YES – 819 votes
NO – 117 votes

I don’t use X much these days, for a multitude of reasons, so when I put up a relatively innocuous poll on Tuesday, I wasn’t expecting much take up to the question, ‘Is boxing broken?’

I asked for feedback and offered two replies as part of a poll, option one was Yes, it’s broken. Option Two was No, never better.

Had I been giving it more thought, I would have thought of one or two middle ground replies. That was suggested to me.

We could have had, ‘It’s broken, but a couple of small fixes and it would be great.’ Or, ‘It’s in a slump, but things are changing,’ or ‘It’s great, but we need to be careful.’

And I was called out for the lack of options, which is fine.

Tom Houston said: “I’m not voting because that’s a crazy dichotomy. How about a few choices in between.”

“Somewhere between the two,” wrote Karl Gibson.

JohnnyBoyRejoin stated: “It’s neither broken nor better than ever. The sport has been fractured for many years but in the midst of that we’ve always managed to get some big fights made. I’m concerned about Dana White getting involved. Zuffa could well be our version of LIV Golf. But generally it’s okay.”

*

But I can’t lie, the court of public opinion was unbothered by the lack of nuance because the concern for boxing’s health is very real.

By the end, there were 936 votes with 87.5 per cent believing the sport was broken and just 12.5 per cent thinking it was thriving.

At my last count, there were some 115 comments (and a few quote tweets) and plenty of common themes, too.

We will go ahead and look at the comments, providing analysis and opinion as we go along, but for me it feels like the sport is being inhabited by strangers when it was the familiarity of what came before that had created such a community.

Fighters were, to start with, more accessible. That is a big part of it, I’m sure.

As an example, the likes of Frank Bruno, Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe and Chris Eubank would attend events like the British Boxing Board of Control lunch or the old Boxing Writers’ Club dinner, but nowadays fighters would see themselves as above that. Traditions are no longer being passed down.

This was noted by Lucas Ketelle looking at the history of the sport.

“We are getting away from respect for history,” he said. “We used to value history too much in boxing, and now it seems like we are at an utter indifference towards anyone who came before the here and now.”

It’s interesting to note, too, that when DAZN tried to say George Liddard had become the youngest British middleweight champion and I pointed out he might not have even been in the top 10 youngest on X, I was decried a killjoy who shouldn’t be trying to ruin his big night. Damn the facts, and the likes of Mark Kaylor, Randolph Turpin, Terry Downes et al

Still, many fighters would rather be getting content done somewhere now, or be on a red carpet, and I think that comes through the generations. The likes of Stephen Smith, Tony Bellew, Jamie Moore and countless others would consume every page of Boxing News every week because they loved the sport and wanted to learn about it. Do young fighters today even pick up Boxing News?

And the magazine part led into another point made by @GaryAGray. He used to peruse the magazine selection in the newsagents where there was Boxing News, Boxing Monthly, The Ring, KO and Boxing Digest. Now, it’s so costly to get on the newsstand, BM has fallen by the wayside, KO has gone, so has Boxing Digest, Boxing News is monthly and The Ring is part of the problem.

“I was a boxing nerd,” wrote @GaryAGray. “For many years from a teenager buying all the mags watching as many fights as I could and recently listening to boxing pods all day. Now it’s too many PPVs, overhyped mismatches and subscriptions, so I’ve stopped everything.”

But it is hard to compare today’s coverage with yesteryear’s because times have changed just as much as boxing.

As I stated in a recent Mailbag, it wasn’t too long ago that British title fights would get coverage in the newspapers. Now I’m not sure Dalton Smith or Josh Kelly would get a mention. But, of course, newspapers were big business then and their print readership has dramatically declined.

Of course, when big names get involved, the newspapers come back. We are bracing ourselves for Fury-Joshua and everything that will come with it. It will get wall-to-wall coverage. But it won’t be written about in the newspapers by dedicated boxing writers as they scarcely exist today. Initially, many boxing journos were asked to take on another sport. Now, with most of them gone, covering the sport will be handed to a generic sports hand. That doesn’t help.

But it doesn’t seem all that long ago that I’d be sat next to the late Ron Lewis at The Times, Pat Sheehan and Colin Hart from The Sun, Kevin Francis from The Star, Kevin Mitchell and Donald McRae from the Guardian and Observer, Niall Hickman and Brian Doogan from The Express, Bob Mee at the Daily Telegraph, Ian Gibb at the Daily Mail, and that’s before you got to the US, where you’d have Tim Smith from New York, Dan Rafael at ESPN, Kevin Iole from Yahoo, David Mayo in Grand Rapids, John Saraceno from USA Today, Lance Pugmire and Steve Springer at the LA Times, Steve Carp in Vegas, Bernard Fernandez in Philly, Michael Katz, Bert Sugar…

When I was at Tim Tszyu’s first fight with Sebastian Fundora in Vegas a couple of years ago, I was asked to sit and wait with a table of written journalists while the fighters were brought over to speak to us. By the time Tszyu came over, there was me and one other. That was the only written press.

“Massively broken,” said @jagoboxeo of the sport today. “It’s now ran by teenagers with cameras pushing narratives from promoters so they can keep access.”

“The sport has been in decline as newspaper coverage began to die,” wrote Gabriel Montoya. “Free TV deals gave way to cable and PPVs. The sport is run by short-term thinkers and was sold out to the Saudis with much the same thinking. Boxing is where it is because of the people who have been running it.”

Michael Carter felt like good old-fashioned competition was best for business. “But Saudi control has ruined it. Promoters no longer compete, fighters don’t need to sell themselves, small halls are dying and most fights are PPV. Criticise the regime and you’re frozen out. Greed will prevail. And now Misfits is mainstream.”

“Young fans that walk in the boxing gym chatting about Misfits boxing one weekend, but with no mention of a decent domestic dust-up the following weekend isn’t great,” added Sean Anderson. “I mean, you could say at least they’re talking about boxing.”

Rob Hoar said that while the best have “somewhat” been fighting the best, he added: “Influencers and YouTubers fighting has beens is not of interest to me but I guess it does numbers and brings young fans to the sport.”

And, in part, that is another issue, that there are so few storytellers left, but also because there are so few outlets wanting to tell stories. Now it’s short-form, snappy, clicks, hits that are the markers for success. It’s not about five-star reviews for quality or a powerful product. Everyone wants success at surface level without realising that if you dig deeper into the characters, you can develop ‘buy in’ from an invested audience that cares.

And there is a lack of knowledge about what good long-form content looks like. For DAZN, some of their ‘long form’ is barely 20 minutes long but there are few inquisitions in the interviews, little pushback in their conversations even though what they do produce looks lovely and glossy, there’s not much substance behind the style. I watched 20 minutes with Teofimo Lopez recently and learned nothing. Same thing with George Liddard. Nothing I watched made me want to see their upcoming fights.

And DAZN has its critics and, according to my spot survey, plenty of the detractors are on X. Much of the criticism is to do with paywalls and subscriptions, but plenty also comes down to sycophantic commentary.

As well as “the five-belt era, Hamzah Sheeraz (more tomorrow), Conor Benn, Fury-AJ tedium, Steve Hunt of the Desert Island Fights podcast said one of his major problems was with, “arse-licking commentators.”

The positive commentary has become a bug-bear of mine, too. We are constantly being told that boxing is in such great shape, but if it was, this feature would have been a hell of a lot shorter. Sure, it’s great for those who have been touched by the money of Russian oligarchs and Saudi billionaires, but that’s a small percentage of the overall sport.

Glen Fraser said he was likely going to give up his DAZN subscription because “I hardly watch it.”

@saintsman1982 took it a stage further when he said there were too many platforms “and PPV has gone mental.” “Some domestic fights being branded PPV is wrong only world title fights being branded PPV is wrong only world title fights should be PPV. And promoters and fighters dodging certain fights is all wrong.”

One of the most significant concerns is around Turki Alalshkih, who a couple of years ago shared a picture of himself on social media as ‘the face of boxing’ and who was recently just rated the No. 1 most powerful man in the sport by Boxing News (I was on the panel).

But Matt Elliott, who feels the sport is broken, believes the financial bubble that has provided boxing with such a false economy in the last three years has caused a vacuum. “Turki came in paid over the odds for fights and gave some average fighters an inflated sense of their worth and now we are paying for that. Without him we wouldn’t have had some big fights but the minimum payday many expect is now too high for the market.”

“Turki has ruined the sport,” added British Boxing Hub. “He came in got close to all the promoters and fighters paid them crazy money. But it was all a ply to try to take over with Zuffa the sport has never felt more divided and shady. I mean they paid Benn 13mill to fight an injured Regis so MR couldn’t match.”

“Two fights in,” wrote Eddy Hebbron, “And everyone is going to be a world champion and only want to fight for money not legacy. Turki has ruined it.”

“Turki arrived as the saviour,” wrote @TheBoxingMadMan, “Did a few good shows then all went to shite. Warren and Hearn thrown to the kerb. Turki hooked up with Dana and things have gone from bad to worse.”

I’d also contest that we’ve had this glut of dream fights. You can hold some heavyweight fights up there, and both Beterbiev-Bivol fights, but we’ve also had Shakur Stevenson versus Josh Padley (yes, the Englishman was a late sub), Jai Opetaia against Jack Massey and Ellis Zorro, Chris Eubank Jnr versus Kamil Szeremeta, Joshua and Fury against Francis Ngannou, Usyk against Rico Verhoeven, Hamzah Sheeraz against Alem Begic and Simon Zachenhuber, Richard Riakporhe-Tommy Welch, Adam Azim-Kurt Scoby and plenty of other fights that don’t fit with the remit of the best fighting the best.

And, yeah, I’m saying it, Crawford-Canelo. Who wanted that, really? Great final act for Crawford, if that’s what it was, but it wasn’t a dream fight. And as for Canelo, we also got the William Scull bore.

“The best stopped fighting the best within their weight class,” offered Belle Boxing Club who added, importantly, “lack of activity.”

That hyper-inflation has led to fighters boxing barely once a year. Three outings for a top fighter is seen as revolutionary and “old school.”

In fact, Jonathan Lewis said “I find the undercards are poor these days. Chief support used to be a for the world title, now I find them very poor, now PPV ain’t even for a world title.”

There are some who felt the previously-questionable regime to challenge boxing’s status quo, MTK, was still responsible for deep wounds in the sport.

Stephen Dempster said: “The Kinahan/MTK era badly damaged the sport. The Daniel Kinahan enablers and supporters in the sport – boxers, trainers, promoters etc ­– still in the sport and we know who they are – they polluted boxing and that cannot be repaired. They know who they are too! We see them.”

Another common theme was that the best were still not fighting the best, even with the influx of Saudi wealth.

Richard Allan said, “No one fighting each other” and “nothing on tnt/Sky [although Sky now has the deals with Zuffa and MVP] making it expensive to access” and he added “zero drugs checks.”

And Allan was not alone with the latter sentiment, either.

“Failure to deal properly with issues re drugs from Fury to Benn demean the sport,” wrote Andrew Collingbourne. “Money as ever talks and no coincidence that the bigger the profile of the boxer concerned the inevitability of being exonerated with the most ludicrous excuses invariably involving foodstuffs.”

“The PEDS issue for me needs to be stamped out once and for all,” wrote Danny Coveney. “None of this serving undisclosed bans. Name and shame so we all know when a fighter is serving a ban. Second catch, ban for life.”

Part 2 coming tomorrow

Tris, I have question about boxing’s popularity in the UK versus its “niche sport” status here in the US.

I’ve seen boxing’s popularity steadily decline here since the late 80’s & 90’s for a multitude of reasons. However, in the UK boxing is booming and thriving. To what do you attribute boxing’s success & popularity in the UK? Do you feel it’s cultural or is it something that the US market can learn from?

David Gomez

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not a niche sport here, or that it’s not treated like one. Let me provide some context.

Twenty years ago British title fights would appear in every newspaper. Now, I’d be surprised if Dalton Smith bouts get a mention. Now, newspapers don’t have a dedicated boxing guy.

At small hall level, Steve Goodwin has quit trying to make it work and Johnny Clark is giving it to the end of the year before jacking it in if things don’t work.

At Team GB level, in the amateurs, the heavy days of Beijing and London are in the past and we’ve declined ever since.

What’s mad about this all is boxing still does massive numbers and has a huge casual audience.

TalkSPORT, the big radio broadcaster, has turned boxing into its second sport - behind football/soccer - and I heard cable channel TNT Sports, formerly BT Sport, wanted to do the same but they lost their bid, whatever they were going for. I’m not sure if it was Zuffa or Misfits but they were in for something a year or so ago.

But when Eddie Hearn came in and started to sign fighters at the start, you could see the quality of fighters in or near the top…. Kell Brook, Tony Bellew, Darren Barker, Carl Froch, Carl Frampton, Scott Quigg…. That’s before you pack in the 2012 Olympians. If a promoter came in now, I’m not sure you’ve got anything like such strength as an equivalent.

Also, as the former editor of Boxing News, while reading habits have – of course – changed, the drop off after the Hatton and Calzaghe era was steep and even Haye, Froch and Khan issues never reached the same heights.

Tris who do you think is the most poorly promoted and undervalued fighter in the sport at the moment? Writing a bit about Bautsi currently, occurred to me he’s 33 and his career so far just feels so underwhelming - anyone at the moment who’s a nearly guy in that vein and how would you maximise the rest of their career from here on out?

Danny, In-Boxing

Ouch, this is a hard one and tough to answer without throwing someone under a bus.

Read more

When you look back on it now, it was lunacy. I was living in Atlantic City, as close as you could be to being broke while being able to stay alive and I’d not spoken to anyone back home in months.

Life for me was training in between the Atlantic City Police Athletic League Gym and the Pleasantville Recreation Center and trying to do just about anything I could in the sport.

But one day, having had one interview published in Boxing News, with Micky Ward, I thought I would try to do three in a day.

Now I was not in a position to pitch anything. I had no idea if anyone would speak to me or if Boxing News would take anything else from me. I would write the pieces, send them in and hope they made the grade.

I also knew that there was no space for fan-style pieces in serious boxing journalism. No one wanted to read what a twenty-year-old kid thought would happen if Mike Tyson fought Jack Dempsey, or whether Lennox Lewis was “overrated.”

I had to offer something unique and that, I decided, was interviewing old fighters.

A couple of years earlier, I met an autograph collector from New Jersey called Tom Jess. He was at the International Boxing Hall of Fame with bantamweight legend Jeff Chandler and told me he had a few addresses and numbers for retired fighters. He sent me a list and, being an absolute nobody, I looked longingly at the names and imagined what it would be like to meet some of these incredible fighters.

It was a dream.

*

It was a year or so on and I had these names and addresses in front of me. Autograph collectors back then would share newsletters and swap information about celebrities from all walks of life and would speculatively send items off to addresses to be signed and returned. Somethings came back – signed no less – some did not. It was pot luck.

Well, I had three addresses on this morning in late 2002. One was of former middleweight contender Rocky Castellani, and it was in Atlantic City. One was a number for ex-middleweight champion Joey Giardiello, and one was for Chandler. I only knew Chandler’s information, an address, to be up to date.

But this was in an era before mobile phones and using the internet was not as commonplace as it would become.

*

It started, paper map from the bus station in hand, with a long stroll down the famous Boardwalk to Ventnor to visit Castellani. That went well enough and is a story for another day. It culminated with a bit at the end which was one of the most memorable sections of my book, The Road to Nowhere, with me eventually tracking down Chandler in Philly.

The middle part of it all might have been the most haphazard stroke of luck I’d had in a while.

After speaking to Rocky, I made my way to a phone box and called Joey Giardiello. He said he would see me and he was in Cherry Hill. He told me to call when I arrived and he would come out and meet me. That instigated a walk back to the bus station so I could get a ride to Cherry Hill, which was on the route to Philly, where I held hopes of meeting Chandler later in the day.

I arrived in Cherry Hill and called Joey, who handed me over to a friend of his. He was an Englishman called Peter Green, and he said he’d been invited to join us because he was a friend of Joey’s and a countryman of mine. That made things very easy.

My instructions were to make my way to the Diamond Diner and they would meet me there and it all felt rather surreal.

I had been around a lot of fighters by this point, but it was crazy to think I was in Rocky Castellani’s house in the morning and then about to have lunch with Giardello just hours apart. Ironically, they had boxed each other in 1951 with Rocky climbing off the canvas to win a decision over 10 rounds in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

I arrived at the diner shortly before they did, and when they came in, Peter and Joey embraced me like an old friend and Joey started chatting up the waitresses.

He smiled and joked and, not long after being seated, he was talking about desserts and sweet things.

I played the straightest and most boring bat I could and ordered a chicken salad. With hindsight, it was a ridiculous choice. I’d not had anything of significant sustenance for weeks but was too polite to pick anything else. Plus, I was not assuming anyone else was paying and that was the cheapest selection.

And then, with our orders taken and the seventy-two-year-old Giardiello being reined in from flirting with the staff by the similarly-aged Peter, we started to chat about Joey’s life and career.

While I was familiar with Joey’s accomplishments, there is no question I looked into what he’d done even more in the aftermath of his portrayal in the film The Hurricane, with Denzel Washington playing Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in the lead role. But we will get to that.

*

“Are you looking for me?” smiled the small man with short white hair and a cosy looking autumnal golfing jacket.

It was Joey Gairdello and rather than shake my hand, he opted to embrace me.

I told him I’d just seen Rocky, and that Castellani had told me he was going to make a comeback to fight Joey again.

“Is that what he said?” Joey smiled. “I beat the shit out of him but I didn’t get the decision. It’s a long time ago now.”

As we sat down and ate, with Joey charming any waitress that came close to the table, he went through his story. He talked about joining the army and then deserting the forces because he missed his friends and couldn’t settle in. He was in the 82^nd Airborne Division and was ultimately given a dishonourable discharge.

That saw him start his pro career and he boxed 33 times in his first three years as a pro, and as Joey talked, occasionally you could see patrons at other tables start to listen to his stories and sometimes he was stopped mid-flow with a visitor to the table who said: “Hey, Champ.”

Joey’s colourful stories tumbled from him and he spoke about everything. I even ventured to ask him about his suspected ties with organised crime figures.

“If I was with The Mob, they didn’t do a very good job because I was always begging for a title shot,” he insisted. “I was the top contender for a long time but no one would fight me. The Mob was meant to be able to help people get title fights, weren’t they?”

There was a hint of a smirk when Joey said it.

Joey had been born in Brooklyn but later moved to Philadelphia and he fought a long list of top fighters and some of them several times.

He fought Gene Fullmer to a bloody draw, defeated Sugar Ray Robinson to finally get his rating as No. 1, fought Dick Tiger four times and, of course, defeated Rubin Carter in a fight he deservedly won but that Hollywood producers telling the ‘Hurricane’ story took liberties with, making it look like Joey won because of racist judges.

Joey won a lawsuit over that, and that had happened not too long before we met.

Recalling the movie premier, Joey said: “I climbed out of my chair and felt like shouting, ‘That never happened.’”

Press cuttings at the time revealed Joey had been a worthy winner.

In his 97-26-8 (30 KOs) record, Joey boxed the likes of Wilf Greaves, Juan Carlos Rivero, George Benton, Henry Hank, Ralph Dupas, Peter Mueller, Terry Downes, Spider Webb, Del Flanagan and Holly Mims.

He got robbed on the road a few times, but by the early 2000s he could smile about it all.

“The one thing I will say,” he added. “My mangers were the bravest guys in the world. They didn’t give a shit who I fought. They made me fight all the toughest guys around… In those days the champions could fight. They were all good fighters. These days I don’t many of them and it seems everybody is a champion.”

*

As we said our goodbyes in the entry hall to the diner, I asked Joey if he’d stop and pose for a photo. On his insistence, we had one together. Then he wanted one of me, Peter and himself. Finally, as he left the diner, I said I might just need one of him on his own. He relented and stood there, on an autumnal midday in Cherry Hill, held his hands in a fighting pose, and I snapped him with the crisp blue air in the background. I was buzzing. What a day. Now it was on to Philly to find Jeff.

*

I was so grateful for everything Peter had done, bringing Joey, encouraging conversation and also picking up the tab at the diner, that we stayed in touch until around 2010.

Throughout that time, he’d give me sporadic updates on Joey.

Read more

It was a year ago when I was driving home from the airport when fight manager Brian Peters messaged me.

He sent me a link to a story that said Ricky Hatton had died.

My initial thought was it was one of those cruel internet hoaxes and I put the phone down, thinking Brian should know better.

Then it hit me.

“Oh no. Not Ricky. No. Please no.”

Read more

I was so engaged listening to his story that nothing else mattered.

George Chuvalo had arrived a little late to meet me in a coffee shop in rainy Toronto, but I was grateful he’d made it at all.

I’d been blown off by Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and Chuvalo proved a failsafe, but I wasn’t ready for what was to come.

Sure, I knew about his family tragedy and that he’d fought Ali, Frazier, Foreman and the best of his generation.

I knew he was arguably Canada’s greatest heavyweight.

And I knew about the rock-solid chin and that he was often heralded as one of the fighters not to exhibit signs of his brutal profession long after he retired. Given he was known for his durability, that was quite the compliment and he must have had neurologists scratching their heads.

How did a man who’d taken so many bombs from so many huge punchers remain so lucid? Where was the short-term memory loss, the slurred speech, or the unsteady walk?

Well, when George came bowling in to meet me, I was thrilled.

George Chuvalo won 73 times as a pro, losing 18 fights and drawing twice. Famously, he was known for never being dropped, though he didn’t hear the final bell against Frazier or Foreman. No matter. He was a walking lump of granite and he could really fight. Chuvalo was 4-0 after his first night as a pro after he chinned his first four opponents in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens in a tournament named after Jack Dempsey. There were a couple of early losses as he cut his teeth, but in 1959 he won the Canadian title with a 12th-round stoppage of Yvon Durelle.

He won and lost in equal measure through the early sixties, picked up a DQ for headbutting small Welsh heavyweight Joe Erskine (claiming he was retaliating for being thumbed in the eye) and lost to the decent Zora Folley. But he stopped contender Doug Jones, Syracuse heavy Mike DeJohn, and lost a blistering 1965 battle with Floyd Patterson in the Fight of the Year. I remember George telling me that Patterson, “had a left hook that could tear your brains out.”

George had to gulp down a good few of them.

George, who told me “Two Ton” Tony Galento taught him how to headbutt, felt he was robbed losing a decision to Ernie Terrell over 15 rounds and always believed the Chicago man’s manager, Bernie Glickman – who had colourful ties to the underworld – made sure the fix was in.

He actually went into a heavyweight title fight against Ali coming off a loss to Eduardo Corletti in London, and that came after a victory over Joe Bygraves in London’s Royal Albert Hall. My friend George Zeleny was at both fights, and said of Chuvalo: “Hard, hard man.”

That could be on his headstone.

Chuvalo lost a decision to Ali over 15 rounds having accepted the fight with less than weeks’ notice and lost a decision to Oscar Bonavena.

As I interviewed him, I recall Chuvalo snapping at me – given the big names he fought – “I see what you’re doing, you’re only asking me about the fights that I lost.”

As I meekly apologised, he interrupted to tell me he was joking.

He won 11 on the spin through ’66 and ’67 but then ran into Frazier in Madison Square Garden and Chuvalo was cut badly early. The would by his eye went down to the bone, which was broken. He needed surgery, but he fought on.

Reporter Mark Kram said Chuvalo had “a rocklike head” and that was meant as a compliment.

He took some monstrous blows against the Philadelphia left-hooker, his face turned purple, wrote one ringside scribe, and a blood vessel leading to his eyelid exploded.

“I thought my eyeball had been knocked out,” he later said.

Chuvalo had damaged it in an earlier fight and then again in sparring, so said he was “damaged goods” for that contest even before the first bell.

He was out for nearly a year and former heavyweight champion Joe Louis refereed his next fight, a stoppage of Canadian left-hander Jean-Claude Roy.

Chuvalo lost only one of his next 13 and scored arguably his best win, claiming the scalp of Jerry Quarry, back in the Garden, in 1969.

During that bout, Chuvalo’s eye again started to balloon but a left hook dropped Quarry and he was unable to beat the count. At least, he didn’t beat the count. Quarry later claimed he had not heard the referee over the din of the crowd.

“If you get hit with a good punch and you can’t tell nine from 10, what can you tell the guy?” joked Chuvalo, who made a respectable $15,000.

But a few fights later he was up to $50,000 when badly whipped by a marauding Foreman. As Chuvalo tended to his wounds afterwards, he was offered an ice pack.

“What’s that for?” he asked dryly.

In 1971 he lost to Jimmy Ellis but beat Cleveland Williams. In 1972 he lost a rematch to Ali over 12 but won two other bouts later that year, won two fights in 1973, two in 1977, one in 1978 and that was that.

“The Toronto Tank” – a name that never stuck – had fought 502 rounds as a pro.

He had more than played his part.

“When people think about the best heavyweights they think of my era,” he said. “It was the best era. There’s no question.”

**

Three of George Chuvalo’s sons left this world too soon, two by suicide and one by overdose. His wife, Lynne, kept a container of pills in the wardrobe for when all hope was lost and, after 36 years of marriage, she ventured upstairs, opened the wardrobe, opened the container and ended her own story of heartbreak.

George’s family had been decimated, but as he had done in the ring, he stood firm.

To this day, I remember asking him about suicide and he said, “Who in a normal life doesn’t consider it?” And it was the first time I learned that it was okay to talk about not being okay and learned the difference first-hand between suicidal ideation and suicide.

Drugs had ransacked Chuvalo’s family and he made it his mission to help others who were at risk. He started a charitable foundation, Fighters Against Drugs, and went to schools, prisons, and other community centres to tell his tragic story. Often, he’d receive a standing ovation.

He spoke with passion and from experience.

“It’s true, what can I say?” he replied, when I told him he’d led a tragic life.

“I’ve had more than my fair share. More than the average guy. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess I have whatever is in a person’s make-up that enables them to go through it. I don’t know. I only know how I would deal with it. I couldn’t tell you how anyone else would because I’m not you and I’m not them.”

Chuvalo was left with one son, Mitchell, and his grandchildren, and he said his world revolved around them.

In the coffee shop, George showed me photographs of his dead children, but he never cried. Like he was never dropped in the ring, he never shed a tear when we talked.

***

When lists of great features fighters possess are reeled out, Chuvalo is often the gold standard when it comes to ‘chin’.

Mike Tyson might have power. Ali might have charisma. Holmes might have the jab, but chin goes to George.

I asked him about his durability.

“If you have a neck like a stack of dimes you can know that guy’s getting knocked out,” George said. “I used to stand on my head a lot. A lot of people don’t understand. Fighters pay scant attention to the punch-absorbing muscles…. Very few fighters spend time on muscles to absorb punishment. I used to spend a lot of time on it. It’s important.”

But while Chuvalo knew he’d seemingly come through the battles unscathed, others were not so lucky. By the time we talked, many of his contemporaries had passed or were showing signs associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

“One man’s meat is another man’s poison,” he stated.

“Before I started fighting, I used to stutter and couldn’t remember a God damn thing. Now I remember everything and don’t stutter at all. I’m lucky that way, but to be honest with you, there’s a very popular misconception. The misconception is I got hit with every punch in the book. I didn’t get hit with one-tenth of the punches people thought I did… But you never know how you are going to be tomorrow. Like today I’m all right. Who knows how I’ll be tomorrow?”

****

Fortunately, it would take many years to reveal itself, but by 2019, the ugly decline brought about by too many punches to the head had taken a firm hold.

There were sad stories about George being so diminished that he was in a custody tug of war between Mitch and his second wife, Joanne.

In fact, a year earlier, in a Chuvalo vs. Chuvalo family case, the court heard that Chuvalo, then 80, “doesn’t have the cognitive ability to make a decision on whether to reconcile with his wife amid a family dispute.”

Even then, eight years ago, the Toronto Star told of Chuvalo’s “significant cognitive decline.”

It was sad to hear. While I’d met Chuvalo amid the autumnal showers in Canada, he was bright and breezy when we spoke, but he had to endure a long, cruel winter of his life.

*****

That will not be Chuvalo’s legacy, nor should it be. George’s story of survival and courage – particularly out of the ring – was inspiring, motivational and stirring. He had withstood a terrible burden but he’d carried it on his broad shoulders.

I asked George – more than 20 years ago – how he’d like to be remembered and he answered: “I just hope they remember me,” he smiled gently. “I kind of like, ‘He was a warrior.’ Exclamation mark. If my great, great, great, great-grandchildren say, ‘He was a warrior!’ then that’s good enough for me.”

I’ve not worn this shirt for 25 years.

It was the summer of 2001 and I was crashing on any number of sofas and pull-out beds in and around Atlantic City and spending countless hours with former light-heavyweight world champion Matthew Saad Muhammad.

He was labouring by day, making early starts, but we found plenty of time to talk, whether it was grabbing a sandwich here or there, going to fights, going to the gym… For it was Saad who often found me a place to stay at night.

I’d had plenty of nights in Atlantic City where I hadn’t had anywhere to go, and it’s not a pleasant place to be.

The homeless population drifts around the Boardwalk and the further you leave that comparative safe haven and head inland, well, you could be in real trouble.

Saad made sure I wasn’t.

*

(Matthew and I in Atlantic City)

During our chats, Matthew would confide in me about how and why life had gone wrong for him. He hadn’t got off to a great start. He was abandoned by his brother on instruction of an aunt when he was only four, left alone on the streets of Philadelphia.

An orphanage, foster care, prison, it all followed, but what he wanted more than anything was to find his family.

In my early-twenties, it was unfathomable how a man who’d made millions no longer had a home, many possessions or much of anything, and I recall asking him about his memorabilia.

Later, people told me it was stolen or sold. He assured me it was in a lock-up in New Orleans, and I think there’s a chance all three could be true.

I was broke. There’s no other way of putting it. I can’t even really explain how I stayed out in the US as long as I did on rations but I guess it doesn’t cost a lot if you’re often without a place to sleep and you build up a tolerance of going two or three days at a time without food.

But I decided, anyway, that I would thank Matthew for all he was doing for me so one day, out near Pleasantville, I went to a printing shop and had two T-shirts created, one for him and one for me.

They were the same. They were navy blue and had MSM and a pair of boxing gloves on the left chest and Team Saad emblazoned across the back.

Even me, at I think about 22, thought they looked like cheap knock-offs, but later that day I presented Saad with his.

“Oh geez, who’s this for?” he asked shyly.

“It’s yours,” I replied.

“Maaaaannnn. No way. Look at this,” he said holding it up and investigating the front and back.

He was infinitely more thrilled with it than I was, and if he was faking it he did a stellar job.

He hurriedly put it on over his existing T-shirt and looked at himself in a mirror.

He was genuinely elated. I felt both embarrassed at the tacky gesture but delighted it had gone down so well.

**

I didn’t see Saad in the T-shirt for a while, nor did I expect to. Team Saad was something from 1980, when Matthew was flying high as the WBC champion. His entourage reached out well into double figures… a photographer, a chef, a bag carrier, trainer, security, publicist et al.

During this summer of 2001, I had Matthew pretty much to myself. We went for a sandwich at the famous White House in the city. We went to a boxing event in Delaware and I served as a ring card guy for a women’s fight.

We spoke at length about life, death and religion in the aftermath of 9/11 and we - along with a mutual friend - came up with an elaborate plan to attend the postponed bout between Felix Trinidad and Matthew’s fellow Philadelphian Bernard Hopkins at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The mutual friend was a low-key crook who’d spent years on boxing’s peripheries and, given that Don King was promoting the show, this guy hauled out an old DKP credential on a lanyard and started trying doctoring it so it would look like he had a way to get into the fight.

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It all seemed frightfully optimistic.

I found the details of former light-heavyweight contender James Scott using the “offender search” portal on the New Jersey Department of Corrections website.

There had to have been a section where you applied for a visit. It was so speculative. I must have switched off as I don’t really know what was asked of me or what forms I had to fill out.

While I had no idea if my application would see the light of day, let alone be approved, I knew that if I didn’t ask, nothing would happen and there would be no visit to see James Scott.

Scott, you see, was a fascinating story. He’d been in trouble his whole life, in and out of juvenile centres and jails. He’d escaped from at least a couple.

But he could fight. He turned pro in Florida, was working with Chris Dundee while the great Hank Kaplan was doing some publicity work for him.

He won his professional debut in 1974, a six-rounder, but he was scheduled for 10 rounds in just his fourth fight and there was no going back.

In his first six contests, he beat the respected 29-10-4 Baby Boy Rolle – who fought out of the Bahamas – and the experienced 34-11-2 Ray Anderson.

However, in 1975, Scott ran into trouble.

Those close to him said he should never have gone back to New Jersey and, as a consequence, he certainly never went back to Florida.

He was charged with the murder of Elliott Russ during what seemed to be a botched robbery. A drug deal gone south.

It was alleged that Scott shot Russ and he was sent to prison in New Jersey. Scott wouldn’t see the real world again for 30 years.

What happened in prison never happened before and it will never happen again. Scott, with the help of influential prison warden Bob Hatrak, headed up a boxing programme. It was not just any programme, either. Given he was on parole, Scott fought for his right to fight and, on May 24, 1978, he was allowed to box Diego Roberson behind the walls of Rahway State Prison.

Scott hadn’t boxed in three years, but he halted Roberson in two and had another 10 fights behind the walls, sometimes in the prison yard and sometimes in the prison’s sports hall.

He battled his way up to be the No. 2 contender and, astonishingly, notched jail victories over the likes of Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Richie Kates and Yaqui Lopez.

He was known for his incredible fitness regime of an hour of running laps, 1,000 push-ups and 1,000 sit-ups each day.

That earned him the name “Superman.”

This is not a ‘normal’ story.

Scott boxed on HBO. The likes of Sugar Ray Leonard were brought in to call his fights. Yes, tickets were sold, but much of the audience was made up of inmates.

And Scott’s rise through the ranks continued until he was eventually found guilty of the robbery and, years on, found guilty of the homicide.

There were maybe one or two who got to interview Scott in prison on his erratic journey. He had lost two of his last three fights and was not allowed to fight after being beaten in September 1981 by the brilliant future Hall of Famer Dwight Qawi, then Dwight Braxton, who, ironically, was a former inmate at Rahway himself.

More than that, he was a sparring partner of Scott’s and claimed that James owed him a sparring debt from their training days.

Still, Scott had been around the block by the time I arrived 22 years after that. He’d been moved to Northwood Prison and then, when I visited, was being held in Northern State Prison in Newark – which, at the time I went there, was recognised as the crime capital of the USA.

The night before, I’d been at a Larry Holmes charity function with my friend Tom Jess, where the likes of Iran Barkley and Harry Arroyo were in attendance. I stayed the night at the venue and then Tom took me, first thing the next day, out to the jail. Tom needed to get to work and his only window to give me a ride was at an ungodly hour and, when we arrived at Northern State, Tom waited while I went to check in at reception to make sure me being accepted to see Scott had not been a mirage.

“Mr Dixon, we see you’re here but you aren’t supposed to be here until 2pm, when visiting hours start,” I was told.

It didn’t really occur to me that having to wait from around 9am until 2pm was a long time. I jogged out and excitedly told Tom to go to work. Everything would be just fine.

He drove off and there I was. Alone. In a prison car park. It was then that it dawned on me that 9am until 2pm was a long time.

I looked around. It was grey, miserable, damp. Newark seemed to be far enough away that if I walked there, I’d have to turn around and walk back. Besides, I was broke. It’s not like I had money to buy anything.

So I started walking back the way that Tom and I had come and it was strange but, next to the prison, was a Holiday Inn. I wasn’t above loitering in a hotel lobby for a few hours, so I started to make my way in and, most bizarrely, I saw someone I thought I recognised loading his case into the boot of his car.

“Eddie,” I asked.

The man looked at me and beamed.

“Yo, Tris. How are you doing, my man.”

Not only could I believe that it was former light-heavyweight contender Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, I couldn’t believe he knew it was me after our interview in Las Vegas a year or so earlier.

And as if that wasn’t coincidence enough, Eddie had told me during that interview that the one person he felt beat him fair and square in his career was… James Scott.

“Are you here to see James,” I asked Eddie, rather naively.

“James who?” he asked.

“Scott, James Scott,” I excitedly repeated. “He’s next door.”

“In the hotel?”

“No. The prison. Northern State Prison. It’s next door.”

“Ah man, I wish I knew. I have to go and catch a flight. Here, let me do something.”

As Eddie explained he’d been in Newark training cruiserweight veteran Al Cole, he penned a note to James with his number and, “I’m here for you,” written on it.

“Make sure he gets this,” Eddie said.

Eddie headed off and I went into the hotel where, for the next few hours, I thought about the coincidental meeting and devoured the newspapers that were complimentary for guests, USA Today and the Newark Star-Ledger. I read them cover to cover. I grabbed a free coffee from the machine in the lobby, bought a banana and walnut muffin and saw out the remaining time.

Through the doors into the prison, the early shift workers had been replaced by a new team and I had to go through what I was doing again. Fortunately, I was still on the magic list and was sent through into the prison.

A high-ranking guard, Nichols Calenicoff flanked me as I traipsed through numerous security stops and scanners. There were long glass panels with inmates staring freely at me. Of course, you wonder what these people did. Many of them were in for the most serious of crimes.

I didn’t even know what I was doing. I would have only been about 23.

Nick and I eventually found ourselves in a small room, a cross between what looked like a school classroom and a study. There was a table, a few chairs, a blackboard, that might have been it.

And we waited for Scott.

And waited.

It got to the point where Calenicoff said Scott might be late because he’s hard to control.

Gulp.

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It was just eight days after the World Trade Center tragedy.

America was numb and, being there at the time, I felt it. The US pulled together but no one really knew if you could laugh at jokes, have fun, go to events or even go out.

But what must have been one of the earliest sporting events post-9/11 took place at Kahunaville Night Club in Wilmington, Delaware.

And while it’s listed as a nightclub, the fight took place outdoors, with guests seated at tables and chairs.

The most notable fight on the card was the last professional contest of former two-division champion Tracy Harris Patterson, son of former heavyweight champ Floyd.

The most notable bout on the card from my perspective was slightly different, and it saw Lisa Foster, then 3-3-1, take on the 3-1-1 Lakeysha Williams.

I’ll start by admitting I don’t remember the fight exactly, and I can’t even tell you how I got to the Dee Lee (Diane Fischer)-promoted show. What I do know is a convoy of us travelled up from Atlantic City, and that included light-heavyweight legend Matthew Saad Muhammad, former heavyweight champion Ray Mercer, and the Danish duo of welterweight contender Thomas Damgaard and Danish heavyweight Brian Nielsen.

Interesting note, by the way, that Patterson had lost to Arturo Gatti in 1996 and 1997, and Damgaard would lose to Arturo in 2006.

Anyway, I suppose there were about 10 or 15 of us across two or three tables. Mercer and Nielsen had been sparring together and were pretty friendly, but everyone got on, ate and enjoyed the seven-fight card as it went along.

(Photo: The bigger names are presented to the crowd with Nielsen (back row third from left), Saad Muhammad in the cap, Damgaard (bottom left) and Mercer (denim shorts)

One of the men in our posse, a former pro called James Ernst, knew Fischer and the three of us chatted a bit. She started speaking about the women’s fight on the bill and Ernst, always thinking about a quick buck, volunteered my services as a round-card guy.

He said to Diane that I would go topless in between rounds and hold a card informing spectators what round was coming up.

My first thought was, I’m not a piece of meat and I’m not Ernst’s to sell. My second thought was, how much are we talking here?

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So, while the boxing world turns this week around Australia, Saudi Arabia and Thailand, I have been in Dalston, Bournemouth and Bristol (and talkSPORT).

It’s been a wild and fulfilling 36 hours and this is not your normal feature-column but a glimpse through the lens of a freelance boxing writer.

You get calls, opportunities, sometimes the phone doesn’t ring and sometimes you make your own luck.

I suppose it’s worth noting, here, with the above in mind, that I was working through last weekend on some 20 profile pieces on legendary and contemporary boxers for an upcoming Future Publishing bookazine.

Happily, the assigning editor contacted me on Substack and offered me the work and I don’t say ‘no’ to much work. Never have.

I digress, on Wednesday I made the trip to Dalston, north-ish London, for a photoshoot. It was for a new magazine, named Maverick, and is being headed up by a wonderful team, several of whom were formerly with GQ.

Why was I there? Well, along with Simon Pegg – who will appear on the cover of half of the printed magazines – the other half will have a Moses Itauma cover.

I was assigned to go and speak to Itauma, and while they were open to me doing something via Zoom, I’d not done much at all with Itauma and thought it was a good opportunity.

I arrived on set about 10 minutes before the heavyweight youngster – around 3pm – and the cameras were set up and the team was already in place.

Itauma was shown around a significant warehouse, laden with props, and it was actually where I’d filmed a BT Sport roundtable show with Shane McGuigan, Frank Warren, Steve Bunce and Carl Frampton a few years ago.

I had two slots with Itauma, one at the start while he was in make-up and one at the end.

The first one lasted about eight minutes and was okay. I know Moses doesn’t like media too much. I knew he would be looking at me thinking ‘reporter,’ and that I’m just the same as anyone else wielding a notepad or camera. I had no idea if he knew who I was or not. The first bump when we first spoke made me think probably not…

Anyway, not much new came out of the eight minutes. From what I’ve seen, I knew Itauma to be measured and to not waste words. We didn’t really get a rhythm going but I had him thinking about a few answers and that was a promising sign.

For the next two hours, Itauma worked his way through the wardrobe of designer clobber and posed for the photos. Occasionally, he was invited to see what the shots looked like.

I spent the majority of the time talking to his brother, Charles, who I took an instant liking to. He reminded me of an old friend but I still can’t place who. We talked about Moses, the boxing media, Moses and the boxing media, the training Moses does and what he likes (Moses is an avid reader) and dislikes. I also asked for guidance about what to ask his brother about, and if there was anything to avoid. Nothing was off limits, Charles said, but if there was, Moses would have no trouble telling me. That was fine.

Anyway, I ended up doing about 15 minutes with Moses at the end. I asked for five, he reckoned I meant 30, so we split the difference. By the time we finished, it had come up that I had written several books and now Moses was asking me about people I had met and places I had been. I think he was impressed.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

That answered my earlier question.

“Tris,” I replied, and we went our separate ways.

I felt like I should have said not all boxing writers with cameras are the same, the same way I’m sure he’d take offence if he was known simply as ‘boxer’ or ‘southpaw.’

But, the last book he’d read, The Courage to be Disliked, was revealing. It’s one I read and then gave to my son, who scarily is only a year younger than Moses.

I took the train home late Wednesday and wrote some of my book about PEDs in boxing on the journey back and had only a few minutes to freshen up and go to bed, as I had an early alarm to wake up for.

Thursday 3.45am

Whenever I have to get up really early, I sleep with one eye open. My four hours and 11 minutes of sleep (if it was even that, although that’s what my Whoop told me), was broken, at best. But Chris Billam-Smith and I had agreed to film a Built Different episode on Bournemouth beach during the sunrise.

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“Honestly, guys, this is going to be great,” I said as I left the bar at Forlini’s restaurant in Catskill.

It was July 13, 2001, and I was walking to a room around the back of the ‘resort’ where there was a TV for anyone who wanted to watch some sport.

Now, I had a sneaking suspicion that Micky Ward versus Emanuel Augustus was going to be an absolute riot.

They were boxing in the ESPN main event in Hampton Beach and I was living and breathing the sport.

I could see things through the crystal-clear lens of a man (sic: boy) who was 22 and thought he knew it all. I thought I could see good matches when they were made. It was not at all uncommon for me to pick the winner of a fight and name the round, or only be one or two rounds out.

I felt I lived in a boxing matrix. I was so consumed by it.

And when I knew Ward was fighting Augustus, I thought one word: banger.

I was living in Catskill to train with Kevin Rooney. I was a huge Mike Tyson fan in my youth – before the really crazy stuff came along – and I always loved the way Cus D’Amato spoke about fear and embraced it. None of my other trainers did. On the contrary, one of my coaches told me, aged 19, for one last big round, to imagine I’d got home and someone had murdered my parents and raped my girlfriend.

Now, that might have worked for some boxers, but I thought it was pretty grim and it didn’t serve to motivate me. I was much more an arm-around-me sort of guy. If someone believed in me as a boxer, I felt I could do something. That is, in part, because I was so willing to learn, practise and do anything I was told – with the exception of imagining my parents were dead and my girlfriend had been brutally attacked.

Anyway, I spent a few months with Rooney and I’d come to stay at Forlini’s. They gave me a bed in an outbuilding in exchange for doing menial jobs around the place, from gathering ice for the bar to cutting the grass and cleaning the swimming pool.

Freddie and Mary, who owned it, were a delight. Safe to say, they took me in.

Still, as I encouraged everyone to gather around the screen, I found myself there, on my own, for the first bell. Oh well.

**

Micky Ward strolled out of his corner and nonchalantly threw an overhand right from the 15th row. That set the tone.

You see, Ward was a brawler, a persistent menace with one of the best left hooks downstairs the sport has ever seen and, a paver by day, never took a step back.

Augustus was nuts. He would dance, showboat, win fights he should have lost and flatten guys who were expected to beat him. His mixed record served only to highlight his mood, not his skills.

He had, after all, given Floyd Mayweather fits in a fight Mayweather would often refer to as his hardest.

That Augustus showed up against Ward and there were two stories that night: one taking place about 200 miles away and the other unfolding in the back of Forlini’s – and both were magical.

Within 20 seconds, Augustus was on the ropes and Ward was on his chest – and they were both letting the leather fly. I bloody knew this was coming.

**

Within 90 seconds, you could hear the excitement in Teddy Atlas’ voice on colour commentary and he shouted for the first time within two minutes. When they describe a phone-box fight, this is what they talk about.

Ward pounded his gloves together when they walked away from one another and here’s a stat for the ages: in that first round, in which Ward had thrown more than 100 punches with 20 seconds remaining, not one was a jab.

Ward was busier, but Augustus – then Emanuel Burton, by the way – was more accurate. And the self-styled “Drunken Master” often smiled despite having to work his socks off to stay in the fight.

Micky bled from the nose in the third and Burton grinned after Ward attempted a double jab and fell short of landing with real purpose. Lowell’s Ward kept switching stances this way and that, and Micky pinned Augustus on the ropes before Augustus battled back off them. It was war.

The crowd at Hampton Beach was invested and so was I. I ran into the bar and urged some of the regulars to come through.

“You gotta see this,” I enthused.

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Sightings of Richie Kates in retirement were not well-documented. I’d heard he lived in Vineland, New Jersey, so I visited.

I got there off a minor bus route and asked people in the area whether they’d heard of the former long-time light-heavyweight contender.

It didn’t take too long for me to find someone who pointed me in the direction of the local Police Athletic League gym. Apparently, Richie was in there training and mentoring the youngsters every evening.

I had hours to wait, but one man to see. So I waited it out. Richie arrived, wearing a red shirt with a tie and a pair of slacks, he gave me some time and he couldn’t have been nicer.

Richie Kates passed away in 2023, aged 69, and I wrote about his life and his career. It moved Richie Kates Jnr to find me on Facebook to thank me for the tribute. That is something I often consider when setting out to write a longer obituary. I know not many will take the time to do so, and one day a relative will come looking for something that tells the story of a lost loved one. It’s happened with Rocky Castellani and several others I’ve written about and it’s always incredibly rewarding.

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They called him Mr Kates.

Such was the respect that perennial light-heavyweight contender Richie Kates had, it did not matter if you were in boxing, a work colleague in the New Jersey prison system or one of the youngsters he tried to teach the ways of the world to, he was referred to as Mr Kates.

Boxing obituaries will normally be about who fought who, what happened and what a fighter’s legacy was. And while Richie Kates was a terrific fighter who only just – by the narrowest of margins – failed to crack the big time, those who knew him measured him by the type of man he was rather than the brilliant ring craftsman he had been throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s.

Kates, from Bridgeton, NJ, was born to parents who were sharecroppers in Savannah, Georgia, and was only a few months old when the family moved to New Jersey.

He had to learn how to fight early in life because he had 11 brothers and sisters, and reckoned he had about 70 amateur bouts, losing just five. He did menial jobs to make ends meet and worked for everything he had.

Aged 18, he made $50 for his first four-rounder in Baltimore and always joked that he gave his cutman $15 of that.

“I was a hard trainer. I always took it seriously,” he said.

As a young man, Kates went to Joe Frazier’s gym and sparred with the heavyweight great. While there, Kates sparred another future light-heavyweight contender Len Hutchins. Richie felt certain that he had Len’s number and would often ask his manager, Joe Gramby, to make a fight with Hutchins.

“No, you’re not going to beat this guy,” Gramby told him.

Kates eventually got what he wanted.

“I remember, I wasn’t supposed to beat Len Hutchins,” Kates said. But in April of 1971, underdog Kates defeated Hutchins on a split decision in Philadelphia.

However, a couple of fights later, Richie lost for the first time when stopped by Eddie “Red Top” Owens. Still, a defeat wasn’t the end of the world back then and Kates returned four months later, won four on the bounce and then avenged the Owens loss.

He fought in good class again, defeating Utah veteran Don Fullmer in September 1973, on points. Fullmer said his body “was going haywire” at the time and retired afterwards, but Kates learned from the former world title contender and moved on.

In May of 1974, Kates chinned the very good Jimmy Dupree in a round for the North American light-heavyweight title and, like Fullmer, Dupree never fought again and, through Gramby, Kates then started a side gig boxing in South Africa.

Richie defeated James Mathatho in Durban, returned to the US for two fights and then went back out to Durban where he beat Mohamed Afonso.

“At the time, I wasn’t educated with the politics of apartheid, I was there to fight,” Kates reasoned. He was a humble man and never believed any decision he made would have widespread consequences. He was a fighter, so he fought.

Kates signed for a big fight with former world title challenger Pierre Fourie, which was an eliminator for the WBA light-heavyweight title in everything but name, and Kates won over 10 rounds at Johannesburg’s Rand Stadium.

Boxing News said Kates had handed Fourie “a real boxing lesson” and some ringsiders didn’t even give their own fighter a round on the cards.

Promoter Russell Peltz, whom Kates boxed for 15 times in all – from late in 1970 against Paul Dickenson to Richie’s final fight in 1983 – felt the Fourie win in South Africa and the Hutchins victory were the best results of Richie’s career.

Richie told the South African press that he had lured them in, trying not to look too good in his two earlier fights so Fourie’s team would take the bait, and after beating Fourie, Kates was confident of defeating WBA champion Victor Galindez.

It wasn’t to be.

Back in South Africa, on May 22, 1976, Kates gave Galindez hell but eventually succumbed to the Argentine with one second left of their 15-rounder.

South African journalist Bert Blewett was ringside in Johannesburg and his excitement was palpable, calling it “one of the most savage and sensational fights ever seen in South Africa.”

Blewett continued excitedly: “It was a fight of bloodiness, courage and controversy, and it had the crowd of more than 35,000 screaming from bell to bell.”

The Rand Stadium drama started in the third round. Kates claimed he cut Galindez with a left hook but referee Stan Christodoulou ruled it a head clash. Galindez screamed in anger and agony, and there was a melee in the ring as, according to Boxing News, spectators and reporters poured into the ring. With the Argentine’s team working on his cut, no one knew whether the fight was over, if Kates had won on cuts or if Richie had been disqualified. Kates thought he was going to be declared the winner.

“I assumed the fight was over and I was the champ,” Richie recalled. “I was as happy and excited as I ever was in my life.”

After about five minutes, the ring was cleared and the fight was back on, but Kates’s emotions had dropped through the ring canvas.

“I was thinking about how they were going to take the championship away from me,” Kates continued. “I was having trouble coming to terms with it. I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. Emotionally, it tore me apart.”

Galindez asserted himself as the fight wore on but Richie hung tough, finally wilting with just one second remaining.

He admitted that, despite many good performances in the years that followed, he was never the same. Kates had another shot at Galindez a little more than a year on, in Italy, but lost a decision.

Kates was a real pro, blessed with more skills than luck. He stopped Harold Carter in Vineland two months on, then came up against Philadelphia’s improving Matthew Franklin in February 1978.

While Kates had conducted business overseas, the NABF had allowed Franklin, later Matthew Saad Muhammad, to fight for the vacant title, the one Richie had beaten Dupree for. Kates argued he should still have had the belt, and even though Franklin-Kates was postponed a few days after a snowstorm bleached the streets of Philly, Kates came out hot.

At the end of round four, Kates levelled the future Hall of Famer with a right hand that would have set off car alarms outside. “I thought that was it,” Kates said. “Goodnight.”

So did the 6,586 screaming Philly fans. The fight would have been stopped today.

Franklin rose unsteadily at the bell, was carried back to his corner and the war went on.

At the end of the fifth, Franklin did the same thing to Richie and Kates was saved by the bell. But Kates hadn’t fully recovered and Franklin bombed him out in the sixth. It had been extraordinary and they’d earned every cent of the $15,000 pot they divided.

Afterwards, Kates was taken to hospital and stories were leaked that he had suffered brain damage. He put it down to exhaustion as much as anything else, and said he was given a clean bill of health, but there were some macabre headlines in the local press that upset him even years later.

Given Philly’s exceptional back catalogue of incredible battles, it meant something that Gene Courtney, writing for the Inquirer, called it “the most savage fight in Philadelphia in more than a decade.”

Richie laughed fondly at memories of that fight when we spoke last year. “He [Franklin] wanted the fight more than I did,” Kates sighed. “I still thought I was the better fighter.”

Things weren’t getting any easier for Richie. In 1979, he fought in Rahway Prison in front of 400 paying fans and 40 inmates against ranked contender James Scott, who remarkably had been allowed to continue fighting behind the jail walls – and on TV – even though he faced another 30 years behind bars for serious crimes.

Kates might have worked in the correctional system in an administrational capacity, but he was psyched out by the whole experience of fighting inside a maximum-security prison. Scott swamped Richie in the 10^th and final round, with Kates never down but finally sagging on the ropes.

Years on, Scott joked about their fight saying, “Richie’s a nice guy. He’s the only guy I fought who when he hit me apologised. He’d hit you in the face, cut you in the eye and say ‘Excuse me’ and stuff like that. He hit me so much in the face he got me mad, especially when he said ‘Pardon me’ afterwards.”

Yet despite the rough, physical contests, veteran observers appreciated Kates’s intricacies as a fighter.

“More of a boxer, than a puncher, despite his 23 KOs,” assessed Peltz, even though Kates had the power to nearly flat-line Franklin with that right hand that caused the Spectrum to shake. Years ago, the Hall of Fame journalist Nigel Collins wrote of Richie, “In spite of his skill and outstanding record, Richie was not popular with Philly’s bloodthirsty fans. He was, and still is, a quick-handed counterpuncher. Not a go for broke bomber.”

And Kates was always a straight-shooter. Perhaps that was a quality reinforced by his relationship with Gramby.

“Kates never argued with Gramby,” Peltz said. “Gramby was the boss and that was the way he managed. It was his way or the fighter could sit out. Kates respected him and Gramby was good to them. He never double-dealt them or anyone when his fighters fought for me. All the money was on the contract. No hidden payouts. One of the smartest boxing men I ever knew. His word was gold.”

After Scott, Kates still had big wins over future super-middleweight belt-holder Murray Sutherland at Pontiac’s Silverdome and he split a pair of contests with another very good ex-con Jerry Celestine in New Orleans, winning their rematch at the Superdome.

Kates called it a day after a fine run of form, winning his final five fights and scalping Jeff Lampkin and former world title challenger Jerry Martin in his last two fights, both in Atlantic City. Richie was 32 and still ranked in the top 10.

“When I retired, it was just time for me,” Kates told me over the phone in late 2020, happily discussing Scott, Saad Muhammad and the others.

“I wanted to know when it was time to get out. I didn’t want to be one of the fighters who sticks around too long.”

Kates was a gentleman and commanded respect. Even colleagues in the New Jersey correctional department called him Mr Kates, and so did the kids he worked with at the Vineland Police Athletic League gym in later years. It was there where his fatherly arm extended around the likes of Darrell Wilson and Bruce Seldon as they tried to relaunch their heavyweight careers with Kates’s tough love. They were inspired by him, wanted to impress him and they went to him because they knew they would get a straight-talking coach.

When anyone turned the music up too loud in the gym, Kates would instruct them, “turn that thing down.”

The dial was immediately spun anti-clockwise, a respectful hum would take over and his business would resume.

Kates worked in Trenton by day and went to the PAL to train aspiring boxers in the evening. He had first started working at the Department of Corrections in the late sixties after graduating from high school, departing for several years before returning in ’96. There, he would assign inmates to programmes they might need for rehabilitation, taking into account treatment they required, too.

“I’ve always been a people person,” Richie told me a couple of decades ago when I visited him in Vineland. “Someone who believes you might be able to help turn someone’s life around by giving him the proper instructions and guidance. I’d like to think that, through my job, I’ve been able to make a positive impact on a significant number of people.”

Richie Kates, a kind and courteous man, did not have many regrets following a career that saw him win 44 fights and lose just six. Yes, he would say the Saad Muhammad night was “the stupidest fight I ever fought – I tried to outslug a slugger” but Kates was not just about boxing. His wisdom stretched beyond our fistic turf.

“I tell kids to do things the right way,” Richie explained, of how he helped people in life. “I don’t just train them, I take it a step further. The kids don’t come in cursing, with their pants hanging by their butts, wearing doo rags or hats that are twisted to the side. I don’t allow that. I send them outside and tell them not to come back until they get rid of the doo rag, pull up their pans and speak proper English. This isn’t just about boxing. It’s about life.”

And Richie’s life was a full one, in and out of the ring; it was so full that Peltz refused to remember him as a fighter or to judge him by his merits from those heady nights at the Spectrum and beyond.

In his typically brilliant Facebook memorandum to Kates, Peltz wrote: “I could start by saying Richie Kates was one of the nicest boxers I ever knew, but that wouldn’t be fair. He was one of the nicest people I ever knew.”

“I try to be a good husband, a good parent and a good citizen,” Richie once said to me. “I’m a church deacon and I have a variety of interests. I’ve seen so many fighters, including ex-champions, who are unable to put sentences together, who are begging for handouts. I take a look at my life and I consider myself fortunate.”

Richie Kates passed away on Saturday, March 11. He was 69 and he was a good fighter and, yes, Mr Kates was a good man.

How did I end up here?

That question ran through my head as I sat on Aaron Pryor’s sofa in Cincinnati, watching him excitedly search for HBO’s Legendary Nights episode about his rivalry with Alexis Arguello.

Only the night before I’d been sleeping in one of the worst hostels in America. Now I was sitting beside a Hall of Famer as he prepared to relive the greatest fight of his career.

This was crazy to me for several reasons.

One, that Legendary Nights series was arguably the height of my fandom and that particular episode was one of the best.

Two, I thought Pryor was a spectacular fighter and would have given any of the three smaller kings – Duran, Leonard and Hearns – more than a run for their money.

Thirdly, I’d met Arguello and found him to be, as everyone said, a class act.

Once Arguello knew I was okay by Pryor, I was absolutely fine by him.

(Author’s collection: With Alexis Arguello at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2002)

I would love to say being in Cincinnati with Aaron was a pinch me moment, being there with Aaron, but I was, frankly, dumbstruck.

At 22, I had no idea how my love of boxing had carried me from a small village in the UK to moments like this.

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*

Aaron Pryor had already done an interview with me at his kitchen table before he decided to put on the Legendary Nights episode.

Once that was playing, there was no going back. There was no pause on either the show or Pryor as he excitedly narrated his way through the entire show. He rode through the highs and lows like a kid watching a cartoon and as though he was seeing it all for the very first time, even though the actual fight had taken place in the Miami Orange Bowl in November 1982.

At the start, when the voiceover described Aaron as “a bad luck kid” and said “he always had everything against him,” he looked at me as if to say, “Watch this and see what I came through to get there.”

Then, there was a resigned look when he listened to experts saying he could never “be the matinee guy” or “the good guy.”

He could do little more than shrug.

There was a line in the programme when Pryor talked about fighting internationally as an amateur and wishing not only that he’d had some support on the way up, but that those closest to him had even realised he was gone.

That was something he’d said to me several times.

The story recounts some of Pryor’s great amateur lore. It shows a brief highlight of him defeating Tommy Hearns in the amateurs and promoter Butch Lewis tells the story of Ray Leonard choosing to move up in weight to compete in the 1976 Olympics rather than go through the trials and face Pryor.

Pryor, instead, got shafted in the trials and Howard Davis went on and won gold.

Pryor looked sombre as the talking heads on the show recounted the details.

“When he saw them get the big contracts and the money,” said childhood friend Steve Reece. “It broke his heart…. He always felt he belonged in that class.”

One of Pryor’s first jobs after the Olympics was over was as a sparring partner… for Davis.

“I was sparring him for $500 a week, I beat him up a couple of times, I lost my job,” he sighed.

Pryor was on about $2,000 a fight while those who’d made it onto network TV draped in gold were getting the seven-figure treatment.

Pryor was a tough inner-city kid.

“What time is it?” he cried wherever he went.

“Hawk time,” replied the hangers-on.

He kept calling out Leonard, but was repeatedly resisted and when, after about seven minutes of the show, Arguello is introduced by Bert Sugar as the marquee name Pryor had needed to legitimise his claim of being one of the sport’s best fighters, Pryor almost welled up in front of me in a clear mark of his respect for the great Nicaraguan.

But, come the fight, Aaron’s gaze steadied at what was before him.

He stared down the great four-weight champion and – as he did in the ring – pointed a fist in the direction of Arguello. We were a quarter of a century on and he and Alexis were now firm friends, but he was coming for him.

**

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Chris
Hi Tris do you think with boxing being on all these pay walls mainly now DAZN it’s making harder to make stars off the future, how much will social media have to do to change this?

Tris: Thanks for the question. The social media part is really interesting given a lot of the promoters and networks fire out the most meaningful clips on their social media channels moments after they happen. I’m not sure they really know what to do. But even as a hardcore boxing person, if I’ve seen highlights it can be a chore to go back and watch a 10 or 12-round fight, so how will that help a casual viewer? Imagine that with football. Whoever sees Match of the Day is not going to go back and watch the whole game.

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Gayle Falkenthal

Is Zuffa the 500-pound gorilla of boxing, or just one more ambitious promoter who believes it can “fix” boxing? Emotional arguments from both sides aside, what do you see for Zuffa’s future?

Tris: It’s the 500lbs gorilla or the meteor heading to earth. There is a feeling of inevitability about how it all shakes out. The Ali Act amendments will help them, and hinder others, but their budget, their resources, their power is incomparable. But there are what ifs to consider. What if Trump is out and they can’t call on favours from Washington? What if the Saudi investment goes away? And, as Eddie Hearn points out, do they have the boxing product knowledge to make it work?

Whatever happens, Gayle, I don’t anticipate it being over quickly.

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Marc Kilmer

How did the energy in crowd for the Boots-Zayas fight compare to some of the other big energy crowds at other fights you’ve attended?

Tris: It was up there with anything and everything I’ve experienced. I could feel the Puerto Rican wall of excitement behind me and the fight was so action-packed that everyone, already invested in the occasion, lost their collective minds over what was happening in the ring. What a night.

Chris

Do you fear long term for British boxing as they don’t appear to be as many stars in the making coming through right now?

Tris: Sometimes I really do and when I do, I think of it like this. When Eddie Hearn was coming through, he signed the likes of Tony Bellew, Darren Barker, Carl Froch, Carl Frampton and Kell Brook. If a new kid came on the block, who would they pick up that carried that kind of quality and impetus. Pat Brown would be near the top of the list. Dalton Smith. But let me know what four or five guys would you build a stable around?

Gonzalo Baeza

What is your next book (or books) about?

Tris: It’s about performance enhancing drugs in boxing. I’ve been working on it for ages, but I’ve not looked at it for a few months as I’ve been so busy. There’s no deadline, really, and I’m struggling to find the time for it (these things don’t really pay money to justify putting the time up against), but I have found out some absolutely incredible stuff.

Jeff Boyde

Have you read “Thinking Big - The James Quick Tillis Story”? He doesn’t have a good word to say about his Manager Beau Williford. Have you ever met either of them?

Tris: Yes, I have that book and I’ve read it. I did not meet either of them but Glenn McCrory, who was with Beau, felt Beau did him very dirty and still has a lot of anger and resentment toward him.

Qaasim

What is the difference between American gym culture and British gym culture?

Tris: Hard to put into words and it definitely depends on the gym but it’s more edgy out there in the US, I would say. Perhaps more competitive and alpha-based. But it does all depend on the place, the coaches and the fighters. One thing I will say is the community element is similar in them all, and that is one of boxing’s great qualities.

In-Boxing

are there any fighters who you feel you misjudged initially and now looking back, have an entirely different perspective on? i am talking from a performance / stylistic perspective as opposed to a personality one but interested to hear either.

Tris: Yeah, I told readers to put their house on Cuban Luis Garcia winning a world title. I thought Welshman Lewis Rees was the goods and shamed Puerto Rican Felix Verdejo might do more in the pros than Miguel Cotto. Those are just for starters!

From a personality perspective, I sometimes get surprised speaking to people I’ve known of for a long time but have not spoken to before. Zab Judah is an example. We jumped on a call a year or two ago and he was great.

K Murphy

Assuming Josh Kelly is next, his best path to victory will be implementing the game plan everyone thought Xander would implement against Boots: lateral movement, boxing and turning while fighting in spots. Do you think he can pull off the upset against Boots?

Ben Whittaker is solid, but still hard to measure, esp with his poor performance against Liam Cameron. What short list of names make sense to target next, to show us he’s ready to challenge for a world title?

Tris: I agree that Kelly doesn’t want a firefight with Boots, but I’d say it’s like an 85-15 fight for Ennis. I’d give Josh a better chance with Fundora with raiding tactics and movement.

For me, matching Whittaker I’d pick Craig Richards, Lyndon Arthur, Willy Hutchinson, and if he beats one or two of those, move up to Anthony Yarde or Joshua Buatsi. I would be patient with him, but try to keep him more active.

Daniel

Who do you consider the current top promoter?

Tris: Great question as Frank Warren might be in the UK, and Eddie Hearn might be in the world, and Dana White might be better than both. It also depends on whether we are looking at the stables, their body of work or how they promote an event. It is hard to go against Matchroom when you think of the Barclays, Croke Park, their Saudi relationships, DAZN, Netflix, and while they have Boots and Bam, their stable will look very different once Anthony Joshua and Katie Taylor have retired. But I’m a big fan of what Warren has done, in particular at 175lbs and heavyweight, in recent years.

Graham

I enjoyed your interview with Eddie Hearn, but you’d barely got the questions out your mouth and he was already in ‘Eddie mode’. Do you approach these interviews differently?

Tris: Thank you. Not really. I try to have a conversation with them more than an interview and I’m always aware that people are not tuning in to listen to me but to whoever I am talking to, so I’m happy for them to let loose.

David Greisman

Who in boxing — fighter or otherwise — have you never had a chance to interview and remains on your wish list? What about someone from the past who’s no longer with us? Is there anyone who was a better interview than you originally expected?

Tris: I mentioned this in a recent Willie Monroe piece, but missing out on Bennie Briscoe will always bother me. If I had a time machine, I’d love to have gone back and talked to Jack Dempsey.

There’s been a few who have been better than expected. I’ve only ever had Mike Tyson on his good days, so he has always over-delivered given I’ve feared the worst and heard the horror stories. And I’d built a really nice relationship with George Foreman and it always surprised me how generous he was with his time.

In terms of a wishlist, I’ve done some stuff with Anthony Joshua but I’d love an unscripted, uncensored sitdown with him. I feel like there’s so much in there that we’ve not seen.

Andrew Rihn

If you could have a drink/meal with any boxing journalist or writer from any point in history, who would you sot down with?

Tris: I’ve been lucky that I’ve got to know so many of the writers I’ve looked up to, but I never met Hugh McIlvanney or Harry Mullan. They would both be right at the top.

I would have had Nigel Collins near the top, too, but one of my favourite ever days was going to lunch with him and PhillyBoxingHistory’s John DiSanto, in Philly, near the Joey Giardello statue, and being transported back to 1970s Philadelphia with them both. That is a top 10, maybe even top five, boxing memory for me.

I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to look at my new show, Built Different. Please check it out here.

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Pat Lynch was Arturo Gatti’s long-time manager.

Lynch, who now enjoys more time on the golf course than he does ringside, was with Gatti every step of the way, through the highs and lows.

He introduced me to Gatti and set up several interviews with Arturo for me over the years.

I met Gatti ahead of the second fight with Micky Ward but, of course, knew Micky Ward better. But Team Ward and Team Gatti was essentially one group such was their bond through three great fights.

I interviewed Pat about 18 months after Gatti died – and it’s republished below – and I mention that Lynch is a ticket-broker, and he has helped me get tickets for NBA games when I’ve taken my kids to the US.

He is one of the game’s good guys. And my heart still goes out to him for losing his treasured Arturo.

“It’s funny,” says Pat Lynch with a rueful smile. But there is a sad mist in his eyes that tells me it is not really humorous. Eighteen months on, the pain of the suspicious death of his fighter and friend Arturo Gatti still hurts. It is a raw wound that will take far longer than a year-and-a-half to heal. “Arturo used to make me crazy at times and we’d have these conversations and I’d be mad and yelling at him and he’d say, ‘Look, you’ve got to think of it this way, Pat. You’ve got to think of it as you’ve got four kids and one of them’s bad. I’m the bad kid, the one out of the four.’ We used to laugh about that. ‘You can’t have four kids and they’re all good, you know.’

“My children adored him, they really did. They called him Uncle Arturo.” Gatti was an usher at Lynch’s wedding two decades ago and godfather to one of his two daughters, Cameron. They would holiday together, spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with each other. Pat and his family were having a break in Italy in July 2009 when he took a call from the USA. It was the unwelcome news that Gatti, who it was later claimed committed suicide, had been murdered while on holiday in Brazil with his young Brazilian bride. Lynch pauses to think, removes his glasses and squeezes the bridge of his nose between his thumb and first finger. These are not happy memories. “It’s really hard, man,” he says, hesitating.

“I remember falling back onto the bed and my older daughter, Alexandra, just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed - uncontrollably. My son, Kyle, seemed to be in a state of shock. Maybe it was better that we were in Europe. I don’t know…” Gatti’s widow, Amanda Rodriguez, was arrested and jailed for his murder but Arturo’s death was later ruled suicide by Brazilian authorities and they released Rodriguez after a brief spell in custody.

Lynch remains convinced that Gatti would never have killed himself. He knew Arturo as well as anyone and refuses to accept that the man who never quit in a number of modern boxing’s most savage and classic battles had given up on life. Pat’s carried out an in depth, hugely detailed investigation into Gatti’s death, resulting in a revealing 317-page dossier about his fighter’s physical and mental health, his future, his outlook and the way in which he lost his life. “He just wasn’t that type of person,” Lynch protests, as he tries to insert the words Gatti and suicide into the same sentence. “He had too much to live for, you know. He had the second child [Arturo Jnr – with Amanda [author’s note – Arturo Jnr died in similar circumstances last year], he talked about promoting fights and he was ready to start another real estate project – the first one was very successful. It was just the way he talked. That would be the last thing he would ever do or think of. It just was not him.

“And everything sounded fishy from the beginning. That’s why I hired Dr Michael Baden to do the second autopsy. When he completed that in Canada he came down and we had lunch with my brother, John, who is an attorney and who represented Arturo, and Dr Baden said to me, ‘There’s a lot of missing stuff there that the Brazilians didn’t give us to come to a final conclusion, stuff you really need that we don’t have. But, I will tell you this, you cannot rule out murder. And what they’re saying, that he hanged himself with that [handbag] strap, that doesn’t match’.” Lynch paid for an exhaustive study to get to the bottom of what happened. “I could have never afforded the whole case to be very honest with you,” admits Lynch. “It was a good amount of money but realistically it should have cost 10 times more than it did.

But they got attached to it, too. After they started to see everything they [the investigators] said, ‘There’s no way this kid committed suicide.’

It took their hearts so they really dug in deep and went ahead with it.”

Now the fighting is left to Lynch, who does not think Rodriguez should be awarded the fighter’s $6m fortune. Pat recalls hearing that Gatti had considered changing his Will near the end and, when Rodriguez was initially arrested for murder, Lynch remembered turning to his wife, Lisette, and saying, ‘Thank God he didn’t change it.’ But when Pat returned to the US from Italy he discovered Gatti had made the amendments, leaving everything to Amanda. Three weeks later he was dead.

Pat now wants Gatti’s mother to be given the fighter’s estate and she insists all she wants to do is put it in trust funds for her son’s two children. There was speculation that Arturo, who had been retired two years, might be lured back into the ring. He found it hard to give up the sport that made him a superstar and one of its highest earners.

There was talk of a three-bout deal with the UFC but if Arturo fought again, in any way, shape or form, it would have tested his relationship with Lynch to its limits. The manager remained nervous that his fighter would try again, and even turned down offers of more than $1m for him to fight in Canada.

Then Gatti was on a Canadian radio show one evening and afterwards phoned Pat to say something he mentioned could have been misconstrued. “I was about to call him when he called me. And he goes, ‘Listen, I know you must have gotten a call. I was just on a radio show and they took what I said out of context. What I said was I would never fight again in a ring without you being by my side.’ “I said, ‘Woah, woah, woah. You’re never fighting again. If you want to manage a fighter, if you want me to promote with you or if you want to train fighters, that’s great. But Arturo, we made a deal. You wanted that one last fight with

[Alfonso] Gomez, which I was against. You begged me to have that last fight. You’re never going to put the gloves on again. That was the last one.’” Lynch prayed that the rollercoaster they had been on for 16 years had finally stopped at a calm, less chaotic destination. Pat had been a fixture in the passenger seat while the rest of us looked on, riveted, watching Gatti’s sensational journey and the phenomenal all-action fights that earned him the reputation as the most fan-friendly slugger of his generation. And to think, the thrills he gave the fans by boxing from behind closed eyes, rising from knockdowns and shipping heavy punishment only to return fire and win fights; he gave poor Lynch, his dear friend, heart attacks. When they signed together, in 1991, Pat had no idea what he was letting himself in for. He just knew he liked the 19-year-old.

“Yes, he was a good kid,” Pat smiles, again a little water settling on his eyes. “He was a lot of fun. He appreciated what you did for him. There are some guys I have met over the years, fighters who just take things for granted and don’t appreciate what you do. He was a big-hearted guy, always appreciated what people did for him and he was very respectful, with my family and everything. I very much took to him early on.” And it was not long before Gatti showed Lynch what he was made of as a person and as a fighter. He had a good amateur background in Canada but during a tournament in New Jersey he displayed the assets that would make his name: power and balls.

Pat enthusiastically retells the story. “He was going to work the corner for another young kid named ‘Machine Gun,’” Lynch begins. “So when they went down there ‘Machine Gun’ was just this little guy and one of the boxers said ‘I’m going to fight him’ – you know how they match up size at amateur tournaments. And Arturo said, ‘You’re not fighting him, you’re my size. I’ll fight you.’

He said, ‘Okay.’ “The kid was [former Olympic gold medallist] Howard Davis’ fighter, and Arturo said ‘You want a fight? Fight me. Let’s go.’

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There was a big-fight feel around the weigh-in for Jaron Ennis and Xander Zayas today.

They shared a staredown that lasted more than a minute – and I still don’t know if there’s much to be taken from such things – but the crowd popped.

I was sat next to Thomas Hauser, who left to go to lunch with Russ Anber and Bruce Trampler. He invited me, but I’d already eaten.

Still, I digress. I’d taken it for granted that it was cooler here in New York than back home and left the hotel in cargo trousers and a V-neck T-shirt. It was so uncomfortable out there in the sun. I’d underestimated it enormously.

Anyway, I got to see Matchroom’s Anthony Leaver, distributing credentials, and it was wonderful to catch up with him.

He features in an episode of Boxing Life Stories and he was in the UK for the rebirth of Matchroom in the boxing space and then helped lead the media side of things in the US when they expanded.

It’s been quite a trip, and I’ll get to that.

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Sometimes I get asked that if I could have interviewed any fighter in history who would it be.

I’ve been lucky and done a good few hundred, but for the longest time my answer was a tie between Philadelphia duo Bennie Briscoe and Willie Monroe.

I had, of course, a lot of respect for both. But it was also because I’d either met or spent time with so many Philly greats that they were the two I felt I was really missing. I’d seen Cyclone Hart in the gym, I’d sat down with Joe Frazier, and I’d interviewed… Jimmy Young, Harold Johnson, Kitten Hayward, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Jeff Chandler, Joey Giardello, Marvis Frazier, Boogaloo Watts, Robert Hines, Tyrell Biggs, Bert Cooper, Buster Drayton and Ivan Robinson. Now you could argue over the geography of a few of them, with Cooper being in Sharon Hill and Joey being in Cherry Hill, but this isn’t about that.

And I’m not an obsessive completist, or didn’t think I was, but Briscoe and Monroe repeatedly eluded me.

I’ll start here by talking about Bennie Briscoe, the middleweight hardnut. If Joe Frazier was the president of Philly boxing, Briscoe was the mayor.

The thing with Bennie is he didn’t talk to many people any longer. I’d always been told that, while never to give up, it would always be more of a long shot than certainty.

I remember calling his home once and speaking to someone who told me it was the wrong number, but it sounded suspicious and I wasn’t convinced.

There were a couple of attempts between about 2001 and 2004 and, years later, came my closest effort.

It was early 2010, and my friend Tom Jess knew where Bennie lived and we pulled up at his house.

Tom knew that Bennie was my unicorn and that I was desperate to meet him, and that filtered into my apprehension when I knocked on the door.

We heard a noise inside, and a person who I believe to be Briscoe’s son answered. We explained who we were, and he said his dad wasn’t free but that we should come back in about an hour.

Bingo. We were in.

Only, we weren’t.

With time to kill, Tom and I headed to a local bakery and picked the Briscoes up a freshly-made cake.

Tom said we could give it to Briscoe’s wife, who he reckoned was protective of Bennie and the real reason the former middleweight contender rarely ventured out.

I’m I said to Tom more than once, “I can’t believe we’re going to see Bennie Briscoe.”

I was in dreamland. It was actually happening.

It’s fair to say, I’m far more cynical about life about 20 years on.

What happened when Tom and I returned will likely stay with me forever.

We knocked on the door, and Mrs Briscoe answered, but only had the door lightly ajar. I guess their son had briefed her about our earlier visit and she was ready for us.

She promptly told Tom and I that we would not be seeing Bennie, so then Tom produced the cake.

“We brought you this,” he said, hopefully, and perhaps half expecting we would all go in and be sat around a dining table eating cake, joking and telling boxing tales.

With that, she opened the door a touch wider. Just wide enough to take hold of the heavy white box and carry it inside before thanking us and shutting the door.

That was that.

It’s kind of funny, but Willie Monroe was elusive not just in the ring but out of it. Willie lived in Sicklerville, New Jersey, just south of Philly, so I’d never doorstepped him before, but I’d made a couple of calls and had been given short shrift by his wife.

“Willie doesn’t do interviews,” she said.

Of course, always being polite, I’d plead and speak of my respect for the fighters, but she was Mrs Briscoe-esque in her defiance.

Well, one day Tom and I were driving between Philadelphia and Atlantic City and happened to be passing through Sicklerville.

I reminded Tom that it was where Monroe lived and reached for my old address book, which contained a treasure trove of addresses of old fighters.

The cold call was on.

We found the home, walked up to the front door and knocked.

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You know fighters roll their eyes when they have to ‘do media?’

You know everyone wants the same advertisers, the same clicks, the same audience?

I figured I would move outside the box. I know I’m Built Different to the average journalist – and I’ve decided to finally embrace it.

Here is episode one of Built Different.

I remember meeting Alex Miteff.

I was in New York to watch Amir Khan sparkle on his US debut against Paulie Malignaggi.

It was at a time when I realised the British public had not taken to Khan as we thought they might, given how disappointing the sales of Khan on the cover of Boxing News was for that preview issue.

Hatton and Calzaghe, he was not.

However, I upheld my tradition of while in town for a fight, I would look for any retired boxers I could find.

My old buddy Tom Jess, so crucial with helping me track down fighters for The Road to Nowhere, had details of a care home where Miteff was apparently staying.

We parked outside and went in, and really it was like an assisted living place. We asked a couple of staff members for help and were pointed in vague directions but not long after entering, we stumbled into a room with a bed and a man breathing heavily lying on top of it.

I have to admit, I had no idea whether it was Miteff or not. He’d slipped out of the public eye, so far as I could see, decades earlier.

The dashing New York-based Argentine, who was born in Santa Fe, had not boxed since 1967 and we were more than 40 years on from there.

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I was on my honeymoon when Leavander Johnson died. I was on my honeymoon when he fought Jesus Chavez and I was on my honeymoon when I learned that he had been taken to hospital after the contest. Leavander was a fighter and a champion, and between 2000 and 2002 I was a fixture in the Atlantic City Police Athletic League. Scope Wilson was there. Cash White was there training fighters Check out his record. He’s gone now, Cash, and BoxRec still occasionally add to his record. In 13 fights he fought Bennie Briscoe, Jimmy Hairston, (twice), and Joey Giardello. He’s listed at 4-9 (1 KO) and was always helping young fighters in the PAL.

Johnson was the king in there – as the best active fighter. Sure, the likes of the Klitschkos would pass through, welterweight contender Shamone Alvarez was also there, but it was Leavander’s turf. It was his gym. It was his home. His trainer was his father, Bill, and Bill would take me on the pads and teach me some bits.

Initially I was there to box but as time went on and I wrote more I interviewed Leavander a few times. He was always confident but never arrogant. He believed the world title was his destiny and he wouldn’t rest until he got it.

The irony was that Chavez was his first defence and having worked so long to achieve his dream, his title and life were taken in the same fight. It is heartbreaking, but his family always took solace from the fact that Leavander died doing what he loved and as the champion of the world. I got that.

In those days, as I traversed the US to meet different fighters and visit different gyms, I had an old point-and-shoot camera that had a film inside that wound itself on after each picture. You would take your photo and hope for the best. When you took the film in to be developed, you could get anything. There might have been a finger in the way, the light might have been bad, or you might have nailed a David Bailey picture for the ages.

In all my shots of fighters, only one never came out. It was of me, Leavander and Matthew Saad Muhammad taken in the PAL Gym. I remember it because when I took the film in to be processed, I raced to see that shot with enthusiasm. But it wasn’t there. A couple of pictures were blurred or just shadows and it must have been one of them.

I did’t mind, though. Of all the fighters and ex-fighters I spoke to, Leavander was by far the youngest. We would have time to take another shot. We would get that moment again.

Only we wouldn’t and we didn’t. I have a cassette of one of our interviews but no pictures. Most shots of Leavander you can find are from the Chavez fight and I’d rather listen to my old tape than see those. But, of course, what I’d really like is the picture that never came out.

HIGH-ROLLERS in Atlantic City either stop at the ever-expanding boardwalk empire or the plush casino-filled marina.

But the glitzy, so-called glamour spots of the New Jersey shore sandwich some of the poorest communities in the State.

There are desolate wastelands, derelict buildings and vandalised cars, not to mention widespread poverty and crime. Some money has been ploughed into areas to attract more visitors but the investment has been restricted to places that were not crying out for it.

New shops have sprung up and many of the casinos have had facelifts in the past decade. The ghettoes, however, amidst the boarded up windows and unkempt facades, have been left alone. Some have even deteriorated.

The rich have got richer and the poor do what they have to for survival, fighting for a way out or just to get through the day.

Yet a handful of blocks back from the gaudy boardwalk stands a new symbol of hope for the population. Situated on a small, out-of-keeping island of manicured grass and landscaped gardens, City Center Park provides a welcome diversion from the less aesthetically-pleasing environs that surround it. One’s focus is not on the off-licenses, the cheap strip shows or the rundown dollar stores nearby but on the oasis behind the black-glass, breeze-block of a library.

And amongst the greenery stands a statue.

A bronze boxer cuts a solitary figure. The world title is worn proudly around his waist and there is a knowing, familiar twinkle in his eye. His arms are stretched out above him, his index fingers point into the blue skies overhead.

Leavander Johnson was a former IBF lightweight world champion.

He was not an all-time great. He was not widely-known, certainly outside of the sport. He was a good, hard-working pro who was appreciated and respected in Atlantic City.

He trained at the Police Athletic League gym three or four blocks from his home, where he lived with his dad and trainer, Bill.

A father of four, Leavander lost three times fighting for world titles.

In 1994, he was defeated in his first challenge, and his long unbeaten record was taken by Miguel Angel Gonzalez via eighth-round stoppage in Mexico (said to be caused by a cut). That was for the WBC belt. Four wins later (but almost three years on), Johnson went into bat for the WBA title, again at lightweight, and – floored four times - was stopped in a gruelling battle by Orzubek Nazarov.

In 2003, and with Johnson now 34, experienced Mexican Javier Juarguei stopped Leavander in 11 rounds and that appeared to be that. It was Juaregui’s Cinderella story as he captured the crown in his 16^th year as a pro.

Yet Johnson never gave up, even into his mid-thirties, and remained adamant it was his destiny to win the world title.

We spent a lot of time together in Atlantic City between 2000 and 2002. We trained together, his father and trainer, Bill, worked with me, too, and Leavander kept reiterating that he would not rest until he had earned, “That world title.” He always talked to me as though it was written. Beating the likes of future champion Sharmba Mitchell had him convinced he could do it. It did not matter that time was not on his side or that he had come up short thrice before. It was about the final chapter in the story, the one where he wins the belt and makes a fortune before retiring.

“I ain’t trying to fight too long but I just think I deserve recognition that I haven’t got yet,” he told me.

“I deserve to be a champion. That’s what it’s all about.”

Then, in June 2005, he travelled to Italy and finally won the vacant IBF title against Stefano Zoff, taking the championship back to America after seven rounds, and 12 years after his first shot. He had done it. The dream had come true and the empty years of pain, sacrifice and dedication had paid off.

The celebration, however, was tragically short. He had been able to call himself a world champion for just three months before he was killed, defending his beloved title for the first time. He was battered and beaten to the head and body over 11 rounds by Jesus Chavez in Las Vegas before being stopped in 11 rounds. That was on the Saturday night. Johnson died from injuries sustained in the fight on the Thursday in Nevada.

Leavander’s statue is not a record or testament as to his fighting prowess; it is a lasting tribute to his willpower, his strength of character and his story. That is what has immortalised him.

Lou DiBella, his former promoter, welled up as he spoke during the unveiling ceremony a fortnight ago.

The sun was shining and a crowd of around 200 onlookers, family friends, political leaders, boxing people, policemen, gangsters, firefighters, locals and passers-by were united as they awaited their first glimpse at the statue.

“When I think back about my friend Leavander Johnson the word that comes to me first is faith,” said DiBella. “He had faith in his family, he had faith in God and he believed he could achieve anything. Above all he had faith in himself, the kind of faith that allowed him to persevere in this very difficult sport, often under the worst of circumstances, barely making a living yet becoming a world champion and realising the dream of his lifetime.”

Lou placed his hands at Leavander’s feet and stared up at the still-covered statue several minutes before it was revealed. He paused, thought for a moment, looked at the audience and said: “I think it’s proof that a person dies but a dream doesn’t. A dream that’s realised never dies and Leavander Johnson lives forever.”

Philadelphia legend Bernard Hopkins spoke for 10 minutes before the unveiling. His attendance was appreciated enormously by the Johnson family and he also had kind words for Bill, whom he described as an “astute trainer.”

“We have a connection,” he said, peering at Leavander’s still-covered bronze features. “Leavander didn’t have to go to places I had to go to get where I am now but there’s still a connection in not giving up. Our stories are the same, we just went different places but had the same ultimate goal, to be a champion of the world.”

Hopkins talked about the hardships of being a fighter, admiring Johnson’s dedication and desire to achieve the ambition he had always held so close.

“Leavander wouldn’t want you worshipping the statue,” Hopkins told the congregation. “What he would want is for you to embrace the inspiration.”

That is what the statue is about. That is its true meaning.

It is why it received widespread support from the city council.

Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford, on hand with political rival Marty Small, has been involved in the statue campaign since its inception.

Initially it was going to be situated outside the gym but, in a deeper, darker corner of Atlantic City it was felt not enough people would see it. Instead, they named the street outside the gym after Leavander.

“There were times when it seemed this day wouldn’t come but I said we had to make it happen and it has,” stated Langford, before looking at his opponent, Small. “We have our differences but when it comes to doing the right thing for the residents and the people here we don’t have any. Leavander is our champion so we now have this monument to remind the people that something good can come out of Atlantic City.”

Cllr Small, agreed. “This is a great day,” he said of the ceremony, called The Last Round. “This shows that if you keep believing you can get it done.”

Former New Jersey boxing commissioner Larry Hazard added to the tributes as the keynote speaker.

“He had a dream,” said Hazard, who recounted Johnson’s title losses and how the fighter dusted himself off, “Went back to Atlantic City, went back to the drawing board and tried harder.”

“And he wasn’t going to let anything stop him,” continued Hazard. “Leavander Johnson had a dream. Leavander Johnson wouldn’t quit and he kept going until he achieved that dream.”

New Jersey sculptor Brian Hanlon called Johnson “The Rocky of Atlantic City.”

And Johnson’s death could help others in the city, but not just by inspiring them. The Leavander Johnson Foundation – set up in the weeks after his passing - is an empowerment organisation, to help communities improve their quality of life, to contribute to poorer areas using flexible approaches and innovative strategies. Leavander would have liked that.

The eventual unveiling of the statue was swift, heart-rending and tear-jerking experience, brought to an unforgettable, fitting conclusion by Showtime ring announcer, Jimmy Lennon Jnr.

“I’ve had the opportunity to introduce Leavander in many venues around the world and if I could have the honour of introducing him as he lives forever in this beautiful park here, join me with a round of applause,” began Lennon.

The crowd followed his instructions and the noise built into a crescendo as he introduced Leavander, my friend, an Atlantic City icon, one last time. Jimmy Lennon Jnr, Mr Showtime never sounded so good as he belted out: “Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, wearing the bronze trunks, weighing in at the lightweight limit of 135lbs, proudly representing his hometown of Atlantic City, New Jersey, please welcome the former IBF lightweight champion of the world, Leavander Johnson.”

The crowd clapped in rapture, tears streamed down the faces of just about everyone in attendance as they whooped and hollered in spite of their obvious sadness.

The blanket was pulled off the statue and the fighter was unveiled. Leavander Johnson had been immortalised. His dream will live on.

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