Bobby Goodman (1939-2023): An Appreciation

Published

2 years ago

March 7, 2023

Bobby Goodman died on Sunday, March 5, at age 83. That’s a loss for boxing.

Goodman’s family personified the American immigrant experience of an earlier time. Moses Golubitsky was born in Tsarist Russia and began the voyage to America with his parents at age eight. His father died at sea of pneumonia. His mother opened a restaurant in the living room of their home to support her family in the new world. Moses Gubitsky’s name was changed to Murray Goodman. As a teenager, he worked as an office boy. By the time he was twenty-one, he was sports editor for the Hearst wire service. Eventually, Madison Square Garden hired him as a publicist. Soon, he was MSG’s director of public relations. Eventually, he opened a public relations agency of his own.

Bobby (Murray’s son) was born in the Bronx in 1939. In that era, when fighters went to training camp for a big fight, newspaper men (there were no newspaper women in boxing) went with them.

“My father would coordinate both camps,” Bobby later reminisced. “So I grew up in boxing. Boxing is in my blood. I was literally conceived in a training camp at Grossinger’s.”

Bobby spent his childhood in camps with the likes of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson. “I remember Rocky Marciano playing ball with me,” he recalled. “I’d pitch; he’d catch. We had imaginary batters and he called balls and strikes. Except one day, Charlie Goldman [Marciano’s trainer] saw us and shouted at me, ‘Bobby Goodman; what the f*** are you doing? That ain’t a little league catcher. He’s the heavyweight champion of the world.'”

As Bobby grew older, he helped his father with PR during the day and worked in a bar at night. Then he began working fulltime with his father, handling publicity for most of the big closed-circuit fights of that era.

On October 30, 1974, Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round of their heavyweight championship fight in Zaire. A lot has been written since then about Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy and whether the ring ropes were loosened that night to accommodate him. Bobby answered that question for me.

“Before any fight,” Bobby recounted when I interviewed him while researching Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, “Angelo [Dundee] would go down to check the ring and make sure it was all right. In Zaire, the fight was at four in the morning, so we went at noon the day before. And the ring was awful. It was brand new but it hadn’t been set up right. One corner was sinking into the mud, so we had to put concrete slabs under the cornerpost. The padding was Ensaflor, which is the universally approved safety flooring. It’s a foam rubber that provides maximum safety for the boxer if he hits his head, but it has to be kept in a cool environment. Once you put Ensaflor in heat and humidity, like any foam rubber, it gets soft and mushy. We’d asked the ring crew not to put it down until the evening of the fight, but they’d put it down early. That meant the ring would be slow, which was definitely to Ali’s disadvantage. The canvas was new and much too slippery, so we put some resin on it. Then some guy came along with a bucket and sponge, trying to wipe the ring clean. Angelo asked, ‘What are you doing?’ And the guy answered, ‘The television people told us the ring was dirty.’ Angelo said, ‘That’s not dirt, that’s resin. You gotta put resin in the ring.’

“So all those things were going on,” Bobby continued. “But the worst problem was the ropes. New ropes stretch after one night’s use. They have to be readjusted because they become loose. And because these ropes were new and had been left out in heat and humidity, they’d already started to stretch. Plus, to make matters worse, you can tighten ropes by turning the turnbuckles in each corner. But here, the workmen had already tightened the turnbuckles as far as they’d go. So we had to readjust the ropes. We didn’t loosen them. We made them tighter. If we hadn’t, with the heat and humidity and preliminary bouts, by fight time they would have been draped on the floor. The way we did it was, we took off the clamps, pulled the ropes through the turnbuckles, lined everything up, and cut off the slack. We took about a foot out of each rope, and retightened the turnbuckles by hand so they could be tightened more just before the fight. Angelo even told the ring chief that, right before the first bout, he should tighten the ropes by turning the turnbuckle. And then, before the main event, they were supposed to tighten them again. That never happened. They just didn’t do it. So by the time Ali got in the ring, the ropes were slack. But there was nothing underhanded in what Angelo did. In fact, Dick Sadler and Archie Moore, who were Foreman’s cornermen, saw us that afternoon in the ring. Angelo and I were sweating our butts off, cutting the ropes with a double-edged razor blade because nobody could find a knife. We were pulling them through, taping up the ends. And we said, ‘Come on! You know, you guys can help.’ But it was hot, and they wouldn’t give us a hand.”

Bobby later spent twenty-five years with Don King Productions in capacities that ranged from director of public relations to matchmaker to oversight of all boxing operations. He was a senior vice president and head of boxing for Madison Square Garden for almost a decade. At one point, he set up his own promotional company.

Wherever he went, Bobby was a team player. On fight nights with chaos all around him, he was a calm steadying presence in the eye of the storm. During his career, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America with the “James J. Walker Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing” and inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Bobby and his wife were married for more than a half-century. They had four daughters and nine grandchildren. Kathy died several years ago. It was a horrible blow.

“I always figured I’d go first,” Bobby told me. “I feel lost without her.”

His own health soon suffered a marked decline.

Bobby loved boxing. “I believe in boxing,” he said one day over lunch when we were talking about his sojourn through the sweet science. “Boxing has been my life; not just not my job. I like to think that I’ve been good for the sport; that I’ve never hurt anyone or done anything to hurt boxing.” Then he added, “There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted to do but be in boxing. I still get goosebumps when the lights go down and the ring announcer says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen; for the heavyweight championship of the world.’ I’m a very lucky guy. If I had to live my life all over again, I’d live it the same damn way.”

I’ll miss Bobby. He was part of an ever-dwindling group of people – men like Bruce Trampler, Don Elbaum, Don Majeski, Ron Katz, and Russell Peltz – who got into boxing young, loved it, understood it, stayed with it, and helped keep its traditions alive.

“Losing Bobby hurts,” Russell Peltz says. “As time goes by, the number of people who were in the trenches and remember boxing the way it was and understand how great a sport it can be keeps getting smaller. So many people now; when you mention boxing, they think of boxing the way it is today. They don’t understand what a champion is. They don’t understand the best fighting the best. Boxing just lost a piece of its past.”

And its future.

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.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

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.”

Up Next

Terry McGovern: The Year of the Butcher – Part Two, The Dixon of Old

Don't Miss

PEDs and Conor Benn: An About-Face in the Court of Public Opinion

Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More

Published

19 hours ago

November 1, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-303-Spotlights-on-Lightweights-and-More

Those lightweights.

Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.

Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.

Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.

Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.

“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.

Even in Las Vegas.

Verona, New York

Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.

Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.

“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.

Foster disagrees.

“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.

Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).

Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.

“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.

Muratalla likes challenges too.

“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.

Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship

WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.

Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.

But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.

“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.

In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.

Bad choice for Mucino.

Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.

Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.

Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.

Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.

“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.

It should be exciting.

Fights to Watch

Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bakhram Murtalaziev was the Fighter of the Month in October

Published

2 days ago

October 31, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Bakhram-Murtalaziev-was-the-Fighter-of-the-Month-in-October

As we close the book on October, let’s look back at the month’s stellar performances. Kenshiro Teraji added another exclamation point to his brilliant career with an 11^th-round stoppage of Cristofer Rosales. England’s Jack Catterall, considered no more than a decent domestic-level talent for most of his career, showed that he had been underrated with a comprehensive 12-round decision over declining Regis Prograis. But the top performance, by a landslide, was delivered by Bakhram Murtalaziev who annihilated Tim Tszyu on Oct. 19 in Orlando, Florida.

Murtalaziev was undefeated (22-0, 16 KOs) and the reigning IBF junior middleweight champion, but he was the underdog and the “B” side. As champions go, and there are roughly five dozen across the 17 weight divisions, the California-based Russian ranked among the least well-known. He had won his title in Berlin with an 11^th-round stoppage of an unexceptional 38-year-old German-Ecuadorian campaigner, Jack Culcay, and he would be making his first defense.

Managed by Egis Klimas who also handles Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, among others, Bakhram Murtalaziev came from a good barn in the vernacular of a horseplayer, but on paper that alone was insufficient to get him over the hump against Tim Tszyu who a few short months earlier was widely considered the best 154-pound boxer in the world.

That was before he met up with Sebastian Fundora who blemished his record, but that setback could have been written off as a fluke.

As we recall, Tszyu was scheduled to fight Keith Thurman in the initial PBC offering on Amazon Prime Video, but Thurman suffered a biceps injury in training and Fundora was bumped up from the undercard to fill the breach. With only 12 days’ notice, Tim Tszyu went from fighting a five-foot-seven fighter who fights out of an orthodox stance to fighting a southpaw who stood almost a full foot taller. The “Towering Inferno” has his limitations, but poses a special problem to anyone, let alone an opponent with little time to formulate a good game plan.

Tszyu was hampered in the Fundora fight by a gash on his hairline that hampered his vision. The injury happened in the second round when he ducked under Fundora and walked into an elbow. The gash bled copiously throughout the fight and yet the best that Fundora could do was win a split (albeit fair) decision.

To say that Tszyu failed to rebound from the Fundora misadventure would be putting it mildly. Murtalaziev steamrolled him, knocking him to the canvas four times in all before Tszyu’s corner tossed in the towel at the 1:55 mark of the third stanza. It was painful to watch. Referee Chris Young was faulted for allowing the match to continue as long as it did. Compounding Tszyu’s misery, his celebrated father, a first ballot Hall of Famer, was ringside. Kostya Tszyu hadn’t seen his oldest son fight in the flesh since Tim’s pro debut in 2016.

Although the dichotomy is imperfect, Tim Tszyu, who turns 30 on Saturday, is more of a puncher than a boxer. That may work against him so far as clawing his way back to a position of prominence. The noted boxing coach Stephen “Breadman” Edwards, a keen student of the history of boxing in the modern era, expressed this sentiment in a Q and A story for Boxing Scene. “Destructive fighters usually don’t come back to full capacity after bad KO losses,” he said, citing John Mugabi, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, and Naseem Hamed to illustrate his point. Moreover, added Edwards, “No one will ever be afraid of him again.”

But there were two stories that emerged from the Murtalaziev-Tszyu fight. Tim Tszyu crashed, but Bakhram Murtalaziev emerged from obscurity, announcing his presence (pardon the cliché) as a force to be reckoned with. As for his next assignment, the best guess is that it will come against Sebastian Fundora or Errol Spence Jr. who are expected to meet early next year. And based on Murtalaziev’s stunning performance in Orlando, it will be impossible to bet against him.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later

Published

3 days ago

October 30, 2024

The Sweet Science

Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later

By TSS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT JAMIE REBNER — In sports, middle-aged athletes are not supposed to beat opponents who are half their age and in their athletic primes. Only the greatest ones can use guile, technique, and experience to compensate for the dulling of speed, reflexes, and athleticism that have unavoidably eroded with time.

That is why George Foreman’s feat of reclaiming the heavyweight title at 45 is so impressive. It was thirty years ago this coming Tuesday, Nov 5, 1994, that Foreman scored a monumental upset in knocking out Michael Moorer to win back the title he had lost twenty years prior against Muhammad Ali in The Rumble in the Jungle. In doing so, Big George became the oldest heavyweight champion, breaking the record previously held by Jersey Joe Walcott, who had won the title at 38.

When Foreman beat Moorer, he was in the twilight of his second career, a comeback that began in 1987. George had retired in 1977 after losing to Jimmy Young and experiencing a spiritual awakening in his locker room. That led him to become a minister and devote himself to his family and congregation. During his retirement, he opened a youth center in Houston, which required much financial support, prompting him to return to the ring.

After winning 24 straight fights from 1987-1990, Foreman lost his first title shot by decision to Evander Holyfield in 1991. He rebounded from that loss with three more wins before getting a crack at the WBO title against Tommy Morrison in 1993. But his performance against Morrison was disappointing and he lost another decision. After that, Foreman was out of the ring for 17 months before he was gifted another title shot against Moorer.

Foreman got that gift because Moorer, due to his sullen demeanor and curtness with the media, was not a draw with the fans. He was also an unproven champion, having beaten Holyfield for two belts only seven months prior. So. Moorer needed a name opponent who could bring in the crowds for his first title defense. And the other top heavyweights like Oliver McCall (WBC champ), Lennox Lewis, and Riddick Bowe didn’t have close to Foreman’s drawing power. So. deserving or not, Foreman was chosen as the challenger to make a fight that would be worth the public’s attention and pockets.

Even Foreman was surprised by getting selected to fight Moorer. “I never in my wildest imagination thought I’d get a title shot again,” he told Associated Press sports columnist Tim Dahlberg. Still, George was determined to make his third time a charm.

But as motivated as George was, there was an irrefutable gap in speed between himself and the much younger champion. From the opening bell, Moorer used his superior quickness and reflexes to make Foreman look stiff and slow. And although George landed punches early on, he fired them one at a time while Moorer countered with multiple shots. But despite Moorer’s advantage in connects, his trainer Teddy Atlas advised him from the get-go not to stand in front of Foreman and make himself a stationary target for a right-hand bomb.

But Moorer failed to heed that advice as he continued to outwork Foreman in the middle rounds. Although he was winning, Moorer’s overconfidence kept him at close quarters, and he continued to circle unwisely to his left and into Foreman’s dangerous right hand. And despite absorbing many quality shots, Foreman never appeared hurt or discouraged thanks to his granite chin and unyielding resolve. He was determined to win and he was willing to walk through as many flush shots as he needed to do so.

With Moorer content to stay in range, Foreman gladly returned his firepower and he landed some telling right crosses, uppercuts, and plenty of thudding body blows during the battle. And while Moorer continued to pile up points and rounds, as long as George was marching forward and throwing shots, he had a puncher’s chance.

And with a minute to go in round ten, that punch came. After missing a three-punch combination, Foreman scored with a one-two, with the right hand landing on the forehead. He immediately repeated that combination but this time aimed the right hand lower on Moorer’s jaw. That slight adjustment caused his bulldozer right to collide perfectly with Moorer’s chin, sending the champion crashing to the canvas and sprawled onto his back. The champion couldn’t beat the count, and just like that, the fight was over, Moorer’s short-lived title run ending before it ever truly began.

With a single, shattering blow, Foreman etched his name into boxing history. Wearing the same trunks from Zaire 20 years before, he was now heavyweight champion of the world once again. It was a shocking result that defied conventional wisdom since seldom do 45-year-old boxers score knockouts over champions in their athletic primes. But Foreman reminded us that he was anything but your typical quadragenarian. He was special, and he had two distinct heavyweight championship reigns to prove it.

—

About the author:

Jamie Rebner lives in Toronto, Canada. He has been a freelance boxing writer since 2016 and his writing has appeared in The Fight City, Boxing News Online, The Ring, and Ringside Seat magazine. His Substack blog is Fight Fundamental, and he is currently writing a book about George Foreman’s comeback. He is also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @J_NReb.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!