Award-Winning Writer John Schulian Reflects on His Days on the Boxing Beat

Published

4 years ago

September 8, 2020

Rick Assad

Award-Winning-Writer-John-Schulian-Reflects-on-his-Days-on-the-Boxing-Beat

A TSS CLASSIC: Bill Shoemaker was born to ride thoroughbred race horses. Pablo Picasso to paint. Tony Bennett to sing. Marlon Brando to act. John Schulian to write.

Schulian has written for six newspapers including the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Daily News, and has contributed to such weighty periodicals as Sports Illustrated, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Inside Sports and Playboy.

In time, Schulian would turn his attention to the bright lights of Hollywood where he was a staff writer for “L.A. Law,” “Miami Vice,” “Wiseguy,” “The Slap Maxwell Story,” and “Midnight Caller.”

Schulian also co-created the worldwide hit television show “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Schulian edited or co-edited four sports anthologies and had three collections of his sports writing published: “Writers’ Fighters And Other Sweet Scientists,” “Twilight of the Long-ball Gods,” and “Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand.”

After our initial meeting over a three-hour lunch and through continued correspondence via email, the Los Angeles native who holds journalism degrees from the University of Utah (BA) and Northwestern University (MS) agreed to answer a handful of questions for “The Sweet Science.”

Like so many people, Muhammad Ali’s passing at age 74 in Arizona hit home for Schulian.

“My first thought is that I’m hardly alone in having memories of Ali,” he said. “He belonged to the public in a way that no other athlete – no other public figure, really – has belonged to the public. Some people still remember how he shed the name Cassius Clay and stood over the supine Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine, daring the big ugly bear he had just knocked down – or had he? – to get up.

“Others remember Ali’s trembling hand when he lit the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. And then there are those who lucked into more personal moments: a kid who met Ali by chance in an airport or a woman who saw him give her husband the once-over at a banquet and then tell her, “You can do better.”

“Sometimes it seemed as if Ali was put on earth to brighten peoples’ lives that way. I know he certainly brightened mine the night I was sitting next to him on the dais at a banquet in New York. He drew the globe complete with continents on a paper placemat, then he nudged me and pointed at it. “I used to be champion of all that,” he said in a raspy voice. He was through with fighting by then, and yet his words still gave me a chill. For some of us, he would always be a champion even if he wore no crown.”

Schulian, who was offered Red Smith’s column at The New York Times, which he turned down, covered boxing in the 1970s and 1980s. Among the many fights he watched, which stand out?

“I wish I could put an Ali fight on this list, but all the fights I covered showcasing him never should have happened,” he said. “He left the last vestiges of his greatness in Manila, just as Joe Frazier did, and it was only after he was back home that I began writing about him.

“The one really good fight Ali had in that era was with Earnie Shavers in Madison Square Garden, but Ali still took some ferocious shots, and I’m sure he paid for them later.

“Now, to get back to your question: [Ray] Leonard-[Thomas] Hearns was a great fight. Hearns had him beat twice, but Leonard had too much heart and brainpower to be stopped.

“The first [Aaron] Pryor-[Alexis] Arguello fight, in Miami, was a study in courage and the thrilling nobility that such a brutal sport can summon from combatants. Of course, a lot of people scarcely remember that because of Duk Koo Kim’s fatal injuries in the ring the next evening.

“[Roberto] Duran-Leonard I was fascinating because of the education Leonard took away from it. In their second fight, he let Duran know that school was out. The best fight I covered – the most electric fight and the most dramatic – was [Marvin] Hagler-Hearns. I never saw anything like it. They charged out of their corners at the start of the first round, and everybody at press row and in the crowd came out of their seats like they’d just taken 1,000 volts in the ass.

“Nobody sat down until Hagler had landed so many punches that all of Hearns’ synapses were misfiring. Of such violence are legends made.”

There are enough great boxers to fill a good-size garage. Who stands above the rest?

“I didn’t start writing about boxing extensively until after the Thrilla in Manila, which means I covered Ali at a time he shouldn’t have been fighting at all,” said Schulian, who had his first novel, “A Better Goodbye,” published in 2015. “So I can’t call him the best. The Hagler-Hearns fight was the best I covered and the most electric event I’ve seen in any sport, but that doesn’t put Marvelous Marvin atop my list.

“The same goes for Roberto Duran, who was a brilliant defensive fighter as well as a terrifying puncher, and Larry Holmes, a great heavyweight with a wrecking-ball jab and the bad luck to succeed Ali as champion.

“The best fighter in my time, however, was Sugar Ray Leonard. He proved how big his heart and talent were when he beat Hearns, but that was just part of what made him so great. He also had a rapacious intellect when it came to boxing. He watched film of every great old fighter and he went to school on all of them. And his education in the ring was enhanced exponentially by the way his trainer Angelo Dundee brought him along, pitting him against every possible type of opponent, sluggers and cutie pies, southpaws and stylists, and defensive specialists and guys who, given the chance, would try to gouge out his eyes.

“Leonard beat them all, and did it with the same flair and personality that the public fell in love with at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Once his name was included among boxing’s all-time greats, however, something in him changed. He began retiring and un-retiring and he slowly got rid of all the people who had helped him get to the top, Dundee and lifetime friends like Dave Jacobs and Janks Morton, and the lawyer who made sure he would always be financially secure, Mike Trainer.

“It happens in every profession, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Leonard beat Hagler, either. But he was still the best fighter I covered in what was boxing’s last golden era.”

What separates covering boxing from other sports? “I hope you don’t mind if I quote myself,” he said. “This is from my introduction to “At The Fights,” which George Kimball (RIP) and I edited for the Library of America.

“[Boxing] is the best friend a writer ever had. It doesn’t matter whether the writer is a newspaper wage-slave feverishly trying to make his deadline after a title fight or a big-name author who has parachuted in to survey toe-to-toe gladiators and the exotica surrounding them.

“There is an undeniable jolt to watching violence in the ring, an almost electrical charge composed of equal parts beauty and savagery, and it can stir the poet in a writer who doesn’t realize he has poetry in him.

“I’m sure our very best boxing writers, from A.J. Liebling to Mark Kram to Richard Hoffer, would have wonderful things to add to that, but if you read their work, you’ll see the points I made driven home in high style.”

Was it more fun covering boxing during your era versus the present day? “I’m not out in the gyms and ballparks anymore so it’s hard for me to give you a definitive answer,” Schulian pointed out. “But judging by what I hear from old sports writing friends, read in papers and magazines, and see on TV, the job looks a hell of a lot harder than it used to be.

“The best sport of all for guys who would bend your ear was boxing. If you walked into a gym or arena with a notebook in your hand, you were instantly surrounded by people with stories to tell. All anyone cared about was that you spelled his name right, and that included Don King, who just laughed every time he got caught short-changing another fighter.

When Angelo Dundee was in his final years, I needed to talk to him for a piece I was writing about Ali. It had been years since we’d last spoken, so I felt compelled to introduce myself. “Why you doin’ that?” Angelo said. “I oughta punch you in the nose. We’re friends, for crying out loud.”

For the late Sports Illustrated scribe Pat Putnam, he used Liebling’s words to help elevate his prose. What took Schulian to the next level?

“Maybe I would have written better if I’d read Liebling too, but, no, I never did anything like Pat did,” he noted.” The fighters were always my inspiration. If they weren’t up to the challenge, then I’d fall back on the world I was in at every fight, with a cast of characters that seemed to have stepped out of a noir novel. I didn’t always write an “A” story, but the material for one was almost always at my disposal.”

Schulian received the prestigious PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing this year.

“It was the biggest and best surprise of my career,” he said. “You have to realize that I left daily newspapering for Hollywood thirty years ago. It was a move that I always assumed rendered me a non-candidate for any journalism awards even if I kept my hand in sports writing by doing occasional pieces for GQ, Sports Illustrated, the L.A. Times, Deadspin, and Alex Belth’s Bronx Banter Blog.

“What can I tell you? I’m a compulsive writer. And there were things I wanted to say and subjects that editors wanted me to write about. The great discovery of this second phase of my sports writing career was that l felt like I’d somehow become better at putting words on paper.

“Maybe I needed time away from the grind of doing four columns a week and always having a freelance magazine piece going on the side. Maybe I learned something from the incredibly smart people I worked with in TV – nothing about writing prose, mind you, but plenty about thinking and challenging the norm and being exposed to new ideas.

“Whatever the reason, I ended up doing some of the best pieces of my career, about Ali, Josh Gibson, Chuck Bednarik and the obscure legends that help make baseball such a compelling game. But once they were in print and I’d cashed the checks I got for them, I figured that was the end of the line.

“When PEN e-mailed me early this year to say I’d won the award, I was gobsmacked. I didn’t even know I was in the running, and I still don’t know who nominated me, but I hope that whoever it was realizes how grateful I am. I’m equally grateful to Dave Kindred, Sally Jenkins and Senator Bill Bradley, who comprised the panel that selected me.

“They put me in the same sentence with Roger Angell, Dan Jenkins, Frank Deford, Dave Anderson and Bob Ryan, the award’s previous winners. It’s hard to believe that a guy who co-created “Xena” could keep such distinguished company, but I’ve got the plaque to prove it.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally ran on August 23, 2016

——

Rick Assad has covered sports in Southern California for almost three decades. You may contact him at yankeespride55@gmail.com

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Fighting on His Home Turf, Galal Yafai Pulverizes Sunny Edwards

Published

1 day ago

November 30, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Fighting-on-His-Home-Turf-Galal-Yafai-Pulverizes-Sunny-Edwards

The Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England, was the site of tonight’s Matchroom Promotions card featuring flyweights Galal Yafai and Sunny Edwards in the main event. Yafai went to post a short underdog in what on paper was a 50/50 fight, but it was a rout from the start.

Yafai got right into Edwards’ grill in the opening round and never let up. Although there were no knockdowns, it was complete domination by the Birmingham southpaw until the referee stepped in and waived it off at the 1:10 mark of round six.

“Bloodline” was the tagline of the match-up. Sunny’s brother Charlie Edwards, now competing as a bantamweight, is a former flyweight world title-holder. Galal, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, is the third member of his family to make his mark as a prizefighter. Brother Kal, also a former Olympian, once held a world title at 115 and brother Gamal was a Commonwealth champion as a bantamweight.

Edwards and Galal Yafai were well-acquainted. They had fought as amateurs and had shared the ring on many occasions as sparring partners. Although Galal was 31 years old, he had only eight pro fights under his belt and was meeting a veteran of six world title fights whose only loss in 22 starts came the hands of the brilliant Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.

But that loss to Rodriguez in Arizona (Edwards’ corner pulled him out after nine frames) was of the kind that shortens careers. Although Sunny won a tune-up fight since that setback, tonight he had the appearance of a boxer who had grown old overnight. In fact, after the second round, he was heard saying to his corner “I really don’t want to be here.”

Edwards wanted out, but he dutifully answered the bell for the next four rounds. After the bout, he indicated that he had planned to retire after this fight, win, or lose, or draw.

The contest was billed as a WBC “eliminator” which positions Galal Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) for a match with Japanese veteran Kenshiro Teraji, the long-reigning light flyweight title-holder who moved up in weight last month and captured the WBC flyweight title at the expense of Cristofer Rosales.

Other Bouts of Note

Welterweight Conah Walker, from the Birmingham bedroom community of Wolverhampton, won a clear-cut 10-round decision over Lewis Ritson, winning by scores of 98-93 and 97-93 twice.

A former British lightweight champion, Ritson (23-5) lost for the fourth time in his last six starts, but was game to the core. At various times he appeared on the verge of being stopped, but he may have won the final round when he got the best of several exchanges. Walker, a heavy favorite, improved to 14-3-1 (6).

In a 12-round middleweight match, Kieron Conway won his fourth straight, advancing to 22-3-1 (6) with a split decision over a local product, Ryan Kelly (19-5-1). Kelly got the nod on one of the cards (115-114), but was out-voted by his colleagues who had it 116-112 and 115-113 for Conway.

While the decision was fair, this was a lackluster performance by Conway who had fought much stiffer competition and entered the ring a 6/1 favorite.

Twenty-two-year-old junior welterweight Cameron Vuong, a stablemate of Jack Catterall, stepped up in class and improved to 7-0 (3) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Gavin Gwynne. The judges had it 97-94, 96-94, and 96-95.

Vuong, who is half Vietnamese, out-boxed Gwynne from the outside but was far from impressive. A 34-year-old Welshman and veteran of eight domestic title fights, Gwynne (17-4-1) was the aggressor throughout and there were scattered boos when the decision was announced.

In a scheduled 8-rounder that wasn’t part of the main card, Liverpool’s Callum Smith (30-2, 22 KOs) wacked out Colombian trial horse Carlos Galvan in the fifth round. Smith, whose only defeats came at the hands of future Hall of Famers Canelo Alvarez (L 12) and Artur Beterbiev (L TKO 7), knocked Galvan down in the fourth and then twice more in the fifth with body punches before the match was halted. Galvan declined to 20-15-2.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal

Published

3 days ago

November 29, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal

With most of America in a turkey coma, all boxing eyes should be pointed toward England this weekend.

Former world titlist Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) challenges the fast-rising Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) for a regional flyweight on Saturday, Nov. 30, at Resorts World Arena in Birmingham. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

Without the fast-talking and dare-to-be-great Edwards, the flyweight division and super flyweight divisions would be in a blanket of invisibility. He’s the kind of personality the lower weight classes need.

The London kid loves to talk and loves to fight even more.

Edwards was calling out Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez when the San Antonio fighter was blasting out feared Thai slugger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and dismantling Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras. And he did this in front of a worldwide audience.

Of course, he fell short of defeating the young superstar but he kick-started the weight division with new life. And here he is again enticing more eyes on the flyweights as he challenges another potential star.

“I was happy and proud of Galal when he won the Olympic gold medal,” said Edwards who has sparred Yafai many times. “When me and Galal get in a small space, it’s fireworks.”

Yafai, a 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, only has eight pro fights but at age 31 doesn’t have time to walk through the stages of careful preparation. But with blazing speed to go along with big power in his southpaw punches, it’s time for the Birmingham native to claim his spot on the world stage.

Is he ready?

“It’s a massive fight, it speaks for itself. Sunny is a great fighter, a former world champion, a good name and we’ve got history as well,” Yafai said at the press conference.” I’ve got to be a bit smarter, but I know Sunny inside-out.”

Both have blazing speed. Yafai has the power, but Edwards has the experience of pro-style competition.

Promoter Eddie Hearn calls this one of the top fights in British boxing.

“Sunny doesn’t care, he wants to be in great fights, he believes in himself and he is rolling the dice again on Saturday night, as is Galal. An Olympic gold medalist from Birmingham with just a handful of fights really, and already stepping up to take on one of the top, top flyweights in the world,” said Hearns.

Ryan Garcia in Beverly Hills

The budding Southern California superstar Ryan Garcia met the boxing media in Beverly Hills to announce an exhibition match against Japan’s kickboxing star Rukiya Anpo on December 30 in Tokyo. FANMIO pay-per-view will show the match if it takes place.

Garcia is still under contract with Golden Boy Promotions and according to the promotion company an agreement has not been established. But with Garcia under suspension for PED use following his last fight against Devin Haney back in April, an opportunity for the popular fighter to make a living will probably be allowed.

As long as everyone gets their cut.

Now 26, Garcia seeks to get back in the prize ring and do what he does best and that’s fire left hooks in machine gun fashion.

“He tried to knock out Manny Pacquiao and it pissed me off,” said Garcia on his reasons for accepting an exhibition match with the bigger in size Anpo. “That rubbed me the wrong way and now I’m here to show him someone in his prime with speed and power.”

Anpo wants a knockout and nothing else.

“I regret that I couldn’t finish Manny Pacquiao,” said Anpo who met Pacquiao in an exhibition this past summer in Tokyo. “That’s what we train to do in every fight. I have even more motivation this time and I will knock him out and finish Ryan Garcia as a professional.”

Following the press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 26, an e-mail by Golden Boy was sent to the media and stated: “Golden Boy Promotions has exclusive rights to Ryan Garcia’s fights. The organizers of this event (Garcia vs. Anpo) have acknowledged as such and have agreed in writing that our sign-off is needed for this event to occur. As no such sign-off has been given, as of today there is no event with Ryan Garcia.”

Simply said, they get their cut or no fight.

The potential money-making fight has a strong possibility to occur.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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The Noted Trainer Kevin Henry, Lucky to Be Alive, Reflects on Devin Haney and More

Published

5 days ago

November 27, 2024

Arne K. Lang

The-Noted-Trainer-Kevin-Henry-Lucky-to-be-Alive-Reflects-on-Devin-Haney-and-More

This past summer, on July 21, Las Vegas boxing trainer Kevin Henry almost died. He was on the Las Vegas Strip, walking north from Caesars Palace, when he was the victim of an auto-pedestrian accident, hit by a careless uber driver exiting the Treasure Island casino after dropping off a passenger.

Henry suffered two broken bones in his neck, shoulder and hip displacements, lost two teeth, and had facial injuries that required plastic surgery. He spent three months in the hospital, the first 20 days in ICU and the final month at an in-patient rehabilitation facility.

The good news is that the pain has subsided and Kevin Henry is back in the gym mentoring boxers and enjoying the camaraderie of his peers.

Kevin, 55, grew up around the sport. His father, the late Norman Henry, was a fixture on the Philadelphia boxing scene going back to the late 1940s when he was Bob Montgomery’s Man Friday. The elder Henry co-managed Jeff Chandler and others and had a long association with Don King where he defined his role as that of a troubleshooter. Kevin was born in Philadelphia, spent several years in the LA area during the days when his father was a matchmaker for Harold Smith’s MAPS (an acronym for Muhammad Ali Professional Sports), and has been a full-time resident of Las Vegas since 1992.

“When I was 16, maybe 17, I was the youngest licensed second in New Jersey” says Henry. “In Philadelphia, I got to hang with great old-school trainers like George Benton. In LA, my home away from home was the Hoover Street Gym. Jackie McCoy, Eddie Futch, and Jesse Reid trained fighters there. A young trainer couldn’t ask for a better schoolhouse.

“The old-school trainers liked me because I was organized. If a kid said to me, oops, I forgot my gym bag or I can’t spar because I forgot my mouthpiece – and this happened a lot – I’d say, no you didn’t, I have it right here. And the kids knew if they went out and did something they shouldn’t have, that I wasn’t going to tattle-tale.”

When Henry moved to Las Vegas, the local heavyweight scene was percolating. Michael Dokes was here as were Oliver McCall and Michael Hunter Sr. The latter two fought each other as they were climbing the ladder and eventually became fast friends.

The ill-fated Hunter would become a member of the family. He married Kevin Henry’s sister. Michael Hunter Jr, a leading heavyweight contender whose victims include the white-hot Martin Bakole and Michael’s younger brother Keith Hunter, a 15-2 junior welterweight, are Kevin’s nephews.

Discounting Devin Haney’s father Bill, no boxing coach has spent more time in the company of Devin Haney. Henry was in Devin’s corner for the vast majority of his amateur bouts, including five of Devin’s six meetings with his great amateur rival Ryan Garcia, and their tie continued after Devin transitioned into a pro.

“He was like a little brother to me,” says Henry. “I remember the first day I saw him. It was at the old Round One gym which isn’t here anymore. A Rolls Royce pulled up out front. Derrick Harmon, who fought Roy Jones, was there with me. We figured that the person in the car was probably some famous professional athlete who had come to work up a sweat. But it was Bill Haney with his nine-year-old son. Neither Bill nor his kid knew anything about boxing; Bill wanted someone to teach Devin how to box. The boy was a blank canvas.

“Bill left and when he came back, he said, ‘how did he do?’ He was so proud when we told him his kid was a natural. Derrick and I couldn’t believe that the boy had never been in the gym before. We were amazed.”

The precocious Haney, who turned pro in Mexico at age 16, proved to be as good as advertised. He won the WBC world lightweight title in his twenty-fourth pro fight, pitching a shutout over previously undefeated Alfredo Santiago, went on to unify the title with wins over George Kambosos and Vasyl Lomachenko, and pitched another shutout in his first venture at 140, whitewashing Regis Prograis to capture another world title belt.

Kevin Henry was there for some of these fights and was lost in the shuffle at others. It remains a sore spot.

No active boxer has been looked-over by as many prominent trainers as Devin Haney. Bill Haney, who would be a finalist for both the 2023 BWAA Trainer of the Year and Manager of the Year, winning the latter, operated on the assumption that all had something useful to contribute and that from their inputs he could build something that was greater than the sum of its parts. He was bucking several bromides including the chestnut that too many chefs spoil the broth and that brings us to the night of April 20, 2024, when Bill Haney’s son caught up with his old amateur rival Ryan Garcia at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In a memorable fight, Garcia buzzed Haney in the opening minute of the match with his patented left hook and would then go on to dominate the second half of the fight, putting Haney on the canvas three times – in rounds 7, 10, and 11 – en route to a scorching upset.

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As we know, Garcia, who came in three pounds overweight, would have the “W” stripped from him when his urine samples revealed the presence of a performance-enhancing drug, ostarine. The New York State Athletic Commission changed the result to a no-contest and that is how it appears at boxrec, the sport’s official record-keeper.

Devin Haney remains undefeated (31-0, 1 NC) but Ryan Garcia knocked the mystique out of him.

In part because of his tender age – he turned 26 earlier this month – Haney was considered a threat to break Floyd Mayweather’s 50-0 record. No one talks about that anymore and if it should happen, it would command an asterisk.

Kevin Henry was there at the Haney-Garcia fight but, in a sense, he wasn’t there.

“They never put my name on the comp list ” he says, “so there was no ticket or pass waiting for me when I got to the arena. I was actually on the subway heading back to my hotel when Devin called me. He said, ‘where you at ‘bro.’ When I explained the situation to him, he said ‘turn around and come back and go to security.’

“Devin arranged to have a ticket waiting for me. My seat was directly behind his corner. The undercard was already in progress when I got back.

“This will sound arrogant, but I am certain the outcome would have been different if Devin had a different corner. The most experienced guy in his corner that night was Bob Ware, and Bob isn’t a trainer; he’s a cutman. When Devin faced adversity for the first time in his life, there was no experienced head there to get him turned around.

“In preparation for Garcia, we spent 3-4 weeks at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym. I actually suggested to Bill that he use Freddie in the corner. Freddie sees things that other trainers don’t see, even me, and Freddie would have known what adjustments to make. But Bill said no. He didn’t want to cede his authority.”

Kevin Henry’s admiration for Devin Haney, as a boxer and a person, hasn’t waned. “Ryan Garcia came in overweight at the weigh-in and you can just imagine how much weight he put on after he rehydrated. When they stood at center ring to get the referee’s instructions, Garcia looked like a middleweight to me. Devin dug deep and fought a great fight against a guy who was bigger and on steroids. One of the judges even had it a draw.” (True. Veteran arbiter Max DeLuca scored it 112-112. The other judges had Garcia winning by 4 and 6 points.)

As to what to expect from Devin when he returns, Henry says, “I worry about the mental part; some boxers don’t take losing well.” There are no such concerns about Kevin Henry who lost none of his mental acuity in that terrible accident and is back in his comfort zone.

Haney-Garcia photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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