R.I.P. Don Fraser, California Boxing Icon Dead at Age 92

Don Fraser’s entire career in boxing was spent in Southern California, but his influence extended far beyond his domain. This is reflected in the fact that Fraser has a plaque in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He was ushered into the Canastota shrine in 2005 along with Bobby Chacon, a fighter with whom he was well acquainted. (The other living inductees in the Class of 2005 were boxers Barry McGuigan, Terry Norris and Duilio Loi, and writer Bert Sugar.)

Fraser died this week at his home in Toluca Lake, CA. According to his longtime friend Bill Dempsey-Young, Fraser, a widower, passed away on the night of Oct. 30 of a sudden brain aneurysm after watching the final game of the World Series. He was 92 years old (some sources indicate 94; we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt).

Fraser has one of the longer bios in the IBHOF inductee pages. It could not be otherwise as his career in boxing spanned all or parts of eight decades and he wore so many hats – writer, publicist, matchmaker, promoter, state regulator, you name it.

Fraser graduated from Manual Arts High School, the third oldest high school in Los Angeles. After a stint in the Army, he joined the LA Times as a copy boy in the sports department. In 1952, he became the publicist for Hollywood Legion Stadium. Boxing was really big in Los Angeles back then, an era when the city had only one major league sports franchise, the Rams of the old All-America Football Conference, a team that played third fiddle to the college football teams at UCLA and USC.

When boxing ceased at Legion Stadium – the final card was held on Sept. 12, 1959 – he moved over to the rival Olympic Auditorium where he worked for the despotic Aileen Eaton and alongside matchmaker Don Chargin and his wife Lorraine, the building manager, all three of whom would be voted into the Boxing Hall of Fame, Eaton and Lorraine Chargin posthumously.

When Jack Kent Cooke built the Forum in Inglewood to house his expansion hockey team, he hired Don Fraser to head up his publicity department. In time, Fraser was given a new title, Director of Boxing.

Former LA Times sportswriter Jack Hawn remembered “Dandy Don” Fraser – who was always well-coiffed and wore expensive suits – as a practical joker with a dry wit. As a publicist, said Ross Newhan of the Times, Fraser employed all the gimmicks: “He pictured his fighters with snake charmers, beauty queens, strippers, and congressmen.”

Fraser  pictured as a younger man

From 1981 to 1983, Fraser served as an executive officer with the California State Athletic Commission. He wasn’t happy there (“too much bureaucracy” he said) and went back into the trenches, working as a matchmaker and promoter. In 1985, with partner Roy Englebrecht, he began a series of bi-monthly shows at the Irvine Marriott hotel in Orange County.

There had been shows in the LA suburbs before this, but they drowned in a sea of red ink. The Irvine Marriott shows, held in a ballroom that could accommodate 1,800 with standing room, were wildly successful, at least at the beginning. They were held on Mondays, moving to Thursdays during football season (it would have been suicide going head-to-head with Monday Night Football on ABC) and eventually acquired a TV partner, Channel 5 in Los Angeles.

Before Fraser stepped aside in 1991, handing the reins to Englebrecht, he was hailed for popularizing boxing among the yuppie crowd, a new demographic.

Fraser went on to become the founder and president of the California Boxing Hall of Fame. The organization’s final annual banquet and awards ceremony, staged on Oct. 20 of last year in the Grand Ballroom of the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, was a true gala event, a testimony to the high regard in which Fraser was held. One of the highlights of the evening was the presentation of the Don Fraser Lifetime Achievement Award to ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr.

We here at The Sweet Science send our condolences to Don Fraser’s many friends and loved ones. May he rest in peace.

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