I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be who I want.
— CASSIUS CLAY, AFTER WINNING THE HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE FROM SONNY LISTON IN 1964
If a great heavyweight champion is symbolic of his era—as Sullivan, Corbett, Jeffries, Johnson, Dempsey, Louis, and Marciano were of theirs—then Muhammad Ali was the perfect representative of the turbulent 1960s. Ali was boxing’s equivalent of the Beatles, the phenomenal British rock band that arrived on the scene at the same time. The presence of both was a harbinger of seismic cultural changes that went beyond music and sports. When Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali) took the heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in February 1964, it signaled the dawn of a new era for boxing—the Muhammad Ali era. The heavyweight championship was still the most important title in the world of sports, so when Ali spoke, people paid attention.
Outside of the ring, the brash and confident champion announced that he was aligned with the controversial black separatist organization known as “The Nation of Islam.” When he refused induction into the army in 1967, citing his opposition to the Vietnam War, he became even more of a polarizing figure. Ali claimed conscientious-objector status based on his religion. The federal government was not convinced. He was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison. Ali was free on bail while his case was appealed, but state boxing commissions would not allow him into the ring for the next three and a half years. In June 1971 the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.
Before his enforced layoff Ali’s magnificent athleticism and boxing skills enabled him to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” as he defeated one challenger after another. But he was not the only boxer grabbing all the headlines— at least not on the sports pages. In addition to Ali the 1960s saw an entirely new crop of boxing stars dominate the sport, most of whom were either black or Latino. Joe Frazier, Bob Foster, Dick Tiger, Jose Napoles, Emile Griffith, Luis Rodriguez, Carlos Ortiz, Nocolino Loche, Antonio Cervantes, and Eder Jofre were among a score of outstanding boxers who could have held their own with the best of any previous era. The same could be said of 1970s stars Roberto Duran, Rubin Olivares, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Aaron Pryor, Alexis Arguello, Carlos Monzon, Marvin Hagler, Rodrigo Valdez, and Larry Holmes.
The decades that followed were not devoid of great boxers, but their numbers were steadily reduced to a mere handful when compared to the depth of talent and greatness that was the hallmark of the Golden Age. It was during this time that New York City and Madison Square Garden lost their preeminent positions, and the gambling hot spots of Las Vegas and Atlantic City became the sport’s central venues for championship contests.
Those fans hoping for a Jewish world champion would not have much to cheer about until Mike Rossman and Saoul Mamby battled their way to the top in the late 1970s.
Rossman, whose real last name is DePiano, is the son of an Italian Catholic father and a Jewish mother. His father suggested he use his mother’s maiden name to attract Jewish fans.
Mike had a pleasing and technically proficient boxer-puncher style that featured excellent footwork, intelligent use of the left jab, counterpunching skills, and knockout power in his right fist. His greatest triumph was winning the light-heavyweight title in 1978 with a stunning 13th-round TKO upset of Argentina’s formidable Victor Galindez. In conquering Galindez, Rossman defeated one of the best light heavyweights of the past 50 years. Rossman was also the first Jewish-American boxer in 40 years to win a world boxing title. But his tenure as champion was short-lived. Seven months later Galindez stopped him in the ninth round to regain the title. Rossman retired in 1983 with a 44-7-3 (27 KOs) record.
Saoul Mamby is the son of a mother of Spanish descent who converted to Judaism. His father is from the Caribbean Island of Jamaica. Saoul became a bar mitzvah at the Mount Horeb congregation in the Bronx. After service in the army that included a year in Vietnam, he embarked on a brief amateur boxing career and compiled a 25-5 record. Saoul turned pro in 1969, and 11 years later won the light-welterweight title. He made seven successful defenses before losing the title on a controversial decision to Leroy Haley.
Saoul was a highly skilled but cautious boxer who emphasized defense above all. He was stopped only once in 85 pro fights (at the age of 45), and is one of the few fighters to last the full 10 rounds with a prime Roberto Duran. But his safety-first style and lack of aggression cost him many decisions. Even so, the fact that he is one of only three boxers in the entire history of the sport to have fought throughout five decades is an amazing achievement. Saoul fought his last bout in 2008 when he was 60 years old! The bout took place in the Cayman Islands (one of the few places that would sanction a professional fight involving a 60-year-old boxer). He lost a 10-round decision to a 31-year-old boxer with a dismal record. As usual Saoul emerged unscathed. His final stats: 45-34-6 (19 KOs).
Rossman and Mamby were among the last fighters to win a championship before the proliferation of organization title belts in the 1980s made the words “world champion” virtually meaningless.
Another highly rated Jewish boxer was Moroccan-born Nessim Max Cohen, who won the middleweight championship of France in 1971. Five years later, in his only attempt at a world title, he was stopped by the great Colombian knockout artist Rodrigo Valdez. Tunisian-born Felix Brami won France’s super bantamweight title in 1972 and was a rated contender for 22 months, although he never fought for a world title. Flyweight contender Henry Nissen, the son of Holocaust survivors, was born in a DP (Displaced Persons) camp in Germany in 1948. One year later his family settled in Australia, where Henry became a professional boxer in 1970. Within 14 months of turning pro he won both the Australian and Commonwealth (British Empire) flyweight titles. He retired shortly after losing the Commonwealth title in 1974.
Despite the paucity of Jewish boxers in the 1980s and ’90s, a few standouts managed to achieve a measure of success, and therefore deserve mention. New Jersey’s Kenny Bogner briefly attained contender status in the lightweight division. France’s Gilles Elbilia was both the European and French welterweight champion when he lost to Detroit’s Milton McCrory for the WBC world welterweight title in 1984. Gary Jacobs, a highly rated Jewish boxer from Scotland, challenged welterweight champion Pernell Whitaker in 1994, but despite a fine effort he came up short after 12 rounds. Dana Rosenblatt was a top-10 contender in the middleweight division and finished out his career with only one loss in 40 pro fights.
By the time Fabrice Bénichou, who is believed to be of Spanish-Hebrew heritage, captured the IBF super bantamweight title (aka, junior featherweight) in 1989, at least four other sanctioning organizations had anointed their own champions in that new weight class. Fifty years earlier boxing fans and governing authorities had correctly rejected the 122-pound weight class as superfluous and unnecessary, since only a few pounds separated it from the well-established bantamweight (118-pound) and featherweight (126-pound) divisions.
If one searches hard enough, there are still a handful of Jewish boxers to be found today. The most prominent are Yuri Foreman and Dmitriy Salita. Both are Russian-born immigrants who arrived in America during the 1990s.
Salita and Foreman are Orthodox Jews who strictly adhere to the kosher dietary laws and will not fight on the Sabbath. Salita is affiliated with the Lubavitcher Hasidim. Foreman is studying to be a rabbi. The journey these men have taken mirrors that of their Golden Age counterparts. They came to America as poor immigrants and used boxing to improve their economic and social status. The main difference is in their learning curve as boxers. Each had less than 30 fights when they challenged for a title. The total number of rounds was 176 for Salita and 166 for Foreman. Back in 1925, the average numbers for a challenger were 84 fights and 644 rounds.1
Salita, a welterweight, is a former New York Golden Gloves champion. He turned pro in 2001 and has lost only two of 38 bouts. Foreman is also a former New York Golden Gloves champion. In 2009 he won the WBA super welterweight title belt, but lost it seven months later to former champion Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico. He retired in 2014 and is continuing his rabbinical studies.
The Foreman-Cotto bout was the first boxing championship staged at the brand-new Yankee Stadium. Ironically, the very first championship match staged at the original Yankee Stadium 87 years earlier featured not one but two Jewish boxers in the main event—Benny Leonard and Lew Tendler.
According to Larry Lawrence, an erudite memorabilia collector and sports maven, if a dedicated sports fanatic had fallen into a Rip Van Winkle sleep back in 1955 and woke up in the twenty-first century, his first words would probably be “What the hell happened to boxing?” Indeed, no other professional sport has changed as much as boxing, especially over the past three decades.
The most obvious manifestation of boxing’s altered landscape is the ridiculous title situation. In 1955 there were eight weight divisions ruled by eight undisputed world champions. Boxing fans could easily name every world champion. Even housewives and schoolchildren knew that Rocky Marciano was the heavyweight champion of the whole wide world. Today there are about 100 world champions distributed among 17 weight divisions. That is more than twice the number of weight divisions and more than ten times the number of world champions in 1955. Most people today would have difficulty naming even one of them, including the two current heavyweight champions (as of 2014).
The reason why boxing has spun out of control is because it is the only professional sport that operates without a national commissioner, or any semblance of centralized authority to enforce rules, consolidate title claims, create credible rankings, and ensure that the best fighters advance in the sport. The control of the sport is in the hands of a few dominant promoters and four so-called “sanctioning organizations” that certify title fights and issue monthly rankings of top contenders.
With no effective oversight in place, the quasi-official sanctioning organizations make up their own rules and then break them when it suits their purposes. They place the needs of a few powerful promoters ahead of the welfare of boxers and the sport. Exploitation, incompetence, and conflict of interest are standard operating procedure. Even casual fans of the sport know the monthly ratings of the World Boxing Council (WBC), World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF), and World Boxing Organization (WBO) are not to be trusted.
“Everyone in boxing knows the sanctioning bodies that issue the ratings have no legitimacy,” wrote investigative journalist Jack Newfield in 2001. “They force champions to pay huge sanctioning fees for the right to defend their titles. They strip champions of their titles if they don’t go along with the sport’s backroom politics. They assign incompetent judges to fights. They are more like bandits than regulators.”2
Over the past few years the rotten reputation of these boxing parasites has finally begun to diminish their influence over the sport. Boxing fans hoped the situation would improve and the sport would finally gain some coherence, leading to the recognition of one undisputed champion for each weight division, but that has not been the case. The major promoters who use these easily corrupted organizations to their benefit began to circle the wagons and came up with a novel way to retain their hegemony over the sport. Don King, Bob Arum, and Golden Boy Promotions (a new group headed by Oscar De La Hoya and partners) decided to only promote title fights that involve boxers under their control. In other words, each promotional outfit has become a boxing universe unto itself. The promoter decides who among his stable of contenders will challenge one of his champions. So no matter who wins, everything remains in-house, and the promoter maintains control of the fighters. What this does is guarantee that the best contenders and champions under exclusive contract to one promotional group will probably never face the best boxers from a rival group. If baseball were run like boxing, there would be at least four separate World Series champions. Since the promoters decide who fights for their inter-organization title belts, any rating system for boxers is rendered irrelevant.
The sanctioning organizations (known collectively to sportswriters and fans as “The Alphabet Boys” for the initials that identify them) still remain useful to promoters and television by granting an “official” imprimatur to the scores of title fights that take place every year under their jurisdiction. In this way total chaos is avoided and television can advertise every fight as being for some kind of title.
As they have done for the past 35 years, these organizations continue to extort “sanctioning fees” charged to every champion and challenger who competes for the privilege of fighting for one of their title belts. Earlier sanctioning organizations, such as the National Boxing Association and the European Boxing Union, operated quite efficiently without charging fees. The Alphabet Boys base their fees on a percentage of the fighter’s earnings. The fees can run into five or six figures for a televised fight. That is why the banditos who run these organizations found it useful to create seven additional weight divisions. Additional weight divisions translate into more title fights, and therefore more sanctioning fees. It is estimated that just one of these organizations, the Mexican-based World Boxing Council (WBC), has taken in over $20 million in sanctioning fees. As a foreign entity with headquarters outside of the United States, the WBC has never had to account for what happened to all that money.
From the 1920s to the 1960s there were never more than 35 title fights per year. In 1978, one year after television executives recognized the authority of the WBC and WBA, and sanctioning fees became part of the landscape, there were 68 title fights. Five years later the number increased to 83. In 2012, nearly 200 “championship” bouts requiring the fighters to cough up fees were sanctioned by the WBC, WBA, IBF, and WBO. The confusion grows worse year by year as additional titles are invented (“Intercontinental,” “Interim,” “Emeritus,” “Honorary,” “Supreme”), all with the sole purpose of increasing the flow of sanctioning fees.
Repeated efforts to clean up boxing have failed mainly because of the unregulated nature of the sport and the fact that change would not be in the interest of the small circle of promoters, sanctioning organizations, and high-profile boxers who benefit from maintaining the status quo.
Although the current state of boxing is not a “Golden Age” in terms of the depth of talent and activity, it is most definitely an “Age of Gold” for the sanctioning organizations who over the past 37 years have raked in millions of dollars off the blood and sacrifice of every fighter who contends for one of their championship belts. (The WBC even has the gall to charge the fighter for their oversized tin-and-plastic trinket.) Yet, in spite of the millions these organizations have collected, the rank-and-file boxer is still without a union, pension plan, or health benefits. If there is any constant that remains from the old days, it is that boxers are still the most vulnerable and easily exploited of all professional athletes.
Aside from their questionable rankings, exorbitant sanctioning fees, and general corruption and stupidity, the Alphabet Boys have demystified what it means to be a world champion. Jim Brady, author of Boxing Confidential: Power, Corruption, and the Biggest Prize in Sport, put the title mess in historical perspective: “In the 1950s, there were approximately 5,000 fighters worldwide. There were generally eight weight divisions, with one champion in each. That breaks down to one champ every 625 boxers. Today, with just the major sanctioning bodies and not counting the whackos, you have about one ‘world champion’ for every 69 pros. It’s ridiculous. Championship belts used to mean something. Now all they’re good for is holding up your pants.”3
It is impossible for a fan to keep up with the endless procession of belt holders. The only recognizable names are those fighters capable of capturing the public’s attention and whose skill and charisma make them stand out from a pack of mediocre pretenders. The short list includes Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones Jr., Bernard Hopkins, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. As of 2015 all except Mayweather and Pacquiao have retired.
Boxing fans who complain about the sport’s lack of integrity, loss of coherence, and the glut of mostly obscure belt holders need look no further than promoters Don King and Bob Arum and their toadies in the sanctioning organizations to understand why, except for the occasional megafight, boxing has become a marginalized and debased fringe sport.
Those who state that Golden Age promoters Tex Rickard and Mike Jacobs were just as ruthless and greedy as their modern-day counterparts are missing the main point. Yes, the business of professional boxing is a rough dog-eat-dog business, and Rickard and Jacobs were certainly no angels, but at least they left the sport better off than when they found it. The same cannot be said of Don King or Bob Arum.
I have often wondered who did more lasting damage to my favorite sport. Certainly the greed and predatory behavior of the old-style mobsters who controlled professional boxing in the 1950s contributed to its demise as a mainstream sport; of that there is no doubt. But in spite of the corruption they inflicted and the damage that they caused, boxing still managed to maintain a semblance of structure that oversaw the orderly succession of champions in the eight traditional weight divisions. The damage was not permanent. What was left of the sport after the dissolution of the monopolistic International Boxing Club could have been salvaged and improved upon by right thinking people.
Instead, staying true to boxing’s less than honorable antecedents, beginning in the late 1970s rival promoters Don King and Bob Arum, responding to television’s desire to broadcast only title fights, formed separate alliances with the two main sanctioning groups in order to further their own monopolistic hold over the sport. As long as ratings remained strong, TV executives were not concerned that dozens of horrendous mismatches were being foisted on the public in order to safeguard a popular champion’s title. But the result was the destruction of a system that while certainly not perfect, at least encouraged competitive matches between legitimately ranked contenders.
The huge number of world champions with multiple title belts has also contributed to a distortion of boxing’s history. During the Golden Age it was considered extraordinary for a fighter to win a title in more than one weight division. In 70 years (1900 to 1970), only five boxers accomplished this feat. Over the past three decades (1984 to 2014), dozens of fighters have won multiple titles in three or more weight divisions. Most of today’s fans are either unaware or just ignore the fact that seven additional weight classes—combined with a plethora of rival organizations that recognize their own world champions—makes it far easier to win a title in more than one weight class.
“To people who don’t know boxing history— and even to many who do—a guy who won two or three titles years ago is no big deal,” comments Tony Arnold, a boxing historian and former professional boxer. “You won two or three titles back in the 1930s? So what? The average guy today is wearing multiple title belts, it seems, almost before he turns pro . . . People don’t realize how hard it was years ago to become a top contender, much less win a title when there were eight weight classes and eight world champions. They have no idea what an accomplishment that was against the type of competition they had to face.”4
The creation of a Golden Age in any time period, in any field of endeavor, requires the availability of highly gifted individuals developing their skills in an environment that fosters their growth and enables them to flourish to their full potential. Whether we are talking about the Golden Age of Greek philosophy that spawned the likes of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, or the Golden Age of Boxing that gave us Dempsey, Louis, and Sugar Ray Robinson, the basic ingredients to create “gold” must be present. These ingredients were in abundance during boxing’s heyday, but are sadly lacking today. That is why the art of boxing has deteriorated to an alarming degree, especially since the mid-1990s. A dearth of qualified teacher-trainers is a major contributing factor, but also adding to the problem is a lack of experience. Most of today’s boxers have only three or four fights a year and ascend to a title with less than 25 bouts and a meager 150 to 200 rounds of boxing, if that. Their counterparts who were active from the early 1900s to the 1950s averaged at least three or four times the number of bouts and rounds.
Tune into a televised fight today and you will rarely see correct punching technique, fluid movement, adequate defense, mobile footwork, skillful feinting, proper timing, and accurate judgment of distance. Also missing is consistent and effective body punching (a staple of the old school) and drawing a lead to set up a counterpunch. What is especially disturbing is the almost total lack of defensive moves that involve slipping, blocking, parrying, ducking, or rolling away from punches. The left jab, boxing’s most basic and important punch, is rarely taught or used the way it was intended. Undefeated records, multiple title belts, high knockout percentages, and the ubiquitous “punch stats” are today’s measure of quality. Television encourages crude slugfests devoid of defense because that type of contest appeals to a much broader and less knowledgeable audience than one featuring intelligent strategy, artful use of a left jab, and clever offensive and defensive maneuvers.
Many of today’s boxers put forth a tremendous effort but rarely display the finer points of ring generalship. The all-important seasoning that comes with dozens of competitive bouts against quality opposition, combined with expert instruction, has resulted in a dumbed-down version of professional boxing. Today’s champions and contenders have not had the type of bout-to-bout education that empowered the great fighters of the past.
As far as boxing safety is concerned, it is this writer’s opinion that a majority of today’s boxers are taking more head punches and suffering more brain damage in fewer fights than their Golden Age predecessors because they are not taught how to avoid punishment. Toughness and aggression coupled with impressive “punch stats” are the most desired qualities, especially when trying to impress a large TV audience.
Michael Capriano Jr. saw his first professional boxing match in 1940. He is a former licensed manager and trainer. During the 1950s he trained more service champions than any other Marine Corps boxing coach. He laments what is missing from today’s practitioners. “There are no super-skilled boxers like Tippy Larkin, Billy Graham, or Maxie Shapiro,” says Capriano. “I don’t see them around. Years ago there were many different types of fighters, and you’d see many different styles, and that’s probably what made them better fighters. I don’t see anyone with that type of skill today—in any weight division. Some of today’s fighters look good, and they seem to have the natural instincts and maybe somebody is teaching them, but I still don’t see the moves. They need more seasoning.”5
Capriano adds another reason for their inconsistency. “Fighters are weaker today,” he observes. “The old-timers had a psychological resiliency. When they got knocked down it was like they were insulted. They would get up and try to take you apart. They had that extra dimension. Among the modern-day fighters, Arturo Gatti had that quality, but not the rest of the equipment.
“The Golden Age contenders and champions were battle-tested. They survived the killers of their eras as they came up through the ranks. How many killers are there today to fight on the way up? Years ago you had to fight who they told you to fight. You could not pick and choose your opponents. They fought other good fighters who at any given time could put forth a great fight and beat them. The competition from the 1920s to the 1950s was brutal. You cannot compare it to today.”6
Former middleweight contender Wilbert “Skeeter” McClure knows a thing or two about brutal competition. In the early 1960s he fought the likes of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Jose Torres, and Luis Rodriguez. Before turning pro in 1961, McClure had 148 amateur fights and won 7 national and international titles, including an Olympic gold medal. A college graduate with degrees in literature and philosophy, McClure also earned a PhD in psychology and was the first African-American chairman of the Massachusetts Boxing Commission.
“Boxing, in my opinion, is the only sport in which the participants haven’t gotten better since the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s,” says McClure. “Football players today are better than the ones who were playing in the ’50s. It’s the same with basketball and baseball. The fighters today couldn’t even hold a candle to the fighters of the 1960s and ’70s. They just couldn’t do it. They were too tough, and too strong and too savvy and too skilled. Part of the reason is owing to the fact that they fought more frequently. You have champions today who fight once a year or twice a year. Anybody who applies his craft to any trade or profession and performs it only twice a year can’t be good. You just cannot develop that way.”7
Bill Goodman, who saw his first boxing match in 1947, agrees. “I never see a sharp varied attack that includes slipping, blocking, sidestepping, moving on good legs with good balance, and using an active left hand properly. They throw a jab and they stop. It’s a big deal if they throw two in a row.
“Years ago you had 50, 70 fights before you fought for a title. You knew how to handle all situations—or you should have known. You had to handle opponents who were awkward, fast, slow, sluggers, boxers, clever guys, and southpaws. You had experience with those types of styles. . . . A seasoned pro can adapt his style to avoid punishment. You used to see fighters adapting fast to avoid punishment. Today it’s all the same, minute after minute, round after round. If you see one round you saw the whole fight. You can go home. One round is the same as the other round. They don’t have variance in it. They all fight the same way. You saw the guy fight once, even if he’s fighting the same opponent he fought previously, he’s going to fight the same way.”8
In a later interview Bill Goodman told me: “I don’t blame the fighters. It’s not their fault. They are not being taught properly. Occasionally a trainer can be heard telling a fighter during the one-minute rest between rounds to ‘throw more jabs.’ That is good advice, but by itself is not adequate. A good trainer understands that there are many ways to jab. A jab can be aimed at the body or head, used as a feint, doubled or tripled, it can keep an opponent off balance, or set up combinations, or draw a lead.
“In the old days a fighter was capable of switching from the head to the body without any loss of effectiveness. They were constantly pressing forward, or were taught to, anyway, with a blinding attack that was interesting to watch. The guys were throwing sharp damaging punches with either hand. The speed and relentless pace was very effective. It gave their opponents no rest. And that’s how they won their fights. You put two guys together like that and you have something to watch. But you don’t have that anymore. And that doesn’t necessarily relate to whether a fighter was Irish, Italian, or Jewish . . . they all fought that way, but like everything else, some boys were better than others—and that was what made the difference.”9
Teddy Atlas, aside from being one of the sport’s top trainers, is also an astute boxing historian with a deep appreciation for the past practitioners of the sweet science. He adds his thoughts on the subject: “I still see fighters from the 1930s and 1940s. I have been privileged to see the films. Those old-timers are doing things that I still do not see today’s guys doing. Whether it’s judging distance better, or jabbing an opponent’s shoulder to distract or unbalance him, or letting an opponent think he’s safe when he’s not safe, or doing a feint for more than just motion but actually to make something happen. So many subtleties are missing. I’d just love to hear the trainers talk about the old-timers. They’d say things like, ‘He’d feint you and make you bend down and tie your shoelaces.’ ”10
What these genuine boxing experts have to say about the current state of the art is based on years of experience and thoughtful analysis. While it is true that many of today’s fighters are superb athletes, their potential will never be fully realized because they do not get the experience, training, and competition necessary to round out their education.
Whoever coined the phrase “The Noble Art of Boxing” understood that the only redeeming elements of this ancient and eternal sport reside in the courage, pride, dignity, and skill of its athletes. It was no different when the ancient Greek boxers, hands encased in the leather caestus fought for the coveted laurel wreath on Mount Olympus. Boxing’s ongoing problems are not the fault of the dedicated athletes who enter the sport, but with the depleted and corrupt environment in which they ply their trade.
Professional boxing will probably always be plagued by a certain level of corruption and exploitation. It is the nature of the beast. But the decades-long lunacy of the absurd sanctioning organizations in combination with rapacious promoters who care nothing for the future of the sport is unprecedented. Over the past three decades they have managed to turn a once-glamorous and exciting sport into a sodden and boorish spectacle unworthy of our attention or respect. It makes one appreciate even more the treasured memories of the great Golden Age of boxing talent and activity that came and went all too quickly.
On my fifth birthday my father presented me with a pair of junior-size boxing gloves. In the 1950s, boxing, thanks to television, was still very much a staple of American popular culture, so it was not unusual for a five-year-old to receive such a gift. Junior gloves notwithstanding, my passion for the sport of boxing did not begin to develop for another nine years. By that time the careers of legendary fighters such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, and Willie Pep were almost over. Fortunately, thanks to the nationally televised Wednesday and Friday night Fight of the Week programs, I was privileged to watch other great boxers who continued to fuel my interest in the sport. I can still remember the catchy jingle that signaled the beginning of Friday night’s much-anticipated Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Fight of the Week.
Adding to my enjoyment was the opportunity for me and my brother to watch the fights with our father. Today they call it “bonding.” All across America from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, other baby-boomer sons were also bonding with their fathers over the Friday-night televised-fight ritual. My dad’s story is not unlike so many other newly minted Americans who came to this country as penniless immigrants and through much hard work and sacrifice built successful lives in the golden land.
Growing up on the Lower East Side of New York during the 1920s meant that my father also grew up with boxing. He even boxed a bit as an amateur at the Educational Alliance, the famous settlement house on East Broadway, located just a few blocks from where he lived. Considering the milieu, it would have been more unusual had my father not laced up the gloves. There was no escaping it. In those days boxing was everywhere—and just about every kid wanted to box.
As we watched the action unfold on the small screen of our Dumont television set, my father might speak of former ring greats such as Jack Dempsey (his favorite), Gene Tunney, Harry Greb, and Mickey Walker. It was from my father that I first heard of the famous “long count” controversy surrounding the second Jack Dempsey vs. Gene Tunney heavyweight championship. I also vividly remember him talking with pride about some of the great Jewish fighters of that era, men like Sid Terris, Barney Ross, and, of course, Benny Leonard.
These stories conjured up a fascinating era of American immigrant history. Yet most people today, especially third- and fourth-generation American Jews, cannot name even one of the 34 Jewish boxing world champions. When told about it for the first time, a common response is either incredulous laughter or puzzlement, as if the topic doesn’t quite register. The entire concept of Jewish boxers is so foreign and atypical to most people, it is not surprising that the first reaction would be laughter. In a way, this is understandable. As Jewish people prospered in America, the memories of their poverty-ridden immigrant past were left behind. There was no need to revisit the old neighborhood. The promise of America did not have to come with a broken nose or cauliflower ear.
But even after presenting the impressive statistics and explaining the whys and wherefores, I still sense a bit of resistance, if not discomfort, in accepting the fact that their poor immigrant forebears actually became very good at hitting people for a living. Part of this resistance, I believe, is because boxing has been stigmatized as a violent, corrupt, and physically damaging activity, and not a sport for bright people to get involved with. But years ago that attitude was not nearly as strong or pervasive when boxing was on a higher pedestal and professional boxers were viewed as masculine heroes and accorded far greater respect and admiration. Let us not forget that boxing was important enough to give every ethnic minority their first American heroes. That is why it is necessary to view this sport in its historical context in order to fully appreciate and celebrate the accomplishments of the Golden Age greats.
Recent books that deal with the history of the Jewish athlete and include some mention of boxers, either as an individual topic or as part of a broader, all-encompassing treatise, often state their major contribution was in challenging the stereotype that Jews did not possess the athletic ability and toughness to succeed in boxing. But the reality is, those stereotypes hardly existed when Jewish boxers were inundating the sport. Most of these books were written within the past 30 years, long after Jewish boxers had left the scene. The authors, all of whom entered adulthood in an era of unprecedented prosperity and opportunity for Jews in America, had no personal connection to the Golden Age of boxing and the poor immigrant neighborhoods that gave rise to it. Perhaps this is a case of projecting contemporary attitudes back retrospectively on another generation, whose experience was quite different from our own.
The scene in the 1980 movie comedy Airplane, where a passenger asks the stewardess for “something light to read” and she returns with a single page titled “Famous Jewish Sports Legends,” always gets a laugh, but it encourages a stereotype that has no basis in fact. Twenty-five years after Airplane, a real book titled Famous Jewish Sports Legends was published by the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Contained within its 300 pages are the biographies of hundreds of world-class Jewish athletes, including 345 Olympic medalists. Boxing has 29 entries, more than any other sport; basketball comes in second, with 23.
Novelist Philip Roth caught the tail end of the Golden Age of Jewish boxers, growing up in Newark, New Jersey, in the 1940s. In his autobiography, The Facts, Roth recalls he was a fan of the sport during his adolescence, and even briefly subscribed to The Ring magazine. He first heard of the prowess of Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, Max Baer, and “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom from his father, an insurance salesman, who sometimes took him and his brother to the local boxing arena. Even so, Roth viewed boxing as a strange deviation from the Jewish norm.
Roth loved sports, especially baseball, but he considered boxing an anomaly for Jews because it seemed incompatible with the values of his middle-class Jewish upbringing: “In the world whose values first formed me unrestrained physical violence was considered contemptible everywhere else,” he writes. “I could no more smash a nose with a fist than fire a pistol into someone’s heart. And what imposed this restraint, if not on Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, then on me, was my being Jewish. In my scheme of things, Slapsie Maxie was a more miraculous Jewish phenomenon by far than Dr. Albert Einstein.”11
Great Jewish boxers may have been a phenomenon to Philip Roth, but not to the millions of Americans who followed the sport in the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s. By the time Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom won the light heavyweight title in 1930, 22 other Jewish world-champion boxers had already preceded him, not to mention scores of top-ranked contenders. No one was talking or writing about “stereotypes being challenged,” because that was not how American Jews were perceived at that time. In the long run the real benefit of boxing to the Jewish people was the role it played in the Americanization process and the stepping-stone it provided into the socioeconomic mainstream.
When I began to write this book, I had to ask myself: Why do a book about Jewish boxers? Would it be more than just an exercise in nostalgia? I believed then, as I do now, that it is indeed much more than that. As the last Jewish boxers of the Golden Age die off, it becomes even more important to document their accomplishments so that future generations can acknowledge and appreciate how a people with no athletic tradition, and with so many doors closed to them, used their intelligence and drive to open another door to opportunity, and eventually dominate, both as athletes and entrepreneurs, what was for several decades the most popular sport in America.
In researching the boxing careers and lives of the champions and contenders in this book, I constantly found myself moved by the heart and character displayed by these men as they struggled to master their unusual craft and succeed in such an unforgiving sport. They not only excelled as professional athletes, but also as role models and as men.
Greatness, in any age, deserves to be carefully examined and understood. Too often in our fastpaced, instant-messaging, tweeting, iPhone culture, the youth of today tend to ignore the past or dismiss it as irrelevant. That is a mistake, for there are lessons to be learned and standards to consider that remain timeless and relevant, as exemplified in the heyday of the great Jewish champions and contenders who made their indelible mark in the Golden Age of boxing.