Boxing in the Pages of Sports illustrated: A Short History

Published

1 year ago

January 22, 2024

Boxing in the Pages of Sports illustrated: A Short History

Last week, Sports Illustrated laid off virtually its entire staff. This would seem to presage the end of the print edition, and, if so, it comes as no great surprise. It had become apparent that the storied publication was hanging on by a thread.

Sports Illustrated (henceforth S.I.) debuted with the issue dated Aug. 16, 1954. Eddie Matthews, the slugging third baseman of the Milwaukee Braves, was on the cover. The following year, in September, Rocky Marciano had the distinction of being the first prizefighter to appear on the cover. A few days after the issue hit the newsstands, Marciano defended his heavyweight title with a ninth-round stoppage of Archie Moore in what would prove to be Rocky’s farewell fight.

Boxing was big in those days, as evident by the fact that Marciano’s successor, Floyd Patterson, made four appearances on the S.I. cover. Moreover, it speaks reams that two of Patterson’s would-be conqueror’s, Tom McNeeley and Roy “Cut and Shoot” Harris, were also the subjects of an S.I. cover story. Neither had a snowball’s chance against Patterson, but putting their faces on the cover of S.I. legitimated them in the eyes of casual fans.

Ingemar Johansson, a one-trick pony of sorts, was featured on the cover after upsetting Patterson in 1959 in the first of their three meetings. More than that, S.I. named him the Sportsman of the Year.

There was a back story. S.I. had been running a series of stories detailing mob involvement and corruption in the sweet science and was pushing for the establishment of an international body to regulate the sport. What better person to lead the charge than the reigning heavyweight champion?

“The purpose of this organization must be to restore public confidence in boxing, which has been badly hurt by scandals and to protect the fighters, who have been too often manipulated by powerful promoters and unscrupulous managers,” Ingemar was quoted as saying.

In the ensuing six-plus decades, only two other boxers, Muhammad Ali (1974) and Sugar Ray Leonard (1981), would be named the S.I. Sportsman of the Year.

Ali made his first appearance on the S.I. cover as Cassius Clay in 1963. He and basketball star Michael Jordan would wage a battle for the most S.I. covers, distancing the field like Secretariat in the 1973 Belmont Stakes, with Jordan eventually inching ahead.

Ali appeared with Joe Frazier on the cover on the 25^th anniversary of their first conflagration, the Fight of the Century. He made his 39^th appearance on Sept. 1, 2015, when S.I. re-named its Legacy Award the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award and appeared again the following year in a special souvenir edition following his death.

Ali’s first cover (June 10, 1963) and Mike Tyson’s first cover (Jan. 6, 1986) are two of the most prized by collectors. Newsstand copies (no mailing label) in pristine condition have fetched low five-figure sums at auctions.

Tyson, then sporting the nickname Kid Dynamite, was only 19 years old and had been a pro for only nine months when he made his S.I. debut. In terms of public recognition, no boxer was ever such a comet coming out of the amateur ranks.

—

Although S.I. doubled its circulation and tripled its advertising revenue within five years of its inception, it reportedly did not become profitable until 1964. When it turned the corner, however, it was full speed ahead. By 1970, S.I. ranked fourth in circulation among weekly publications, trailing only TV Guide, Time, and Newsweek. By the end of the century, base circulation topped three million. It would be written that S.I. was read by 19 percent of the adult males in the United States.

On Jan. 20, 1984, a swimsuit model, one Babette March, graced the cover. This would be considered the birth of the S.I. swimsuit era, an annual tradition that evolved into a franchise, spawning calendars, DVDs, pageants, and whatnot.

The sport that got the biggest play in this issue was boxing as it featured the second installment of Jack “Doc” Kearns’ memoir, an 8-page excerpt from his forthcoming autobiography (written with Oscar Fraley).

The previous week, S.I. had caused a furor by publishing Kearns’ “confession” that he had loaded Jack Dempsey’s gloves with plaster of Paris before his match with Jess Willard. (Dempsey sued for libel. His attorney won an out-of-court settlement. The legal proceedings delayed the publication of the memoir and when the book was finally released, the offending portion was deleted. By then the wily Kearns, a central character in the Golden Era of Sports, was long dead.)

Christie Martin appeared on the cover of S.I. in 1996 in the April 15 edition, a watershed moment in the history of female boxing. As for the oddest boxer to make the cover, the honor goes to Gypsy Joe Harris, a colorful character from the mean streets of North Philadelphia whose career was cut short when it was discovered that he was blind in one eye. Although Harris owned a win over welterweight title-holder Curtis Cokes in a non-title fight, he wasn’t even ranked when his face appeared on the S.I. cover in June of 1967.

The Gypsy Joe story was by Mark Kram and one surmises it made the cover simply because Kram’s writing was too good to let the story be buried in the table of contents. Over the years, S.I. employed some of the best boxing writers on the planet including none other than the great Budd Schulberg who edited the publication’s early boxing pieces. The list of outstanding wordsmiths is long with special citations going to Kram and to Pat Putnam, the longest tenured of the boxing writers.

“Watching the magazine deteriorate,” wrote Matthew Rees, “has had the feel of witnessing the decline of a once-iconic athlete.”

As the swimsuits became skimpier, so did the magazine as a whole, gutted by the loss of advertising revenue. True, no one bought the magazine for the ads, but they made the magazine heftier which made the price of it seem like a squarer deal. What happened at S.I. happened at other mass circulation news magazines, dinosaurs in a digital age when we can summon up a wealth of information on the smartphone we carry in the pocket of our pants. Perhaps a third of S.I.’s readers got their copy at a newsstand, perhaps an impulsive purchase dictated by who happened to be on the cover and nowadays, in many communities, the only good newsstands are found at an airport and even they are inferior to the better newsstands of yesteryear that catered to a larger demographic by offering a wider range of publications.

In its glory days and beyond, Sports Illustrated was the gold standard of sports journalism. We miss those days. Thanks for the memories.

—

Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 313: The Misadventures of Canelo and Jake Paul (and More)

Published

16 hours ago

February 7, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 313: The Misadventures of Canelo and Jake Paul (and More)

Boxing news has taken a weird arc.

For the past 20 years or so, social media has replaced newspapers, radio and television as a source for boxing news.

And one thing is certain:

You cannot truly rely on many social media accounts to be accurate. Unless they are connected to actual reputable journalists. There are not that many.

Claims of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Jake Paul reaching an agreement to fight each other this year were rampant on social media sites. No contracts had been signed between the two parties, but several social media accounts claimed the fight was happening. One claimed: “it was official.”

It is not happening as of Friday Feb. 7. 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

A statement by Most Valuable Promotions was sent Friday Feb. 7, to various boxing publications that emphasized the Canelo-Paul fight is not official.

“MVP was deep in negotiations for a blockbuster fight between Jake Paul and Canelo Alvarez on Cinco de Mayo weekend in Las Vegas…This situation is a reminder not to believe everything you read.”

The past few days numerous social media accounts were posting erroneously that Paul and Canelo Alvarez were fighting on a certain date and place. It was jumped on by other social media accounts like Piranhas and gobbled up and spit out as actual verified news.

Fake news is happening more and more. I hate that term but it’s becoming more common.

Many accounts on social media sites are not trained journalists. They don’t understand that being the first to spit out news is not as important as being accurate.

Also, there is no such thing as using the term “according to sources” without naming the source. Who made the claim?

Third, verification of a fight comes from the promoters. They are the most reliable methods of verifying a pending fight. It’s their job. Don’t rely on a fighter, a trainer or somebody’s friend. Call the promoter involved and they will verify.

Otherwise, it’s just rumor and exaggeration.

There are social media accounts with trained journalists. Find out which social media accounts are connected to actual news media sources and established by trained journalists. A real journalist verifies a story before it is published.

R.I.P. Michael Katz

Recently, a highly respected journalist, Michael Katz, passed away. He wrote for various newspapers including the New York Times and for various boxing web sites such as Maxboxing.com and a few others.

Katz covered prize fights beginning in 1968 with the heavyweight fight between Floyd Patterson and Jimmy Ellis. Read the full story in www.TheSweetscience.com by Arne Lang.

I first came across Katz probably in 1994 when I began covering boxing events as a writer for the L.A .Times. During media press conferences Katz was one of the more prominent writers and very outspoken.

The New York-bred Katz could tell you stories about certain eras in boxing. I happened to overhear one or two while sitting around a dinner buffet in the media rooms in Las Vegas. He always had interesting things to say.

Boxing writers come in waves during each era. Today this new era of boxing writers has dwindled to almost nothing. Writing has been overtaken by boxing videographers. The problem is during an actual fight, videographers cannot record the fight itself. The media companies sponsoring the fight cards don’t allow it. So, after a fight is completed, very few descriptions of a fight exist. Only interviews.

Written journalism is shrinking due to the lack of newspapers, magazines and periodicals. The only sure way to know what happened is by seeing the fight on tape. You won’t see many stories on a bulletin board at a boxing gym because there are fewer boxing writers today. The written history of a championship fight has shrunk to almost nothing.

Katz was one of the superb writers from the 1960s to the 2000s. It’s a shrinking base that gets smaller every day. It’s a dying breed but there are still some remaining.

Fights in SoCal

All Star Boxing returns with two female fights on the card on Saturday Feb. 8, at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

Stephanie Simon (1-0) and Archana Sharma (3-2) are scheduled to headline the boxing card in a super lightweight main event. Others on the boxing event include Ricardo De La Torre, Bryan Albarran and Jose Mancilla to name a few.

Doors open at 6 p.m. No one under 14 will be admitted. For more information call (323) 816-6200.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 10:30 a.m. Derek Chisora (35-13) vs Otto Wallin (27-2).

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Biyarslanov TKOed Mimoune at Montreal; Jalolov Conspicuous by his Absence

Published

1 day ago

February 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Biyarslanov-TKOed-Mimoune-in-Montreal-Jalolov-Conspicuous-by-his-Absence

It was a cold and snowy night in Montreal, depressing the turnout at the Montreal Casino where Camille Estephan’s Eye of the Tiger Promotions presented a six-fight card that aired in the U.S. on ESPN+.

The match-up that had the most intrigue, although not the main event and not expected to be remotely competitive, centered around heavyweight Bakhodir Jalolov who would be returning to the professional ranks after an absence of almost 14 months during which he fattened his extraordinary amateur profile. But the Montreal Commission nixed the match, ostensibly because Jalolov took sick after the weigh-in.

Main Event

The main event was a 10-round junior welterweight contest between well-acquainted southpaws Arthur Biyarslanov (pictured) and Mohamed Mimoune. The Toronto-based, Russian-born Biyarslanov, nicknamed the Chechen Wolf, had no trouble with his 37-year-old French opponent, taking Mimoune out in the second round.

Mimoune did not appear to be badly hurt after Biyarslanov knocked him to the canvas, but he had no antidote when Biyarslanov swarmed after him. With nothing come back Biyarslanov’s way, the referee sensibly waived it off. The official time was 2:16 of round two.

Biyarslanov (18-0, 15 KOs) looks like he can make some noise in the talent-rich 140-pound division. Mimoune, who had been stopped five times previously, declined to 24-7.

Co-Feature

Albert Ramirez, a 32-year-old Venezuelan, ranked in the Top Five by all four relevant sanctioning bodies, moved a step closer to a title fight with a third-round stoppage of Marco Calic.

As an amateur, Ramirez, who improved to 20-0 (17 KOs), defeated Cuban stalwarts Erislandy Savon and Julio Cesar La Cruz in 5-round fights. Tonight, he put his opponent away with a fusillade of punches. After rising from a knockdown, Calic got a brief respite when Ramirez was warned for an illegal punch behind the head, but Cacic’s body language informed us that the end was near.

The official time was 2:10 of round three. A 37-year-old Croatian making his North American debut, Calic lost for the second time in 17 starts.

In a match-up between former Olympians contested at the catch-weight of 178 pounds, Montreal-based Mehmet Unal, who represented Turkey in the 2016 Games, scored a third-round stoppage of Ezequiel Maderna. The final punch was a looping right hand that knocked Maderna off his pins, leading to what some would argue was a quick stoppage. The official time was 1:41 of round three.

It was the second knockdown scored by Unal, the first coming in the previous round, a knockdown that was more of a push. But Maderna was holding his own in what was an entertaining fight for as long as it lasted. Unal, although rough-around-the-edges, is undefeated (12-0, 10 KOs) as a pro. Maderna, a 38-year-old Argentine, saw his ledger dip to 31-14.

Fast rising welterweight Christopher Guerrero scored the best win of his career with a fourth-round stoppage of Swiss journeyman Dennis Dauti. A two-time Canadian amateur champion, born in Mexico, Guerrero channeled Julio Cesar Chavez and ended the bout with a left hook to the body. Dauti made it to his feet although he was in obvious pain. Guerreo then tossed him to the canvas (officially a slip) and the referee waived it off before Guerrero (13-0, 8 KOs) had the opportunity to land another punch. The 31-year-old Dauti (25-6-2) hadn’t previously been stopped.

Super middleweight Moreno Fendero who has drawn comparisons with stablemate Christian Mbilli, had an easy workout with Edison Demaj, stopping the German-Albanian trial horse in the third round.

The 25-year-old Moreno, a former member of the French Army, scored three knockdowns before the match was halted at the 1:36 mark of the third round. The final knockdown was a looping right hand that landed high on Demaj’s temple. He beat the count, but the referee waived the match off with the approval of Demaj’s corner. Fendero improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The overmatched Demaj falls to 13-4-1.

In the TV opener, lightweight Avery Martin-Duval, a local product, advanced to 13-0-1 (7) with an 8-round unanimous decision over French import Keshan Koaly (6-1-2) The scores were 77-74 and 77-73 twice

From Nice with roots in the French territory of Guadalupe, Koaly knocked Martin-Duval to his knees in the second frame with a jab to the midsection. Two rounds later, the local lad landed the best punch of the fight, staggering Koaly with a counter right hand that immediately caused a purplish welt to develop under his right eye. From that point on, Martin-Duval controlled the action.

Upsets are extremely rare on Eye of the Tiger events. Tonight was no exception.

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Bakhodir Jalolov Returns on Thursday in Another Disgraceful Mismatch

Published

4 days ago

February 4, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Bakhodir-Jalolov-Returns-on-Thursday-in-Another-Disgraceful-Mismatch

How good is Bakhodir Jalolov? Some would argue that in terms of pure talent, the six-foot-seven southpaw from Uzbekistan who has knocked out all 14 of his opponents since turning pro, is better than any heavyweight you can name. Others say that this can’t possibly be true or his braintrust wouldn’t keep feeding him junk food. Jalolov has been brought along as gingerly as Christopher Lovejoy who was exposed as a fraud after running up a skein of 19 straight fast knockouts,

One thing that’s indisputable is that Jalolov was one of the best amateurs to come down the pike in recent memory. A three-time Olympian and two-time gold medalist, Jalolov won 58 of his last 59 amateur bouts. The exception was a match in which he did not compete which translated into a win by walkover for his opponent, countryman Lazizbek Mullojonov.

The circumstances are vague. Was Jalolov a no-show because of an injury or illness or a technicality? Amateur boxing, save in a few places or in an Olympic year, is the quintessential niche sport. The mainstream media does not cover it.

What we do know, thanks to boxrec, is that Jalolov caught up with Mullojonov in May of last year in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk and won a split decision. And Mollojonov was no slouch. He too won a gold medal at the Paris Games, winning the heavyweight division to give the powerful Uzbekistan contingent the championship in the two heaviest weight classes.

Jalolov, whose late father was a champion free-style wrestler, has answered the bell as a pro for only 35 rounds. The Belgian-Congolese campaigner Jack Mulowayi came closest to taking the big Uzbek the distance, lasting into the eighth round of an 8-round fight. But when Jalolov closed the show, he did it with a highlight reel knockout, knocking Mulowayi into dreamland with a vicious left hook.

The KO was reminiscent of Jalolov’s most talked-about win as an amateur, his first-round blast-out of Richard Torrez Jr at a tournament in Ekaterinburg, Russia, in 2019. Torrez, knocked out cold with a left hook, left the ring on a stretcher and was removed to a hospital for evaluation.

This was the first AIBA-sanctioned international tournament in which pros were allowed to compete and WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman was incensed, calling the match-up “criminal” in a tweet that was widely circulated. (Jalolov then had six pro fights under his belt.) They would meet again in the finals of the Tokyo Olympiad with the Uzbek winning a unanimous decision.

Perhaps there will be a third meeting down the road. When Jared Anderson was roughed-up and stopped by Martin Bakole, Torrez Jr (currently 12-0, 11 KOs) vaulted ahead of him on the list of the top home-grown American heavyweights. But Torrez Jr, a short-armed heavyweight who overcomes his physical limitations with a windmill offense, would be a heavy underdog should they ever meet again.

Bakhodir Jalolov’s last bout before heading off to Paris was against the obscure South African Chris Thompson. His match on Thursday at the Montreal Casino in Montreal pits him against an obscure 33-year-old Frenchman, David Spilmont.

Spilmont’s last two opponents were the same guy, an undersized Lithuanian slug who has lost 36 of his 41 documented fights. It seems almost inevitable that Spilmont will suffer the same fate as Thompson who was KOed in the first round.

There’s talk that Jalolov doesn’t really care how far he advances at the professional level; that he has his sights set on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles where he would have an opportunity to become only the fourth boxer to win three Olympic gold medals, joining the immortal Teofilo Stevenson, Hungarian legend Laszlo Papp, and Cuban standout Felix Savon. Were he to accomplish the hat trick, they would build monuments to him in Uzbekistan. But, if that is his mindset, he’s skating on thin ice. There’s no guarantee that boxing will be on the docket at the Los Angeles Games and, if so, the powers-that-be may choose to roll back the calendar to the days when the competition was off-limits to anyone with professional experience.

While it’s true that Jalolov needs to work off some rust, a pox on promoter Camille Estephan and his enabler, the Quebec Boxing Commission, for not dredging up a more credible opponent than the grossly overmatched David Spilmont.

—

Jalolov vs. Spilmont is ostensibly the co-feature. The main event is a 10-round junior welterweight clash between Movladdin “Arthur” Biyarslanov (17-0, 14 KOs) and Spilmont stablemate Mohamed Mimoune (24-6, 5 KOs). Undefeated light heavyweights Albert Ramirez and Mehmet Unal will appear in separate bouts on the undercard. The Feb. 6 event, currently consisting of seven bouts, will air in the U.S. on ESPN+ starting at 6:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. PT.

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