Every Joe Gans Lightweight Title Fight – Part 8: Willie Fitzgerald

Published

4 years ago

July 17, 2021

Every-Joe-Gans-Lightweight-Title-Fight-Part-8-Willie-Fitzgerald

Gans is a wonderful fighter, but his showing in his fights during the last five months indicates that he has gone back to some extent. – The New York Evening World, January 9^th, 1904.

A fighter’s prime is a thing of tentative certainty. Whether or not a fighter remains “prime” is a debate that rages on internet messaging boards, twitter and among gamblers in perpetuity – whether a fighter remains within the range of his very best as a boxer is among the most important factors in determining both the future and the past in all matters fistic.

This is because it is not just a matter of predicting the fight or remaining a gambler in the black, but a matter of proper historical contextualisation. Instinctively, we understand that this matters, this is why you never hear people shouting about the ease with which Larry Holmes defeated Muhammad Ali, or with which Rocky Marciano defeated Joe Louis.

Each fighter is different, and each fighter’s prime is different, which is why deciphering it can be so difficult, but if we take a modern great like Manny Pacquiao, we probably see his very best years as being from 2006 when he legitimately got his weaker hand working, to his desperately close fight with Juan Manuel Marquez in 2008 when his calves started to bother him. Boxing is complex. It took eleven years for Pacquiao to reach his technical summit and when he did, he had but twenty-seven short months in which to enjoy it before his body began to betray him.

Every fighter is different, because every fighter relies upon technical acumen, physical capability and experience to a different degree. Bernard Hopkins at his best knows angles, distance and timing as well as any fighter of the last fifty years, and so his prime landed late, as he took advantage of experience to season his expertise. Roy Jones, on the other hand, peaked earlier and dipped off more dramatically because the fountain of his greatness was speed. Pacquiao required a glorious blend. What of Joe Gans?

Gans is not unusual in that he became his best self the day he picked up his title. In the past seven instalments, I hope I have managed to trace Gans from incomplete contender to dominant world-champion, a man whose experience bought him generalship to match his physical gifts and technical acumen. For Gans, make no mistake, was as much Bernard Hopkins as Roy Jones and in this, more like Manny Pacquiao in arc than either. The difference: Gans fought more often and over longer distances than any of them. In the first year of his prime, Pacquiao managed twenty-nine rounds, a lot for an elite fighter this century; Gans, despite winning mostly by knockout, fought a hundred in his. The wear and tear on even a genius like Gans was significant.

It is little wonder then that in the winter of 1903, talk began to turn to Joe Gans having “gone back.” He had by this time been in his prime nearly as many months as Manny Pacquiao would remain in his more than a hundred years later.

So, when he emerged from the breakneck barnburning tour which followed his longest break since he became champion, having suffered indifferent results and even a defeat, questions manifested for the first time since he ended Frank Erne’s championship reign. His next title opponent, in early January 1904, was to be Willie Fitzgerald, an Irishman who had relocated to New York City in pursuit of the riches the new pugilism enjoyed.

Fitzgerald was real. His career had brought him victories over Mike Sullivan, Charley Seiger and Gus Gardner; in April of 1903, he had been matched with the uncomfortably titled “white” lightweight champion and perpetual drawer of the colour-line, Jimmy Britt.

Fitzgerald seemed for a moment on the verge of a genuine upset when he dropped Britt in the final minute of the very first round. Appearing both bigger and stronger, Fitzgerald cut a figure standing over his more prestigious foe; in truth though, Britt was for the most part unharmed. Fitzgerald put a minor hurting on the world’s number one lightweight contender in the twentieth and final round, but in between, Britt was the man in control. He consistently targeted Fitzgerald’s gut and torso with what amounted to lightweight’s finest body attack. Fitzgerald dropped an uncontroversial points loss but Britt was impressed.

“He is a better man than Frank Erne,” he claimed. “He can take a punch and go the pace at a greater speed.”

Now things complicate themselves a little so I’m going to restate the timeline:

In April of 1903, Jimmy Britt defeated Fitzgerald over twenty rounds. Just before this, Gans had fought a title-fight with Steve Crosby, winning in eleven. The rest of 1903 was relatively quiet for Gans and included that three-month layoff before boxing that barnburning tour that included his most indifferent work post his title win. In January of 1904 he was to be matched with Fitzgerald.

However, before his three-month break but after he defeated Crosby, before he dropped points losses to welterweights Jack Blackburn and Sam Langford, Gans met Fitzgerald for a first time.

This is an intriguing move on the part of Joe Gans. As we discussed in Part 6, Britt’s anointing himself the “white lightweight champion” was problematic for Gans. It offered the public a choice in champions, and it was very possible that the public might conclude that Britt was to be preferred. Further muddying the waters was Britt’s outright refusal to meet the true champion on the grounds of his race. So just four weeks after the Britt fight, Gans met Fitzgerald on a clear mission to do what the white champion had been unable to do: stop him inside the distance.

On May 29^th, 1903 on Britt’s turf in San Francisco, Gans did just that, taking Fitzgerald out in ten rounds having failed to make weight for what was billed in some quarters as a title fight. No titles were going to change hands with the champion weighing in at just under 140lbs though, and the first real sign of indiscipline on the part of the champion manifested. Not in the ring though. He took the unsporting advantage and turned it into perhaps the most beautiful knockout of his career.

The San Francisco Call described “A jolty left which travelled but a few inches…Gans landed [the short left] then a right to the jaw with the precision and power of a steam hammer, turning Fitzgerald completely around.”

Fitzgerald then “sank slowly to his knees and then lay prone on the matt” while ten was intoned over his still form.

The press were besides themselves in praise for this performance. Gans was a “wonder” who fought “aggressively throughout” although “all styles of going seemed to suit him.”

Gans had the result he wanted, and it was straight up reported that Fitzgerald had been less impressive against Gans than he had been against Britt. Britt was piqued. Surrounded by pressmen he repeatedly stated that he felt Gans would not be able to land upon him as he had Fitzgerald and, eventually, yes, he would meet the champion but only if Gans would agree to make 133lbs.

Gans then, had succeeded in baiting Britt into a commitment, for all that it called for Gans to make a weight he did not favour. Furthermore, he had proven himself ahead of Britt insofar as the wider lightweight field went; referee Eddie Graney named Gans “in a class of his own.” This opinion was echoed behind this fight.

It is worth noting down Joe’s own opinion on the fight, summarised here from several different accounts:

“There was never a time in the fight I thought I would lose…He can hit hard with either glove and I was there to prevent his glove landing on my jaw…He did not hurt me at any stage of the battle…I did not find him hard to hit.”

This then, was the problem Gans had when it came to his first defence of 1904: he had already proven himself the direct superior to his challenger. Not three years before – months before. It underlined the problem a fighter of Joe’s class was faced with, how to find challenges on a landscape he had scorched free of all resistance. It was little wonder, perhaps, that his interest had begun to wane.

The fight was made at 135lbs at the Light Guard Armory, Detroit, on January 12^th, 1904. To the satisfaction of nobody, the fight was to be staged over ten rounds which was all that the law then permitted in these parts.

Gans stalked into Detroit on the 4^th; he seemed in no mood, maintaining silence while eager Detroit pressmen peppered him with questions. “He says little,” reported The Detroit Free Press, “leaving his manager to do the talking…in street attire Gans does not look like a lightweight. On close inspection, however, one can note his strong build.” The following day, Gans was in training, sparring a local middleweight at the Media Baths. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, set up at Cameron Cottage, accompanied by the famed Italian Iron Man Joe Grim who appeared to be coaching him as well as feeding him copious servings of spaghetti which he insisted reduced his chances of being knocked out. Harry Tuthill, who trained Young Corbett, arrived a few days later to finish up his training.

It snowed that week, the temperature dropping as far as fourteen degrees below zero; Gans took to the road, putting in five miles every day, not excessive but enough to keep him well in sight of 135lbs. For his part, and despite the preponderance of pasta in his diet, Fitzgerald curtailed his training on the seventh, finding himself below the required weight and a little sore from apparent over-training. Gans trained publicly that same day, impressing onlookers with the quickness of his work. There seemed indecision as to whether his “eastern critics” were off the mark in suggesting his decline was at hand, but it is equally clear that many of the Detroit newspapermen were seeing the champion in the flesh for the first time.

Both training camps proceeded efficiently and both men impressed the locals so the line was unmoved by fight night with Joe Gans a 2-1 favourite. This sent Al Herford charging about town offering to bet five-hundred dollars that Gans would win and five hundred dollars that he would do so within the ten scheduled rounds. It is strange to hear of a fighter’s organisation barrelling around during fight week looking for takers but not only was this normal but it was also freely reported by a cheerful press, whose offices were sometimes even the site of large-stake exchanges. Whether or not Herford found a home for his money is unrecorded, but it is known that if he made his bet on Gans inside the distance, he lost that money.

Gans, who hit his mark at the 6pm weigh in with ease, took control of the fight early in a way that must have seemed familiar to both he and Fitzgerald. His specific method was a short left jab to the face, a punch that must have looked dangerous to Fitzgerald given what happened to him in San Francisco, followed by a right hand to the body. It sounds simple, like something an experienced pugilist like Fitzgerald should have been able to solve, but these two punches worked as counters to almost any shot Fitzgerald could muster. “Confidently the aggressor,” reported The Free Press, “he followed the Brooklyn boy about the ring, the latter showing that he feared Gans in every exchange and frequently covering up and allowing the champion to punch at him at will.”

These words will now be familiar to readers of this series, another Gans opponent, another man passive with fear, another easy evening for the great champion. Surely this suggests to all that Gans remained in his prime? It certainly is possible. After flashing Fitzgerald to the canvas in the first with a left hook, Gans spent most of the first half of the fight in complete control. The fight was slow, but in every exchange Gans had the last word, sometimes doubling up with rights to the body. Fitzgerald was criticised for underusing his right hand in the early going, but it is a fact that Gans countered this punch mercilessly, dropping him off a right hand in the fourth.

At the bell to end the fifth though, the two were “swinging wild at the gong” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which had Fitzgerald frantically giving way after sucking up a Gans right-uppercut but continuing to fight even as he broke ground. Fitzgerald was dropped again in the eighth, either by a left-hand to the jaw or bundled over underneath that punch in something more akin to a slip; after eight he had yet to win a round on most ringside cards, but in the ninth, something changed.

The round started as any other, Fitzgerald landing meaningless, light punches, Gans landing hurtful ones, staggering his man with one chopping right, but instead of moving back, Fitzgerald closed and landed either three or four hard left hands to the body and a left hand to the jaw. Gans, caught out by an unexpected charge, shipped these punches and immediately began showing signs of distress. The bell spared him further punishment.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Gans returned to his corner “vomiting.” This was reported elsewhere, The Washington Times claiming “Gans went to his corner vomiting and to a certain extent in distress.” This then was the greatest crisis Joe’s ring career had suffered since Erne opened the finishing cut upon him in his very first title fight; he toed the line for the tenth with gritted teeth.

Champions are champions and despite the heavy punches he absorbed in the ninth, Gans contested the tenth. My sense though is that Fitzgerald took it away from him at the bell, The Free Press reporting a “straight left to Gans’s face and right to head and left to body and crosses right to jaw” to punctuate the round.

The Chicago Tribune was unimpressed with Gans, noting that “the champion is backing up” and was “in distress at the final gong, and had the contest been fifteen rounds instead of ten, he would have left the ring a beaten man.”

This is debatable, obviously, and based on the punishment Gans had dished out and the closeness of the tenth my suspicion is that he would have re-emerged as the general, but it is not possible to find this type of criticism of Gans in a title fight before the Fitzgerald rematch.

This was inconvenient for the champion. His greatest challenges, and the fights that would come to define him, still lay ahead, including the fight he most wanted. Joe’s next title defence would be against Jimmy Britt.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2025

David A. Avila

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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 won’t 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 “Tank” 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.

“This 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,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”

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.

“He’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.

“Whether 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,” he said.

Supporting Bout

Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.

“Beefy” 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 “Canelo” 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.

It’s youth versus experience.

“I’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,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.

Monster in L.A.

Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” 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.

It’s 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 “DMG Night of Champions” 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

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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 baseball’s 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, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”

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 (Curmel’s 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 one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.

Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s 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. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” 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 “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s 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. “I felt ready,” he said, “I 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.”

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.

Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” 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. It’s 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.

Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s 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 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s 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. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”

It’s notable that there isn’t 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 wouldn’t bet against it.

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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

6 days ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s 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 America’s 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 writers’ 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 isn’t 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 event’s 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 wasn’t 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 York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” 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. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (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 wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s 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 “more than 200” 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 York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s 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 isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” 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.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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