The Greatest Boxing Book Never Written and More Literary Notes

Published

2 years ago

January 11, 2023

The-Greatest-Boxing-Book-Never-Written-and-More-Literary-Notes

Sooner or later, most important boxing personalities put their name on an autobiography or cooperate in the writing of a major biography by a third-party author. But one book that would be among the most consequential and interesting boxing books ever will probably never be written.

Don King was black and from the streets. Rather than hide it, he stuffed it in people’s faces. He forced America to accept him as he was on his terms. We’re not talking about an athlete, singer, or movie star who made his mark by entertaining people. We’re talking about commerce and economic control. King shaped boxing for decades and bent it to his will. The stones he cast into the water sent ripples throughout America.

But only one major biography of King has been written – Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King by Jack Newfield. It’s a warts-and-all story without the all and a book that King despises.

So why hasn’t King written his own story? There have been many lucrative offers. And Don has never been at a loss for words.

Years ago, Alan Hopper (then director of public relations for Don King Productions) told me, “Don cares about his place in history. He wants his due in terms of historical perspective. But I also think that Don is motivated by a fear of sorts. He’ll keep going and won’t retire because, if he did, he’d have to reflect. And in that reflection, he’d be forced to face his own mortality.”

Writing an autobiography requires reflection. King is choosing to not do it. His book, if well-crafted, would be wonderful. But like all great magicians, Don is likely to exit the stage without telling anyone the full story behind how his tricks were performed.

* * *

Good writers do more than write their own lines. They have an ear for quotes from others. Hall of Fame boxing writer Bernard Fernandez has just released his third collection of boxing articles. Like its predecessors, Championship Rounds: Round Three covers a wide range of personalities and issues. And once again Fernandez serves up an array of quotes in the context of his articles that are worth requoting. Ten of my favorites are:

* Sugar Ray Leonard: “I could always tell in the dressing room when I was warming up if it was going to be a good night or a long night. If you don’t feel like you have it that night, it is the most frightening feeling for a fighter. It’s like you have a vision you’re about to die and you can’t do anything about it.”

* Ricky Hatton (after being knocked out by Vyacheslav Senchenko in the final fight of his ring career): “I have to be a man and say, ‘It’s the end of Ricky Hatton.'”

* Bert Sugar (on whether fight fixers, steroid cheats, and other miscreants should be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame): “You can always make a case for somebody’s exclusion. It depends on how moralistic you want to be. But remember, this is boxing we’re talking about.”

* “Michael Spinks (after announcing his retirement at age 31 following his first-round loss to Mike Tyson): “Maybe I am too young to retire. But if people are waiting for the day I step back into the ring, they’ll be surprised.”

* Oliver McCall: “For today, yes, I’m clean and sober. But when it comes to drugs and alcohol, you’re never completely past it. You know when it’ll be completely past for me? When I’m laid to rest.”

* Deontay Wilder: “When people get dressed up and come out at night to a fight, they come to see knockouts.”

* Jim Lampley (on the death of Harold Lederman): “No one in the sport had more friends because no one in the sport was more deserving of friends.”

* Bernard Hopkins (after being knocked out in the last fight of his long sojourn through boxing): “All credit to Joe Smith. He did what he had to do. But it was Father Time helping him. I stayed in the game too long. I admit it.”

* Mia St. John: “I wasn’t the best. But I fought the best.”

* Buster Mathis Sr: “I was never a champion but I was fortunate enough to get close. That’s more than a lot of people in this business can say.”

In this latest volume of his Championship Rounds series, Fernandez recounts how Howard Cosell once dismissed him as “another no-talent newspaper hack.”

Cosell was wrong.

* * *

Hamilcar Publications was created in 2019 for the purpose of publishing books about boxing. Editorially, its track record has been excellent. Damage by Tris Dixon heads a list of notable offerings. But publisher Kyle Sarafeen has been faced with a difficult reality since his company’s inception. Boxing books are a hard sell. Thus, to keep the company economically viable, he has added books about music and true crime to its catalog. Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of The Sixties by Bob Batchelor is its latest offering.

Music was a crucially important lifeline for the youth culture of the 1960s. The Beatles were a catalyst for change in ways that were almost unimaginable. “One analogy,” Batchelor writes, “might be to think about their influence like the rise of the internet or cell phones. One moment, nobody had heard of these things. And in seemingly the next, they were staples in people’s lives.”

A wave of new groups joined the Beatles in providing the soundtrack for a global counterculture. 1967 (the summer of love) was followed by 1968 (the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, unrestrained police brutality at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and inner-city riots across America).

“The Doors,” Batchelor states, “invaded the music scene in parallel with the expansion of the war in Vietnam and its stranglehold on the nation’s consciousness. There was no way to unravel the fighting in Southeast Asia and the global protest movement from what was happening in popular culture.”

Within that framework, the Doors created a unique sound and an almost apocalyptic vision of society. “Their allure,” Batchelor writes, “was rooted in a combination of [lead singer Jim Morrison’s] satanic poet-prince persona and the pounding psychedelic sound the band created.”

Morrison had a seductive velvety voice that could turn in an instant into a shriek or howl. He was intense, brooding, melancholy, angelic-looking at times and seemingly deranged at others. The three musicians backing him (keyboard player Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore) were remarkably talented in their own right. They provided, in Densmore’s words, “the perfect sound bed for Jim to lie down in.”

No other group sounded like the Doors. Their music was their own and instantly recognizable. “Light My Fire” – their signature song – was released in 1967 and climbed to the #1 slot on the Billboard 100 in addition to anchoring their debut album. It expanded their fan base and brought the group to the masses.

But there was a problem. A big one. Morrison didn’t struggle with alcohol and drugs. He reveled in them. LSD was his drug of choice and he frequently drank himself into a whiskey-induced stupor.

Mick Jagger could be wild onstage but he always seemed to be in control. Morrison was unhinged.

“The more successful the Doors became,” Batchelor writes, “the more erratic Jim got. The situation deteriorated to the point that they just tried to keep him as sober as possible on show nights.” There were times when Morrison was “so loaded he could barely stand up; he was slurring and staggering.” Away from the stage, he was “drinking until he passed out and frequently waking up – literally – in a gutter or somewhere on the street. Jim was in free fall, and no one had figured out how to help him.”

“You couldn’t tell Jim Morrison what to do,” Robbie Krieger acknowledged. “And if you tried, he would make you regret it. Anyone who attempted to step into a role of authority over him became the target of his unresolved rage.”

Morrison’s conduct onstage was part and parcel of his self-destruction. He was, in Batchelor’s words, “caught up in finding out if there were limits – and then exceeding them.”

Journalist Hank Zevallos described the scene at one Doors performance: “Girls press forward against the stage. Morrison grunts, begins squirming, singing. The music weaves and screams into one climax after another. Morrison is literally raping the microphone between his quivering thighs, advancing toward the hungry girls pressing against the stage.”

Morrison was arrested twice during concerts. The first time was in 1967 after a verbal altercation with a police officer in Connecticut that resulted in the singer being maced. The second (more serious) incident occurred in Florida on March 1, 1969. Morrison was drunk and verbally abusive to the audience and simulated masturbation. He was arrested and charged with multiple criminal offenses including inciting a riot and indecent exposure. A forty-day trial followed.

“The key piece of evidence was missing,” Batchelor writes. “No one had proof that Jim exposed himself. Even for those who swore he did, their distance from the stage would have made it impossible to really see anything. There were hundreds of photos from the show. Not one proved a thing.”

The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the charge of indecent exposure. Morrison was sentenced to six months in prison but allowed to remain free on bail pending the outcome of his appeal. The case was never resolved. He died in Paris on July 3, 1971, at age 27. The cause of his death is unknown.

“What we have,” Batchelor concludes, “is speculation and educated guesses. Jim may have accidentally overdosed, snorting heroin and/or cocaine in the bathroom of a seedy Paris drug den that fronted as a nightclub. He could have done drugs with Pam [his girlfriend at the time] in their apartment and died with or without her knowledge. She was hooked on heroin, but Jim hated needles so there’s little chance that he injected himself. There is also a possibility that Jim died of a heart attack brought on by alcohol addiction and stress.”

Batchelor writes well and his narrative flows smoothly. His work is an insightful look at the Doors as creative artists and a compelling portrait of Morrison. But there are areas where Roadhouse Blues falls short of the mark.

In that regard, allow me a personal note. I was born in 1946 and came of age in the 1960s. I listened to the Doors and their contemporaries in real time and experienced the touchstones of that era as it unfolded. I was a student at Columbia when student protests shut down the university. As a young lawyer, I traveled to Ohio and Mississippi to play a small role in litigation that resulted from the killing by law enforcement authorities of four students at Kent State University and two at Jackson State College.

Batchelor takes a darker view of the 1960s than I think is warranted. Yes, the country was divided. And established institutions were fraying at the edges. But the arc of history seemed to be moving toward social justice.

The biggest concern I have with Roadhouse Blues is that Batchelor keys repeatedly on the war in Vietnam as defining The Sixties and gives short shrift to the civil rights movement. “Everything that happened in the Sixties,” he writes, “culturally, politically, economically, or socially – must be viewed through the lens of Vietnam. The war and the activism it sparked served as the wellspring for everything that happened thereafter.”

But the civil rights movement was a moral crusade and dividing force of equal magnitude.

I should also note that there’s a lot of material in Roadhouse Blues about Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles but not a single mention of Motown (which played a major role in defining the music and culture of The Sixties).

Moreover, as good as the Doors’ music was, there are places where Batchelor goes overboard in stating the group’s importance. “The goal of Roadhouse Blues, “he writes, “is straightforward – to examine how the Doors became the Doors [and to] think through their lasting impact on American and global culture.”

In service of that end, Batchelor says of Jim Morrison, “Few cultural icons have had a more lasting impact.” And he concludes, “The Doors can be used as a lens for looking at the era. Their experiences help us see it clearer and give us context for the whole scope of American history including the country’s present and future.”

That, to me, is an overstatement.

What’s incontrovertible, though, is that the Doors’ music speaks for itself.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – In the Inner Sanctum: Behind the Scenes at Big Fights – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Thomas Hauser

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

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

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2025

David A. Avila

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

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

3 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

5 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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