antonio Tarver.
Then of course there is Mayweather. The Las Vegas fighter who began at super featherweight used his ring intellect to win world titles and become the richest fighter in the history of the sport. He figured out what he wanted to do and then used it to perfection such as his dominant signature wins over Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton. They donât come smarter than Mayweather who like Calzaghe and Lopez retired undefeated.
Fights to Watch
Showtime Boxing will be televising Lucas Matthysse versus John Molina on Friday, April 24. They are also televising John Molina versus Mickey Bey. Both were interesting slam bang affairs that displayed Molinaâs willingness to take a shot to give a shot. Great stuff.
Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing ChannelÂ
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

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 wonât 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 âTankâ 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.
âThis 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,â said Eubank. âI have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.â
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.
âHe’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.
âWhether 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,â he said.
Supporting Bout
Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Irelandâs Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.
âBeefyâ 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 âCaneloâ 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.
Itâs youth versus experience.
âI’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,â said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.
Monster in L.A.
Japanâs super star Naoya âMonsterâ 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.
Itâs 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 âDMG Night of Championsâ 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

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 baseballâs 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, âCurmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.â
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 (Curmelâs 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 oneâs latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sportâs top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a fatherâs 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. âFloyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,â says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floydâs ear. âThis kid is special,â 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 âThe Money Team.â In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception â Gervonta âTankâ Davis, now one of boxingâs 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. âI felt ready,â he said, âI 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.â
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.
Motonâs boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. âI grew up watching Floyd, so itâs natural I have some similarities to him,â says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac âPitbullâ 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. Itâs 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.
Curmelâs presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmelâs 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 œ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road itâs 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. â[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,â he said without hesitation,â great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.â
Itâs notable that there isnât 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 wouldnât bet against it.
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Arneâs Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New Yorkâs 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 Americaâs 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 writersâ 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 isnât 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 eventâs 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 wasnât 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 Yorkâs charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. âJimmyâ 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. âBoxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,â said hizzoner. âSo I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesnât belong in this town or in your game.â (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 wouldnât have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the cityâs 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 âmore than 200â 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 Yorkâs newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischerâs 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 isnât necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a âtalkieâ 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.
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