Four Kings

by George Kimball

  But on that night in September of ’76, Hagler walked right through him. From the middle rounds on, Hart’s corner was in chaos.

  “They were arguing through the whole fight,” recalled Peltz. “At one point I heard Hart tell his trainer, Sam Soloman, ‘Aw the hell with it. Why don’t you just throw in the towel? ’”

  After eight rounds, Soloman did.

  The win over Hart earned Hagler a rematch with Monroe. His confidence bolstered by the earlier win, The Worm agreed to travel to Boston to meet Hagler on his own turf.

  This time Hagler didn’t leave it to the judges. In the final round of a twelve-round fight, Hagler caught Monroe with a right uppercut followed by a straight left and knocked him out cold. Goody Petronelli would forever-more describe the combination as “the Willie Monroe punch.”

  Eddie Futch and George Benton worked Monroe’s corner that night. After the fight, Futch came to Hagler’s dressing room to offer his congratulations.

  “It seemed like every time we had Willie do something, Marvin did something else,” he told Goody Petronelli.

  Don King had spent several months negotiating with ABC in developing the “United States Boxing Championships,” a year-long tournament that would take place over 1977. The field, King had promised the network, would “be comprised of the best fighters in the USA.” Howard Cosell enthusiastically embraced his role as host and commentator.

  ABC agreed to underwrite the enterprise, paying King $2 million, and handing over another $200,000 in matchmaking fees to the promoter’s henchmen Al Braverman and Paddy Flood.

  The Ring magazine, the self-described “Bible of Boxing,” agreed to verify records and rankings, but as matchmaker Teddy Brenner pointed out, “if The Ring is the Bible, then maybe boxing needs a New Testament.”

  Although many other top boxers were also ignored in the selection process, the exclusion of Marvin Hagler was the most egregious. It subsequently came to light that virtually half the boxers in the tournament had ties to either King, Braverman, Flood, The Ring editor Johnny Ort, or Chris Cline, another King-controlled manager.

  While Hagler was ignored, the middleweight field included Johnny “Mad Dog” Baldwin, who had not had a single fight since Hagler defeated him a year earlier. Another competitor was Ike Fluellen, a Bellaire, Texas, policeman who had also been inactive for a year. Fluellen subsequently confirmed that he had been assured a spot in the tournament if he signed with Chris Cline. Shortly thereafter two fictitious bouts, both against nonexistent Mexican opponents, mysteriously appeared on his record, and voilá! Ike Fluellen abruptly found himself the tenth-ranked middleweight in the world.

  “If I’d stayed retired,” Fluellen would later say, “maybe I could have become champion.”

  Although his exclusion would ultimately become Exhibit A for the prosecution, Hagler and the Petronellis initially coveted a place in the United States Boxing Championships. Goody even fired off letters of protest to both The Ring and ABC.

  “King and his people wanted to take over Marvin’s career,” Goody later explained to Jack Newfield (the crusading journalist who authored a scathing exposé, Only In America: The Life and Times of Don King ). “They insisted me and my brother surrender all our rights to Marvin if they let him into the tournament. King would have become his new manager if he won. We don’t do business that way.”

  Petronelli revealed that even after being rebuffed, King attempted a back-door maneuver and approached Hagler’s mother about gaining a spot in the tournament in exchange for dumping the Petronellis.

  “Marvin wouldn’t do that,” said Goody. “He told King ‘We’re all in this together.’”

  Alex Wallau, a twenty-seven-year-old ABC researcher and associate producer with an abiding interest in boxing, attempted to alert his bosses to the fact that something was amiss. With the assistance of Malcolm “Flash” Gordon, a countercultural iconoclast who hawked a mimeographed sheet called “Tonight’s Boxing Program” for 35 cents a copy outside Madison Square Garden, Wallau prepared an extensively documented memo detailing the odoriferous proceedings afoot.

  Braverman attempted to discredit both. In a mimeographed imitation of Flash’s publication he called “Boxing Beat,” Braverman labeled Gordon “a beatnik pothead with body odor” and a “faggot . . . who hates girls.”

  And in a threat overheard by several ABC colleagues, Braverman shook a finger in Wallau’s face and told him, “In the old days we knew how to take care of enemies like you. Bums like you used to be found laying in the gutter.”

  While his superiors at ABC were still mulling over Wallau’s memo, Sports Illustrated hit the stands with a fawning story praising the U.S. Boxing Championships. The magazine’s usually respected boxing writer Mark Kram unabashedly defended both King and the tournament, and even quoted Johnny Ort as saying “it’s going to bring fresh air to the game.”

  ABC, at Cosell’s urging, removed Wallau from its boxing broadcasts.

  The crooked “tournament” had kicked off amid a display of patriotism with a card telecast from the decks of the carrier U.S.S. Lexington, and the second series of bouts took place at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. The third took place at King’s alma mater, Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio. (There to cover the proceedings, Associated Press scribe “Fast Eddie” Schuyler said to King that Marion “looked like an easy place to escape from.” “It wasn’t,” replied the promoter.)

  In the aftermath of a ludicrous decision that had gone against him in Annapolis, heavyweight Scott LeDoux interrupted Cosell’s post-fight interview with winner Johnny Boudreaux by aiming a karate kick at Boudreaux. (He missed, and instead kicked Cosell’s toupee off. Howard tried to quickly replace it and conducted the subsequent interview with his hairpiece on backwards.)

  LeDoux, with the ABC cameras rolling, unleashed a barrage of accusations of fixed fights and rigged ratings. The loss remained on LeDoux’s record, but it did result in the convocation of a grand jury in Maryland, and the FBI was shortly looking into the proceedings.

  ABC didn’t cancel the tournament until April 16. By then, federal investigators had determined that King had made cash payments to, among others, Johnny Ort, and that Ort and fellow The Ring editor Nat Loubet had obligingly falsified the records of numerous participants.

  King, predictably, claimed that he had been “betrayed.” He labeled Ort “a Judas,” and made a public spectacle of firing Braverman and Flood. (Not long afterward, with less fanfare, King determined that they “should be considered innocent until proven guilty,” and reinstated both men.)

  The Ring ’s reputation was so devastated by the disgrace that it took decades to recover, and several journalists were also tainted by the scandal, among them Mark Kram, who was quietly dismissed by Sports Illustrated.

  Howard Cosell somehow emerged from the tawdry episode unscathed. Much to Howard’s chagrin, so did Wallau.

  Reinstated to his position at the network, Wallau was given a $4,000 raise and a $10,000 bonus. Thirty years later, Alex Wallau is the president of ABC.

  Another whistle-blower, Scott LeDoux, became a boxing commissioner in his native Minnesota.

  Flash Gordon, alas, seemed to drop off the face of the earth and hasn’t been seen around the boxing world for years.

  In retrospect, Braverman and Flood probably did Hagler a favor by keeping him out of the scandal-plagued ABC tournament, but neither he nor the Petronellis viewed it that way at the time.

  It seemed, in fact, to be only further evidence that the boxing world was conspiring against him.

  In the summer of 1977, Hagler found himself relegated to a spot on the undercard of Sugar Ray Leonard’s fight against Vinnie DeBarros at the Hartford Civic Center. Leonard’s bout, televised by ABC, earned him $50,000. Hagler got $1,500 for fighting Roy Jones Sr., the father of the future light-heavyweight champion. Both Hagler and Leonard scored third-round TKOs.

  “Then in August we made the rubber match with Monroe for the Spectrum,” said Ru
ssell Peltz. “Michael Spinks, who’d won an Olympic gold medal the year before, was also on the card, and we drew about 8,000.”

  Beforehand, Goody warned Hagler, “This time don’t wait twelve rounds.” Marvin apparently listened.

  In the second, Hagler nailed Monroe with a right hook followed by a left hand that caught him flush on the chin. Monroe crashed back into the turn-buckle, and when he attempted to regain his feet, he was reeling around the ring. The referee stopped it at 1:45 of the round.

  Hagler grabbed the ring announcer’s microphone and called out Bennie Briscoe.

  Although he was an African American who shaved his head like Hagler’s, Briscoe had a certain crossover ethnic appeal as well; he had converted to Judaism and wore a Star of David on his trunks. In the 1970s he had inherited Ruben Carter’s designation as “the best middleweight never to win the title,” having come up short in three challenges for the championship. He lost a decision to Carlos Monzon in 1972 and then, in 1974 in Monte Carlo, was KO’d by Rodrigo Valdez in a fight for the vacant WBC title. It was late in 1977 that he got his last shot at the championship. By then he was thirty-four years old. Following the retirement of Monzon, Briscoe once again fought Valdez for the vacant championship in Italy but was outpointed on all three cards. Then, in February of 1978, he lost another decision, this time to future champion Vito Antuofermo at Madison Square Garden.

  By the time his fight against Briscoe could be made, Hagler had disposed of previously unbeaten Mike Colbert and twice stopped British Commonwealth champion Kevin Finnegan on cuts. The two Finnegan fights were sandwiched around an eighth-round TKO of Doug Demmings in a nationally televised bout for the United States middleweight title in Los Angeles.

  Hagler-Briscoe, on August 24, 1978, brought them flocking to the Spectrum.

  “It was the largest indoor crowd for a non-world championship fight in Pennsylvania history: 14,950 people,” said Peltz.

  Given its buildup, it was a disappointing fight. Hagler was cut badly in the first round.

  “It was a bad one,” recalled Goody. “It might have been the worst cut I’d ever had to work on. Bennie Briscoe used that big bald head of his and split Marvin right open.

  “Before the round was even over, I told Pat to keep the referee and doctor away from the corner, because I was afraid they’d stop the fight. The cut was right above the eyebrow, and at the end of the round I was up there in the corner even before Marvin got back. I slapped compression right on it and loaded it up with, uh, medication, and held it there. By the time the doctor got up there and made me pull the compress away, the blood had stopped. They let the fight continue, but I told Marvin to just stay outside and box.”

  Once Petronelli stanched the flow of blood, Hagler was careful to keep out of harm’s way for the rest of the night, dancing in circles and outboxing his older foe.

  Hagler easily took the decision. Briscoe won just one round on one judge’s card, three on the other’s, and two on referee Tommy Reid’s. Incensed by Hagler’s refusal to engage him, Briscoe refused to shake hands afterward.

  Whether Hagler’s seemingly timid performance was due to the cut or whether he showed Briscoe too much respect remains a subject of debate.

  “I think it was a bit of both,” said Russell Peltz. “But you’ve got to remember, Bennie was thirty-five years old, and in those days that was really old. Briscoe had no legs left, so his only chance would have been if Marvin had stood right in front of him and tried to go toe-to-toe. Hagler would have been foolish to fight him any way other than the way he did.”

  Hagler, in any case, emerged from the Briscoe fight with Bennie’s “title.” For the next two years people would be calling him “the uncrowned champion.”

  While Hagler had trouble interesting big-time promoters, Ray Leonard found himself fighting them off.

  Once it became clear that Sugar Ray was going to turn pro, he surrounded himself with a trusted cadre from his amateur gym. Dave Jacobs and Janks Morton had been the volunteer boxing coaches at the Palmer Park Recreation Center and would remain in Leonard’s corner together for the boxer’s first twenty-eight pro fights. Ollie Dunlap, the former Michigan State running back who directed the rec center, became Team Leonard’s “chief of staff.”

  Michael G. Trainer, a successful Bethesda attorney, was initially brought aboard to handle the legal and financial aspects of Leonard’s career. Although Trainer had no experience in boxing, Morton, who played on the Wildwood Manor Exxon softball team for which the lawyer pitched (and, later, managed), vouched for his honesty and intelligence.

  When Morton initially broached the idea of representing Leonard, Trainer admitted, he had no inkling of what the boxer’s services might be worth.

  “Do you think he can make $20,000 a year? ” wondered the lawyer.

  “More like $100,000,” Morton told him. Morton’s estimate would also prove to be a lowball figure.

  Few, particularly Mike Trainer himself, could have guessed that for the next decade the lawyer would be one of the most influential figures in the sport.

  The final piece to the puzzle, Angelo Dundee, was initially approached by Washington publicist Charlie Brotman and retained−for a 15% cut of Leonard’s purses−with the title of “manager.” Although Dundee, who had risen to fame as Muhammad Ali’s trainer, would be the chief second in the corner and would “polish off” his training in the weeks before a fight, Leonard felt it important for symbolic reasons that Jacobs, who had laced on the first pair of gloves he had worn back at Palmer Park, retain the title of “trainer.”

  Sugar Ray Leonard, Inc., was following the lead of the original management group overseeing the career of the young Cassius Clay when it aligned itself with Dundee. When Angelo accepted the role, it was on the condition that he would have complete approval over the young fighter’s opponents.

  Born in Philadelphia to immigrant Italian parents, Angelo Mirena was one of three brothers who would change his name to Dundee. Joe, the eldest, had adopted it as his nom de guerre when he became a professional boxer, and Chris, who would become a manager and promoter, also took the name. When Angelo Mirena was discharged from the Army after World War II and hooked up with Chris in New York’s busy fight scene, it seemed only natural that he would call himself Dundee as well.

  By the 1950s, having served his cornerman’s apprenticeship under Lou Stillman, Dundee was rising to prominence as a trainer, with Carmen Basilio and Willie Pastrano among his pupils. Following Chris’ lead, he relocated to Miami Beach, where, operating out of the famed Fifth Street Gym, he would guide the fortunes of a trio of great Cuban boxers (Jose Napoles, Sugar Ramos and Luis Rodriguez), teaching himself Spanish along the way.

  After the audacious Cassius Clay won the Olympic light-heavyweight gold medal in Rome in 1960, he turned professional under the guidance of the so-called Louisville Group, a consortium of businessmen from his Kentucky hometown. They, in turn, enlisted Dundee as Clay’s trainer, a position he would retain throughout the career of the man who would become Muhammad Ali.

  Dundee was not only an insightful strategist and master of the psychological game; he knew the tricks of the trade as well. In the fourth round of a 1963 fight in London, Henry Cooper floored Clay with a left hook that left him dazed and woozy. Concerned that his man might not fully recover between rounds, Dundee noticed a small tear in one of his gloves, and with his finger surreptitiously exacerbated the damage. The ruse bought valuable time, allowing Clay to regain his senses while a new pair was brought from the dressing room. He stopped Cooper on cuts a round later.

  In Clay’s epochal 1964 challenge for Sonny Liston’s heavyweight title (a bout promoted by Chris Dundee), Angelo once again saved the day. Blinded in the fifth round by a foreign substance that may or may not have come from Liston’s gloves, Clay wanted to quit and ordered Dundee to cut his gloves off. Instead Dundee sponged out the eyes as best he could and literally threw the challenger back into the ring with orders to run. Clay survived t
he round and took the title when Liston quit on his stool, failing to answer the bell for the seventh round. (Within days Clay announced that he had joined the Black Muslims and would henceforth be known as “Cassius X.” A few weeks later he was given the name Muhammad Ali by Elijah Muhammad.)

  By the time he signed on with Sugar Ray Leonard, Inc., Dundee had already trained a dozen world champions. Leonard would be his thirteenth.

  Dundee had not been the only candidate for the job, but two other future Hall of Famers had essentially taken themselves out of the running−Eddie Futch by insisting that Leonard would have to move to Philadelphia, where he then trained his boxers, and Gil Clancy, by demanding the titles of both manager and trainer.

  While the titles assigned the members of Team Leonard tended to blur traditional roles, the division of responsibility was clear. Dundee would approve the opponents and prepare Leonard for fights, while Jacobs and Morton would share the day-to-day training work. Brotman would be in charge of public relations, and Dunlap would arrange scheduling and logistics. Trainer would handle the contractual matters.

  Don King had weighed in with what was on paper by far the largest offer, a guaranteed $200,000, to promote Leonard’s career, but after reading the fine print, Trainer realized that its terms would virtually turn Leonard into an indentured servant, and rejected it.

  Trainer, by his own estimate, knew next to nothing about boxing when he agreed to oversee Leonard’s affairs, but he undertook a diligent study of the business side of the sport and came away convinced that there had to be a better way to do it.

  “Why should what the fighter earns be dependent on what the promoter will pay him? ” asked Trainer. “Why don’t we just put on the fights ourselves and hire a promoter? ”

  Following another lead from Ali’s early career, Trainer initially rounded up twenty-one Maryland businessmen, most of them members of the softball team for which he and Morton played. The investors put up $1,000 apiece, on the understanding that their investment in Sugar Ray Leonard, Inc., would pay an annual return of 8%. As it turned out, the seed money was hardly needed−it was repaid in full from what CBS paid to televise Leonard’s pro debut a few months later.