Scenes From Hall of Fame Weekend in Canastota, Home to Boxing’s Family

As the world continues to return to some semblance of normality post-pandemic, this year’s International Boxing Hall of Fame Weekend was special. A trilogy of induction classes was officially enshrined on one historic weekend. For Canastota, a small town in upstate New York, this year’s celebration brought back a sentimental and financial influx to the town that had seen its busiest weekend go dormant since 2019.

Among the many things that make boxing unique from other sports, it’s the access to the warriors that fans have cheered, supported, and grown to admire. Boxing Hall of Fame Weekend represents this access at its core. As fans attended the scheduled events over the course of the four-day weekend (events that were free for the most part), one thing quickly became clear: Any fan that watched the ceremonies, sought out pictures or autographs, was surrounded by a group of friends or family members.

It was this theme of family that continued to weave itself around the weekend and eventually would wrap itself around the enshrinement ceremony on Sunday afternoon. With no real schedule of arrivals for the luminaries being inducted, fans gathered around on the grounds of the Hall of Fame from early in the morning through the final event of that day’s evening. Up-close conversations took place along with question-and-answer sessions along with tours of the actual museum, which kept fans busy as they awaited their chance to speak to their favorite inductees. At any given moment you could run into boxing insiders as they too enjoyed the sights and sounds of the weekend.

This reporter ran into 154-pound WBC (secondary) champion Sebastian Fundora (19-0-1, 13 KO’s) as he walked around the museum with his promoter. “I feel motivated looking at all of this history and hopefully one day my stuff will be in here. When my career is over, I’d love for my family to come here and see that I made a mark on the sport,” stated Fundora. How refreshing that despite all the recent success enjoyed by the 24-year-old Florida native, including being victorious in the leading candidate for fight of the year, he was able recognize the amount of focus needed to remain on track to possibly being recognized here one day in an immortal way for his family to witness.

For publicist extraordinaire Bill Caplan, being a member of the 2022 induction class was a bit overwhelming. Caplan, 86, has been involved in boxing in some capacity for more than a half a century working with several generations of fighters, promoters, managers, and media members that found their place on the wall in the Hall.

“When I first got the call, it was a bit much for me to take. I had to pull over since I was driving when I answered the call. After I gathered myself, I first thought about when I was a child and my dad and brother-in-law would take me to the fights,” said Caplan. “That was when I first fell in love with the sport. My brother-in-law was in the business and got me my first job in 1962. I worked for my childhood hero Joe Louis when he was promoting in Hollywood, California.”

After taking a moment to gather his breath, Caplan ended the conversation by stating, “I’ve worked with so many great fighters and people in boxing. People don’t always get to see what fighters do. George Foreman and Oscar De La Hoya gave so much back to where they came from. Building hospitals in East L.A. and giving money back to Houston. I’m proud and humbled to be part of that family.”

As the weekend started to wind down and fans seemed to be tapped-out from all the picture-taking and autograph-seeking, everyone gathered in the event center at the Turning Stone Hotel and Casino for the enshrinement ceremony. Posthumous inductees were represented by a family member. The two sons of former Showtime executive Jay Larkin and the brother of the great writer George Kimball gave impassioned speeches.

Whether it was marquee names like Floyd Mayweather discussing the love for his father and older sister before dedicating his Hall of Fame ring to his father and citation to his mother, Bernard Hopkins bringing his son on stage and speaking to him about earning your place in history, James Toney, who during his career was never at a loss for words, simply saying “thank you” to the fans before yelling out to his mother, “mama, we did it,” or the always stoic Miguel Cotto who thanked the fans in English before turning to his family to profess his love and dedication to them in Spanish, it was special.

The Sweet Science’s very own Bernard Fernandez was inducted with the class of 2020. His absence spoke volumes about his priorities in life. His beloved wife has been dealing with major health issues which would have prevented her from making the trip with him. Wanting to spend every possible moment with her was not lost on the warriors that he covered during his career. Bernard Hopkins, along with his long-time friend and writer Joe Santoliquito, called Fernandez and inducted him over the phone so he could hear the cheers from his peers.

It was Lou DiBella, another 2020 Hall of Fame inductee, who summed up everything that the weekend honoring members of the boxing family is all about:

“I want to thank my dad who is not here with us any longer, he was my hero and gave me two of the greatest lessons I ever learned. If you want to be respected, earn it, cause nothing comes for free. Second, you can have the greatest house, drive a Bentley, and have a $100-thousand-dollar watch, but if you lost your humanity, you’ve got nothing. I’ve gotten to meet some of the most amazing people on earth, not bad for a niche sport. Our niche sport is huge, our sport is different, we’re more relatable. We’re a microcosm of the real world. Cause everyone must fight, whether it’s our internal demons or for our kids. I’ve been a critic of this sport, but that’s because I love boxing. I love it like a brother or a sister that you know can do better. That you want to see reach its full potential. I love boxing.

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