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EDITORIAL
RINSING OFF THE MOUTH PIECE  
 
   I'm gonna begin this editorial with a fond & sad farewell to one of our columnists, Lee Michaels aka Lee Gerowitz. Lee has been a terrific correspondent for us for a couple of years. He also worked on one of the finest boxing documentaries ever, ESPN Classic Sports', Shadow Boxing, which deals with the struggles of African American boxers in the 20th Century.

   Lee came to the CBZ via Tom Gerbasi, my stalwart right arm. They met ringside at a fight in the Garden & struck up a friendship. Tom turned me on to Lee, I contacted him & he's been one of our best columnists ever since.

   Unfortunately, boxing & writing for the CBZ has a high burn out rate. Lee regretfully informed me a couple of weeks ago that he no longer had enough interest in the squared circle too keep up his column.

   As much as I regret his decision, I can't blame him. His reason is that the constant negativity that permeates the sport has left him unable to get it up to write about it anymore. He has no interest, at this time to write about boxing because the only feelings he has are negative.

   & that's not the kind of writer he wants to be. Well, yeah, boy howdy, I can relate to that ... This of course has happened before, Our old webmaster, Pusboil & DscribeDC (David Gionfriddo), both burned out & quit.

   But boxing is a weird addiction & I'm happy to say that both of them return from their respective hiatus' with excellent pieces this month. 'Boil gives us his take on the doings at the Hall Of Fame ceremonies &Dscribe returns with a fictional short story with a connection to boxing, that is outstanding.

   Such is the nature of writing for the CBZ ... Every time someone drops out we are blessed by submissions from new writers. In the last few months we have been joined by a welter of outstanding new writers : In this issue we have contributions from, David Hudson, Alan Taylor, Adam Pollack, Chuck Hasson, Dan Cuoco, Don Colgan, Monte Cox & Alex Hall.

   All of these newer writers are hard core boxing guys who know their stuff & write incisive pieces. & the CBZ is very grateful for their hard work & contributions.

   Also of course, we have contributions from some of our long time correspondents. We lead of the issue with a remarkable essay on Mike Tyson by  my good buddy, Lucius Shepard, that is so thought provoking, even the Ol' Spit Bucket was forced to rethink some of his positions on the detritus that is the life of Ol' Leg-Iron Mike ...

   Eric Jorgensen, who has become one of our finest interviewers (check out his two part interview with Scott LeDoux in our previous two issues), returns with an interview with Dan Rafael, USA Today's new boxing columnist. As far as The Bucket is concerned, Rafael & his newspaper's commitment to extensive regular coverage of the sweet science is the best thing to happen to boxing in the new millennium. I've spoken to Mr. Rafael a few times & I've been very impressed with the depth of his knowledge. This is a young man who is very committed & enthusiastic about covering the sport with as positive an outlook as possible.

   Dan Rafael is my kinda guy & I sincerely applaud his efforts.

   Also in this issue we have two pieces by two of my all time favorite writers, Enrique Encinosa, who contributes a trenchant & poignant piece about one of the all time road warriors, Angel Robinson Garcia. The other one is a moving piece by Rick Farris, on one of the great LA fighters of the '70's & '80's, the irrepressible, two time champ, Bobby Chacon & the tragic circumstances his life has fallen to.

   Rick is a unique boxing scribe. Not only is he a helluva writer, he is also a former main event fighter out of LA from the '70's. This is a guy who knew, sparred & worked out with great fighters like Duran, Olivares, Chacon, Pimental & many, many, others. Due to his life experiences in boxing, Mr. Farris brings a credibility to his stories that is absolutely unquestioned.

   For those of you who are boxing history buffs, we have articles by three great boxing historians, Tracy Callis on Joe Louis, Harry Otty on John Conteh  & Lew Tendler by the aforementioned Chuck Hasson.
  
   There is also an article by Dan Cuoco that is near & dear to my heart about my all time favorite fighter, former bantam & featherweight champion, Eder Jofre. A few years back I wrote a profile on Jofre (www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/jofre2.htm) that I felt pretty good about.   But I gotsta say Mr. Cuoco's tops mine. The depth & detail in which he delves into Jofre's career is really exceptional. This is a piece that truly does justice to the great Jofre's incredible career.

    Which now brings me to Randy Gordon & Dr. Ferdie Pacheco. When the CBZ first started, a little over five years ago, Randy & the good doctor where the first major boxing figures to step up to the plate & not only support the CBZ, but to contribute to it.

    Their support gave us instant credibility in the boxing world & opened many doors for us by giving us access to boxing people that would have been impossible without them. For that reason & for the friendship & great advice they've given us over the years, the CBZ will always be deeply in their debt.

   Randy contributes another excellent column this month on the vagaries of the squared circle. Dr. Pacheco has graciously given us permission to use some of his boxing paintings for this editorial.

   As many of you know, Dr. Pacheco has retired from broadcasting for ShowTime. However, that doesn't mean he's leaving the fight scene. He will still do work for the network & is starting his own web site www.ferdiepacheco.com .  The site will be as eclectic as the good doctor himself & will cover a wide range of subjects, including of course, boxing.

   The Doc also has a TV special & book in the works called Boxing's Twelve Greatest Rounds. In the September issue we will not only have an in depth profile & interview with Pacheco but he has also graciously agreed to let us excerpt parts of his new book.

   Finally, in regards to the CBZ there are a few other people that I have to thank: Mike DeLisa, Tom Gerbasi, Joe Bruno, Pedro Fernandez, Chris Bushnell, Max Kellerman & Katherine Dunn.

   Mike of course, is my partner & founder of the CBZ. He is also the managing editor of our Boxing Encyclopedia, which I feel is truly the heart & soul of the CBZ. Mike's efforts, along with Tracy Callis, Matt Tegen & others, is nothing short of incredible.

   At this point they are about five fighters away from completing a full list of EVERY lineal champion in every division along with their records. This has been a monumental task they've devoted themselves to for the last five years. I strongly urge all our readers to check out the Encyclopedia as there is much more than just fighters’ records there.

   Tom Gerbasi, the editor of this magazine, also pulls double duty for the excellent House Of Boxing web site (www.houseofboxing.com) as their web master.  Frankly, without Tom, there probably wouldn't be a CBZ . But even more than his yeoman like efforts, I appreciate him as a close & dear friend who is not
afraid to set the Bucket straight by busting his balls & keeping him moving in the right direction.

    Then there's Joe Bruno & Pedro Fernandez, two irascible, pit bull reporters, who never fail to call 'em as they see 'em no matter where the chips may fall ...

     I would be totally remiss in my duties as editor if I didn't mention  Chris Bushnell. Chris rarely writes for WAIL! itself. Instead, he covers all the major fights for us. I've mentioned this before, but Chris is the best fight reviewer I've ever read. If you don't believe me, check out his web  site www.boxingchronicle.com, on it is every fight report he has submitted & they are all exceptional.
   
   Last but certainly not least, there's Max Kellerman & Katherine Dunn. Max as everybody knows is the voice of ESPN2's boxing series. Max has gone out of his way to help us out by introducing us too many fight figures. The recent interview with Scott LeDoux & our current one with Dan Rafael came about through his introductions. Max has been a huge help to us.

   Finally there's Katherine Dunn. Ms. Dunn is an acclaimed novelist (Geek Love) & journalist for many mainstream publications. She has also been a boxing scribe since 1980. Her tireless efforts in exposing the seamy underside of the business of boxing have proven not only controversial but invaluable. She also puts up with almost daily phone calls from The Bucket, who is always ranting & raving about something within the confines of the squared circle.

   Her patience & advice to me has always been right on the money & again, I'm deeply grateful ...

   S'anyways, I thought I'd take the time this month to introduce our dear readers to some of the excellent writers we present who make this magazine what it is ...

   As is our annual tradition, the July issue of WAIL! will be the last regular issue until Labor Day. However, Mike DeLisa will be publishing our annual August history issue in the interim.

   This doesn't mean we are taking off for the summer. Check out the CBZ news regularly for not only news items but fight reports & exclusive CBZ reports from many of our writers.

    Enjoy the new issue! I'll see ya in September ...

Bucket
  

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What's Good For Boxing
By Lucius Shepard

It's all so predictable.

Another pitiful episode in Mike Tyson's carnival death trip, and once again we hear the chirping cries of the press calling for his head.

Put him back in his cage.

He's an animal.

He should be banned from boxing.

One expects this kind of thing from the knuckledraggers along press row, but in this instance even normally restrained reporters have fallen prey to hyperbole. 

"It's hard to imagine anyone as crazy as Mike Tyson was last night," writes Wally Matthews.

Ever check out a hopeless ward, Wally? Take the nickel tour of Bellevue next time you're in New York. Hell, we don't have to look that far to find a number of people every bit as crazy--crazier, even--than Mike Tyson. The recent history of boxing is littered with certifiable maniacs. Bruce Curry and Trevor Berbick, for example. Or Ike Ibeabuchi, who has this penchant for kidnapping and claims to be possessed by demons. And let's not forget space cases such as Oliver McCall and Andrew Golota.

What is it about Mike Tyson that causes sportswriters to puff up their wattles and burble like bewigged 18th Century barristers in a high dudgeon? These people are, after all, the same folks who once reported with unalloyed delight on the savageries of the youthful Tyson, his desire to push the bone of the nose up into the brain of his opponent and his much ballyhooed bad intentions. What did they believe the term "bad intentions" meant? Did they think he was kidding? Or are they, in retrospect, spiritual brethren of the flash-bulb popping reporters who crowded around the feet of King Kong, goading him on. eager to record his every fearsome gesture and growl, but ready at a moment's notice to turn on him and demand his blood.

There are two unsavory forces at work here.
1) It has become clear that once a sports reporter is given a column, he starts to believe that having a by-line confers upon him a certain moral authority and thus he feels compelled to offer pompous pronouncements on the dubious character of athletes. It's funny, really. You can sit at ringside for a big fight and look around and see alcoholics and drug users, wife-beaters, men and women who dump their jobs at the drop of a hat when extended a better contract, and yet these very people apparently see nothing hypocritical in their bashing star athletes for drinking, doping, spousal abuse, and lack of loyalty to their managers, cities, or teams. Diehard gamblers opine that Pete Rose should be declared anathema and excommunicate. Inveterate cokeheads who have to hurry to the men's room between innings so they can chunk up pieces of their ex-sinuses into bloody handkerchiefs howl for Darryl Strawberry's banishment.

Actually, it's not all that funny. It's disgusting, stupid, and vile.

And even when no overt hypocrisy is involved, any sports reporter worth his salt knows that when he jumps up and down in print and yells Bad Crazy Overpaid Animal or any other of a number of solid gold slurs, he'll score big points with guys named Jerry from Tenafly who're in the habit of calling into WFAN after their fifth shooter in the neighborhood bar and belching out their loathing for this or that local hero.

2) The American press has traditionally had trouble dealing with any high profile black athlete who carries with him the arrogance of the street. Jack Johnson. Liston. Clay. Tyson. And we're not just talking boxers. Every major sports league in this country is rife with young black athletes who have had huge problems dealing with money and fame and have been lacerated, justly or not, by the press. Tyson merely happens to be their poster boy. (I mean, you've never seen anyone waxing all self-righteous and indignant about Ike Ibeabuchi. Violent demented nutboy though he is, Ike just doesn't have Iron Mike's Q factor. Being a native of Africa, he can be excused his primitive behaviors--all them Shango-worshipping motherfuckers crazy, right?--and as a man whose ancestors avoided the indignities of slavery, he poses a far less significant threat to our national insecurity.) Some of these young black men are, indeed, reprehensible characters. Others are simply screwed-up. Others yet are decent human beings who are never going to get cut any slack because they're not sufficiently PR savvy to control the image they present to the dumbasses who make their living writing about them...or else they just don't give a damn.

I imagine at this moment there may be a number of beady-eyed, quasi-literate "journalists" out there reading this with shreds of beef stuck between their teeth and a bubble of thought slowly forming in their brains which--when it bursts--will leave them with the distinct impression that I'm suggesting some of them are racists. Duh! It's a racist country, a racist world. If you don't believe that, well, why don't you take it easy and go back to putting that Happy Face jigsaw puzzle together. If you're having trouble with it, try to remember that a smile is only a frown turned upside down. But the fact that racism may be involved in press reaction to Tyson is only a sidebar to my actual point. What I mean to suggest is not that many of the working press are racists, but that they are either fools or frauds...or both.

You see, I am also of the opinion that Mike Tyson should not be allowed to fight any longer. However, my opinion--unlike those of the voices raised in outrage following the Savarese fight---is not funded by the notion that this would be good for boxing.

Fuck what's good for boxing.

What's good for boxing is perhaps the most ludicrous phrase in current journalistic usage. What's good for boxing is not a story that reporters for major newspapers care to report, because it's boring, it's not newsworthy, it is not celebrity-driven, and nobody wants to read all about it.

So what would be good for boxing?

Do you know, do you know, do you know... 

Well, I guess it would be good if the men who sanctioned and promoted fights involving Mike Tyson were subjected to vilification and corporal punishment by large men with pointy sticks, Ditto for the men who allowed Oliver McCall to get into the ring with Lennox Lewis while he was still in rehab, and likewise for those men who enable mismatches like Gatti-Gamache, and all kinds of stuff like that. Am I right? Wrong. That would be okay for boxing, nice for boxing, but it would do no consequential good. Fighters like Tyson, McCall, Gatti, et al, are to the sport what bands like Metallica and the Stones and Oasis are to rock and roll--they and their promoters and enablers comprise a portion of a thin upper level of the business; knock a few of them off and others will rise from the depths to take their place. It's the depths of boxing that urgently need to be reported on, that need to be changed and purified in order for the upper reaches to shine. You can't cure cancer with cosmetic surgery. You have to go in and get all the tiny tumors. You have to address corruption on a local level, to ferret out all the little weasels with bad combovers and cheap tuxedos who let brain-damaged pugilists risk their lives for short money in nowhere towns in Missouri and Mississippi and Idaho. You have to write eloquently and persuasively about the practice of meatpacking, carting a van full of underage kids and has-beens and never-weres from town to town, building up their records by having them fight each other under false names every few days, then throwing them in with a real fighter on a Vegas undercard to give him an impressive KO and set him up for a title shot. You have to expose the cheaters and the drug test-fakers, the steroid pushers and the fixers, the club show promoters who stiff their fighters, the incompetent doctors and the commissions who'd license Tommy Morrison to fight a ten-year-old girl in the nude if you slipped them enough Benjamins. You have to turn the white-hot light of judgment on your own profession and point out the criminal hypocrites, the poseurs who affect a moral stance but whose lips have turned brown from rim-jobbing Arum, King, and various of the lesser demons.

We every one of us know that short of several Acts of Congress and a change in basic human nature, none of this is going to happen. Nobody cares, nobody wants to read it, nobody's going to write it. What's good for boxing just doesn't sell papers. The reason I hope Mike Tyson gets out of the sport is not because it would be good for boxing, but because it would be good for Mike Tyson. The man appears to be a manic depressive whom five or ten years of therapy might salvage, and aside from whatever benefits that might have for him personally, it surely would be a blessing for his wife and kids and the rest of those around him. I have no desire to become an apologist for Tyson, but neither do I feel possessed of the moral certitude that would allow me to make a material judgment about someone I don't know intimately, the kind of judgment that Michael Katz and his ilk seem comfortable in making. Of course all this noise about Tyson is utter nonsense. Guess who's going to be sitting ringside at Tyson-Golota? You think any of these folks will give up an all-expense paid trip to Vegas or Hong Kong or Helsinki where they can hang out with their friends, catch a few shows, and watch the latest episode in the serial train wreck that is Mike Tyson's life? What'll he do next? French kiss Mark Ratner? Dry hump a ring card girl? Don a leopardskin loincloth and stick up a Burger King? They can't wait to find out. Think they'd miss the opportunity to ladle out some more sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing, my-fine-sensibilities-have-once-again-been-offended-by-the-beast-man bullshit? Tyson's a story that's very, very good for the Wallys and the Michaels and all the rest. It's a great story. Hubris and head-on collisions. You couldn't invent it. It's a circus featuring a half-tamed T-Rex who, when he's taking his meds, can be an intelligent, even a charming guy, and when he's not, hey, just throw him a Christian with big ears, stand back and watch the fun. Everybody loves a dinosaur with a fatal flaw. And your faithful reporters are purely salivating to run that final headline...

MIKEZILLA TRAMPLES TOKYO
Then Dies in Nuclear Attack

...so they can write "I told you so, ain't it sad, I told you so, ain't it sad" over and over again just like they did when Sonny Liston died, after painting him as a monster for his entire life. Then again, maybe it's not all bullshit, maybe some of these gentlemen of the press have been at it so long they've swallowed their own chump, and Sunday morning when they're writing their post-press conference columns, fueled by shirred eggs and wine sausage and a flute of on-the-house champagne, they warp out into a zone where they buy into everything they write, they become the moral crusaders that their junior high souls presumed they would grow up to be, and their cliche-ridden harangues begin to seem like holy writ. Inspired and pithy and destined to change the world. This well may be the case, because I have the suspicion that at heart what these people truly believe is good for boxing, the very best thing, the ultimate panacea for the sport's many ills, is themselves.

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An Interview With Dan Rafael

By Eric Jorgensen

Dan Rafael is the new boxing columnist for U.S.A. Today. He is a bright, well-spoken 29-year-old who takes both the sport of boxing and sportswriting in general very seriously. Recently, I had the good fortune to meet him over the telephone and speak to him about his background and the work he's doing for USA Today.

Eric:Why don't we start with your giving me some background information. Where did you grow up, where did you go to school, things like that?

Dan:I am 29 years old. I grew up in upstate New York in a suburb of Albany, south of Saratoga Springs, between New York and Albany. I went to college at Binghamton University which was one of the big university centers in New York, and had a good academic reputation. I followed boxing as a kid -- really followed all the big, big fights, which, you know, meant mostly the heavyweights. I didn't really know much about the fighters in the lighter weight divisions when I was younger. All the Tyson fights – well, a lot of them anyway -- took place near where I grew up. He fought in Great Falls and then in Troy and places like that. Actually, by the time he became heavyweight champion, I had already been following him for quite a while -- since he was just a big star locally. So, that was my early boxing exposure.

Eric:Were you a journalism major in college?

Dan:No, I majored in history. But, I took maybe a half-dozen or so journalism related classes -- intro, feature writing, magazine writing, sports writing -- and I worked for the college newspaper covering sports. Considering there was no formal journalism program and it was only a twice-a-week paper, I think we did a pretty good job with it. We followed boxing too. The college I went to, right across the street at the main entrance, was actually the headquarters of the local newspaper in town. I got an apprenticeship there, and started to learn the ropes. Then, I decided this would be something I would like to do for a living, and, when I got through with college, I got a part-time job at a paper in Saratoga Springs. I got hired there and I started covering baseball and high school and college sports.

Shortly after I got there, I took in a card at the Saratoga Civic Center, which was right down the block from my office. The card featured Buddy McGirt on the comeback trail; he was fighting a guy named George Heckley. Not a huge card, but it was prime network work. I volunteered to cover it for my newspaper. It was a great big event within the city, so they let me do it.

Anyway, Heckley got hit with an uppercut in the 10th round and a big splatter of blood landed right smack in the middle of my notebook. I was like, "this is cool, I gotta go to this more often!" I knew that there wasn't that much going on in boxing, so I knew that my opportunities to cover this sport were going to be limited, but I started following it more closely then I had done previously. I had always followed it, but, after that, I started specifically making sure that I would watch the ESPN stuff even if it wasn't necessarily a big fight, and I always watched the HBO and Showtime stuff. I just really became much more aware of what was going in the sport as a whole beyond just what was going on with respect to the "big" names.

Eric:All of which makes you unique among the boxing writers in the country.

Dan:[Laughs] You know, a lot of people have said that to me. In the last few months I've talked to basically a "who's who" in the boxing industry -- either they have called me or I have had reason to call them for a story to check something out – guys like Jay Larkin, Dan Goossen, other writers and fight people, even some promoters. I was talking to Rich Marotta a few days ago to get his input for the rankings we do, and we were talking about a guy who was fighting this weekend on HBO. He made a reference to one of his early fights, and I said "yeah, it was a 3rd-round knockout against Rafael Savala", and he was shocked that I remembered the name and knew who the guy was. I made an impression on him, I think -- that I am a writer but that I also follow the sport from top to bottom. That's why, whenever I go to a fight or watch a card on TV, I always find my seat early and watch the whole card, not just the main event. I try to see as many fights and fighters as I possibly can.

Eric:How did you first hook up with USA Today?

Dan:That is an interesting story, actually. Here's the way it worked. The paper I was working for in Saratoga was owned by the Gannett Company. I had known those people from my college days when I was an intern and I was looking to move on to a bigger paper. I knew the boss there and I interviewed and got hired for an opening. As it turns out, the Gannett Company also owns USA Today. So, what they do is, about three time a year, every four months or so, USA Today sets up what it calls a "loanership program". It takes one person from about a dozen different papers within the Gannett Company (of which there are, I don't know the exact number, about 80 or 90 papers, all different all over the place), and place them for a short while at different jobs on USA Today. Anyway, there came a point in 1998 when I applied for the program and I made it. So, I got to go to USA Today on a loan. It was from August of 1998 to the end of December 1998. You just go there as a regular employee. The home paper pays your rate and USA Today puts you you up in a hotel that's like 2 blocks from the office and you just go to work there as part of the staff.

I got assigned to the baseball desk. My second day of work McGwire hit his 62nd homerun, so I was right there in the middle of everything. When things calmed down and baseball season ended, I moved over and worked on the college desk and covered college football and college basketball. Even though you're there as a "loaner", they want you to do all the different things that you want to do – they want you to feel your way around and really take in the whole experience. I volunteered to do a couple different things. They needed help covering the NFL once, for example, so I covered a couple Redskins games and helped out with some advance work for the Superbowl, stuff for that.

At the time Jon Saraceno was covering boxing, although he was really more involved with covering football, and John was getting a little frustrated that the paper wasn't really committed to boxing. I used to suggest stories to Jon and he would say, you know, "that's a good idea -- why don't you take it to them and see if they'll do it?" So, I pitched a couple of story ideas and they let me do them. I pitched a story about the 1996 Olympians. Floyd Mayweather, Fernando Vargas and David Reid were all right on the verge of their title shots, and USA Today has always considered the Olympics to be one of the main things it likes to cover in sports, so the timing was right. They liked that idea and the story I wrote became a cover story.

After that, I got a chance to do some other boxing stuff because then they knew that I knew what I was doing. They called me in special to do an obituary on Archie Moore because their regular "boxing writer" was in Arizona doing an interview with Tyson and he was unable to do it, so that's how that happened. I kept in touch with them on and off and for the year after I had returned to my own paper. I had been gone for like 13 months between the time I left them at the end of my loan and I got hired back and so when they decided that they were going to become more involved in boxing because of all the different things that had happened, everything form the Lewis-Holyfield decision all the way to the IBF trial – you know, all the things that really just seemed to pile on and put boxing behind the eight ball. They decided to expand their coverage and when they decided to do that, they remembered me and my interest and my knowledge and they decided that they should give me a column. So it was very quick, basically the whole thing was two phone calls, and I was hired on at USA Today full time to cover boxing.

Eric:So it was more like they decided to increase their boxing coverage and start a column and picked you to do it rather then you talking them into doing the column?

Dan:I had kept in touch with them and I had, not like a pain in the ass or anything, but occasionally I would write to them and ask "what are you going to do about boxing?" I think my getting the job was a combination of me keeping my name fresh in their minds in that fashion and also their deciding that boxing was something the paper was going to begin covering more regularly.

Eric:So, besides the column compile your own set of world rankings, right?

Dan:Yes.

Eric:What do you do to prepare them?

Dan:Well, first of all, I keep track of all the fight results and watch basically every single fight that I can. Then, what I do is basically spend a few hours on the second Friday of every month I take close look at who did what in the preceding month and use those results to change the rankings as appropriate. I also spend untold hours throughout the week talking on the telephone with various people in boxing, asking their opinions on who they think should be here or there and that's what makes it kind of interesting.

Of course, because some people have a hard time dealing with the fact the we only rank the traditional 8 weight classes rather then all 17. So, I have to stop and think hard about this for a minute, where would I Kostya Tszyu when I have to rate him as a full welterweight along side guys like Oscar De la Hoya and Sugar Shane Mosley?

Eric:The reason I ask you for detail on that is becoming more and more difficult to find rankings that are trustworthy these days – ones that are honestly put together.

Dan:What we did was, the first couple of times they ran, we included a little disclaimer so to speak, just kinda explaining what we were doing. The bottom line is, yes, they are subjective, and that means that they are strictly based on results. So, yes, maybe there will be times when you don't necessarily agree 100% with where a particular fighter is ranked, but you can be sure no one paid me any money to put him there.

Eric:And that way you don't come up with, for example, John Ruiz as the No. 1 contender.

Dan:[Laughs] Yes, and this is nothing against John Ruiz the person, because he is probably a nice guy to hang out with, but he is not ranked in our top 10. In fact, I try to list at least 3 "other" contenders in each class -- not in any particular order – whom I think you should keep your eye on. John Ruiz is not even listed there. I'd probably put him about 17th or 18th. In the top 20 heavyweights, yes. Not the number 1 man, though, absolutely not.

Eric:I think that's a joke. So, in your column, let me just ask you, do you have any agenda items that you plan to pursue over the course of the next couple of years?

Dan:Actually, it's not really a "column". I'm basically a reporter reporting the boxing news. Obviously, I can pick and choose what I write about and suggest features and so forth, but it's not really "Dan Rafael's Column".

Eric:So, are there any items or topics in the boxing world that are particularly near and dear to your heart. For example the . . . .

Dan:I think one thing, obviously, as you can tell form our rankings, is that we don't give any credence whatsoever to the rankings of the governing bodies produce. I will never even reference them in any of my stories, unless I'm writing to criticize, say, the WBA ranking John Ruiz no. 1 contender. The idea is that we want to be legitimate with our rankings, we want to give people an idea of who the best guys are in the world. Yes, you can quibble that fighter A is not worthy of being ranked 4th, you think he should be 7th, you think the 7th guy should be 8th, etc., but at least you know that we're not gonna blow smoke at you and put John Ruiz no. 1. And, by reducing it from 17 weight classes to 8 it makes it (a) easier to follow, and (b) really shows you the depth of the various divisions, what they would have been when boxing only had these divisions and guys who weighed over 135 pounds fought as 147-pounders. When you look at things that way, it really goes to show you the depth of some of the divisions, like the welterweights and featherweights. Then you look at the light-heavyweights (which include the super-middleweights) and you say, man, the depth stinks. That kind of makes it kinda like a quick read. It's a very good way to just look and see generally who the top guys are.

Eric:There has been a lot of talk recently about boxing being the worse officiated sport in the world, any comments on that?

Dan:The worst officiated?

Eric:In terms of judging, picking the winners of the fights. Do you have any thoughts on some of the controversial decisions that have come down recently?

Dan:I'm really not into the whole conspiracy theory thing. I know there have been fights where the public thinks the wrong guy got the call -- obviously the first Lewis-Holyfield fight, Barerra-Morales, and others. But, I would never sit here and say, well, you know what? Somebody got paid off.

There's a lot that needs to be looked at, I suppose, and probably a good start would be to look at the State Commissions that appointed all judges instead of just looking at the alphabet organizations. But, of course, you know the organizations have their own problems. I don't know if there is a perfect answer for these kinds of things. I just kinda hope that you get honest people who call it like they see it. I also know that looking out from ring side and watching the fight you could score it much different then watching it on a television.

Eric:That's true too.

Dan: I mean I was ringside for the Junior Jones v. Paul Ingle fight at Madison Square Garden and had Ingle winning the fight, but, when I came home and I watched the tape of it the following week, it was a little bit of a closer fight than I had first thought.

Eric:Do you plan to give any attention to women's boxing? What do you think of that?

Dan:I'm not a big women's boxing fan. But that being said, you have to look at it like this (from the perspective of USA Today as the biggest paper in the country that covers sports), is it something that people will follow or are even that much interested in? I don't think the answer is "yes", which is why you have seen probably very little about woman's boxing in the paper. But, what I will do, of course, because of the curiosity factor or just the fact that they have famous names, is at least note the results of the daughters of all these different champions, Laila Ali and Jackie Frazier-Lyde, etc. And, if Laila Ali and Jackie Frazier fight the way they are suppose to down the road, obviously, we will cover that fight. I would be shocked if we didn't.

But, am I gonna sit there and rank like the top women heavyweights in the world? No - I am not going to bother with that, because, first of all the number of women fighters at that weight class is so limited and the skill level so low at this point that its really not worth it. God bless them for doing it and for pursuing their sport, but we're not going to spend a lot of time covering it, the public interest is just not there.

Eric:That makes sense to me.

Dan:So, yeah, I don't think you'll see much women's fight coverage in USA Today as a general rule. But, if Christy Martin fights Lucia Rijker, will I write about it? Of course.

Eric:I think that would be about a one round fight, frankly, 'cause I actually think Lucia Rijker is a terrific fighter, but. . .

Dan:Even if it is, going into it it is still the most intriguing of women's fight there is because most people refer to them as the two top women out there.

Eric:I agree.

Dan:And Freeda Foreman or Laila Ali or Jackie Frazier-Lyde – you've got to cover them because people will talk about them and because their fathers were some of the biggest names ever in the history of the sport.

Eric:Back to the men. Are there any rising stars whom you're watching these days?

Dan:I mean certainly if you look at like, just based off of their recent fights, you know Clifford Etienne in the heavyweight division has been putting together some pretty good performances recently. Also, a lot of people have told me about a guy named Kenito Drake, who I believe has been one of the main sparring partners in the De la Hoya camp. I think he's about 16-0 or 16-1, something like that, but he is suppose to be a real good solid prospect and a bunch of people with no particular connection to the fighter have said a lot of good things about him. But I reserve judgment until I see him for myself. I guess there are some other guys here and there. No one is exactly "setting the world on fire" in my mind right now. There are good amateurs who are turning pro to keep an eye on, I guess, because they have good names as amateurs. I don't know what they will do as pros. I hear Marshal Martinez, who quit the Olympic team, is turning pro in a couple of weeks; I'll be interested to see what does.

Eric:I appreciate your time here. Is there anything you would like for me to add at the end of the article, any statement you'd like to make?

Dan:Just note that USA Today presents sincere and informed rankings on the second Friday of each month and that we're back covering boxing the way it should be covered.

Eric: You got it, and thanks again.

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Bobby Chacon,  The Beginning
By Rick Farris

While checking my E-mail this morning I received an instant message from CBZ editor GorDoom.  He wanted to let me now that there was a story in USA TODAY about Bobby Chacon.

The "Bucket" knew that this was a story that I would want to read.  However,  it was not a story that I would enjoy.  In a sense, it was good news in light of the recent reports that I'd heard regarding the two-time former world champion.  However,  it was depressing to me because I was a part of Bobby Chacon's era in Los Angeles boxing.  I also played a very small part in the very beginning of Bobby Chacon's boxing career.  It was a career that included world championships in two weight classes and made Chacon a millionaire, at least for a short period.  It was also a career that made Bobby Chacon a household name among Southern California boxing fans and gained him respect from others around the world.  Unfortunately,  like with many before and after him,  it was a career that would leave Chacon with a diminished mental capacity and a broken life.

The newspaper article revealed that Chacon has pugilistica dementia.  This was not news to me.  Last I heard Bobby was living in a make shift room set up in the garage of his mother's house, the home where he had grown up in Pacoima, California.  I knew that Bobby was not doing well and would get lost easily.  On a trip to Arizona a few years back Bobby disappeared for weeks and those close to him feared that he had met with harm.  However, Chacon eventually showed up again with a smile on his face, not understanding why everyone was so worried.  When asked where he had been for so long,  Bobby couldn't remember.

The day Bobby Chacon and I  crossed paths for the first time neither of us had any idea about what would follow.  At the time, Bobby was 15-years-old and on the wrong path,  headed for a dead end.  However,  perhaps the result of some divine intervention, Bobby Chacon took a detour.  The detour took Bobby to 13717 Jouett St. in Pacoima, California.  This was the address of Johnny Flores, the legendary Southern California Boxing manager and also where The Johnny Flores Gym was located behind Flores' garage.  It is where former heavyweight contender Jerry Quarry and dozens of other world class boxers had started their careers.  It was also where I had been training since the age of twelve.

How did it all begin?  Well,  I'm probably the only person who can tell you about the first time Bobby Chacon stepped thru the door of a boxing gym and laced on a pair of gloves.  I was not only there, but the person who first traded blows with the future world champ in a boxing ring.  Although this occurred well over three decades ago I still remember it as if it were yesterday.  You see,  Bobby Chacon was one of those special people you don't forget easily.  He certainly made an impression on me. Chacon's story is not unique, however, it would become a part of boxing history.

Bobby Chacon and I were the same age,  the same size, and started our boxing careers in the same place.  However,  I had a bit of a head start on Chacon and had already been boxing for a couple of years when Bobby first showed up one evening in 1967. 

The night Chacon walked thru the door of the Johnny Flores Gym for the first time he was with two friends.  All three of the visitors had long hair and were obviously stoned.  The three stood quietly inside the door looking around at the gym built by Flores in the early 1950's to develop amateur boxers.  At the time Johnny Flores handled heavyweight contender Jerry Quarry, lightweight Ruben Navarro, and the most feared featherweight in the world, Dwight Hawkins, among others.  In addition to Flores' amateurs there were a few junior amateurs training at Flores' Gym at the time and I was one of them.  I had just turned 15 and had been been boxing for more than two years, having recently won my first Jr. Golden Gloves title. 

I remember that when the three long haired guys entered the gym that night I was up in the ring shadow boxing and warming up for my workout.  After standing quietly for a few minutes one of the guys moved over to the heavy bag and began throwing punches at it.  The old heavy bag was made of canvas and had gotten soaked with water during the winter when rain had leaked thru the roof.  Most of the sand inside the heavy bag had sank to the bottom,  laving the top half soft to hit. however, the bottom half was as hard as concrete.  As the kid flogged away he threw a wild punch that landed on the bottom of the bag.  "DAMN"!  the kid yelled, "that thing is hard".

The kid's friends howled with laughter until he began to smile,  shaking the pain out of his hand.  A couple of us up in the ring were smiling too,  having hurt our hands in the past while punching the bag.  The fact that it happened to some punk off the street made it even more entertaining to us.

A few moments later the door to the gym opened and in walked Flores.  During the afternoon Flores would be at the "Main Street Gym" watching over his top professionals.  However, in the evening he would check in on his amateurs after eating dinner.  When Flores entered he waved to a few of us who were loosening up in the ring and greeted a trainer who was wrapping a boxer's hands.  He then looked over at the three guys standing in the corner and nodded at them.  About this time the kid who had hurt his hand on the heavy bag was trying his luck on the speed bag and having a hard time with it.

The kid turned toward Flores and asked if he could box somebody.  Flores was picking his teeth with a toothpick and raised his eyebrows.  "You want to box somebody"?  Flores asked.  "Are you a fighter'?  Flores asked the kid this question in a serious voice that those of us who knew Johnny realized was anything but serious.

The kid turned to his friends with a confident smile and then back to Flores.  "Yeah,  I wanna box him" he said,  pointing directly toward me.  Flores turned toward me and winked and then looked back at the kid,  "You want to box with Ricky"?  Johnny asked.  "Yeah" the kid answered.  Flores looked at the kid for a moment and asked, "So you want to be a fighter, huh"?  The kid looked back at Flores and answered "I am a fighter".  The kid then looked back toward his friends who were silent.

Flores just smiled and said "OK champ".

Manny Diaz, one of Johnny's coaches tied a pair of boxing gloves on the kid and rinsed off a mouth piece for him to use.  "I don't need that", the kid said as Diaz tried to stick the mouth guard into his mouth.  Diaz just smiled, "Yeah you do pal".  The kid reluctantly put the mouth guard into his mouth and climbed into the ring.  When Diaz tried to put a head guard on the tough kid he once again said "I don't need that".  Once again Diaz replied, "yeah you do", however Flores intervened.  "If he doesn't want to wear it he doesn't have to".  I chose not to wear one either.

A couple of minutes later we were ready and Diaz yelled "Time".  The kid moved right toward me and began throwing wild punches from all angles.  I expected this and let him go crazy for about 15 or 20 seconds.  I blocked, side stepped or just made him miss.  After spinning away from him, he turned to attack again and I snapped his head back with a jab, followed by a "goncho", a short left hook to his exposed liver.  The body punch was right on target and the kid folded up and went down on one knee.  After a few seconds he stood up and said he was "OK",  but I knew that he wasn't.  When he rushed in again he ran into two more left jabs and a short right to his solar plexus.  The body shot knocked the wind out of him and he was finished.  It wasn't that he quit or didn't want to keep trying, he just had no air left and was in no shape to throw more punches,  let alone take more.

Flores looked up at the kid trying to catch his breath and smiled.  This wasn't the first time that Johnny had let some tough guy step into the ring with one of his boxers.  It was the best way of teaching a kid a lesson.   However,  this kid was not like the others.  Before leaving the kid said he would be back "tomorrow".  He didn't show up the next day, the next week or the next month.  But just as promised,  he eventually came back.

It would be more than six months before Bobby Chacon would return to the Johnny Flores Gym and when he did he was a different man.  His hair was cut short and he came with his own coach.  The coach was Joe Ponce, one of the finest boxing trainers I ever met.  During the six months since I had my way with the long haired street punk, he'd been training with Ponce.  Ponce was not only teaching young Bobby but he was conditioning him.  A few days after Chacon's return to the Flores gym we boxed again.  This time things were different.  I had a lot more experience than Chacon and I was glad that I did, I needed it this time. After a couple of rounds or so I realized something,  this guy could fight.  I have never seen another boxer learn so much in just six months.  I remember the kid telling Johnny Flores that he was a fighter six months previous.  He wasn't lying.

From that day on Bobby Chacon and I became friends.  He and I would box on and off over the years, as amateurs and later as pros.  Bobby Chacon just kept getting better and better.  I turned professional exactly thirty years ago, on June 4, 1970, while still in high school.  Bobby Chacon would have turned professional himself at the time but Ponce insisted that Bobby wait a couple of years until he was twenty.

Bobby Chacon made his professional boxing debut at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on April 17, 1972.  Bobby scored a fifth round knockout over Jose Rosa.  It would be the first of 17 consecutive knockouts Chacon would score during the first ten months of his pro career.  Veteran featherweight contenders Ray Echevarria and Turi Pineda were two of Chacon's KO victims and this set up a match with another former featherweight contender, Frankie Crawford.

Crawford was one of the finest featherweights to come out of Los Angeles in the sixties and forced Chacon to go the full ten rounds.  However,  It was a one-sided match and Bobby came away with a unanimous decision victory.  Less than a month later Chacon took on former World Bantamweight Champ Chucho Castillo and KO'ed the tough Mexican in the tenth round.

Just one year after his pro debut, Bobby Chacon was unbeaten with a near perfect record of 19-0, 18 KO's.  This would set up a match with another former world champ, the great Ruben Olivares.  This was an interesting match for me personally because I new something that many did not about Chacon and Olivares.  Less than two years previous I had been a sparring partner for Olivares when he was training for a banatmweight title defense against Jesus Pimentel.  At the time Bobby Chacon was still an amateur and joined the Olivares camp as a sparring partner along with myself.  Bobby surprised everybody by out fighting Olivares in the sparring sessions and making the champion look bad.  Based on this,  many believed that Chacon would easily beat Olivares who had moved up to featherweight after losing the bantam title to Raphael Herrera.  Olivares was known for spending a lot of time on the party circuit and entered the ring an underdog to the unbeaten Chacon the night they first fought on June 23, 1973.  One thing that spectators didn't know about Olivares was that Ruben never looked good in sparring sessions but would come alive in the ring when it counted.  Ruben Olivares knocked out Chacon in the ninth round,  handing Bobby the first loss of his pro career.

Bobby would come back and score four more knockouts during the next year before being matched with another hot Los Angeles featherweight, the unbeaten future world champ Danny "Little Red" Lopez.   Lopez had won 23 straight with 22 KO's. In a toe-to-toe battle to determine who was the best featherweight in Los Angeles, not to mention the world, Bobby Chacon knocked out Danny Lopez in nine rounds, winning the U.S. Featherweight title and setting himself up for a title shot with WBC featherweight champ Alfredo Marcano. 

On September 7, 1974,  Bobby Chacon, the tough street punk who wandered into Johnny Flores Gym one evening seven years earlier,  knocked out Alfredo Marcano in nine rounds to become the WBC Featherweight Champion of the World.

About this time Chacon fired Joe Ponce, which may have been the biggest mistake of Bobby's career.  I knew what the problems were between Ponce and Chacon.  Joe Ponce was a task master, a disciplinarian who had no patience with anything less than 100% dedication in the ring.  Bobby Chacon wanted to enjoy the benefits of being a world champ and this interfered with his workouts and caused friction between he and Ponce.  After Ponce was gone Chacon hired his brother-in-law as a trainer. 

Six months after winning the title Chacon successfully defended it with a second round KO over Jesus Estrada in Los Angeles.  A month later he would seek to avenge his only loss to Olivares in his second title defense.  This
would have been a tough fight under any circumstance but without Ponce in the corner and Bobby's questionable conditioning it would turn out to be a disaster.  The former two-time bantam and WBA featherweight king knocked out Chacon in the second round.  Bobby's featherweight title reign had been a short one,  just nine months. 

Five months after losing the title Bobby went to Hawaii and scored a fifth round knockout over a tough filipino named Fil Clemente.  A month later he headed to Mexicali and lost a decision to Rafael "Bazooka" Limon.  This would be the first of four memorable battles between Chacon and Limon.  Over the next four years Chacon would lose only one of 17 fights, dropping a decision to Arturo Leon in Anaheim in 1977.

On November 16, 1979, Bobby Chacon would challenge the great Alexis Arguello for the WBC Jr. Lightweight title.  Arguello stopped Chacon in round seven. 

Eventually Chacon would win the Jr. Lightweight title.  After being stopped by Cornelius "Boza" Edwards in his second attempt at the WBC crown in 1981, Chacon would finally win the title in 1982 with a unanimous 15 round decision over Rafael "Bazooka" Limon.  Five months later Chacon would defend the title and avenge his loss Boza Edwards, winning a close twelve round decision. 

A month after beating Edwards,  Chacon abandoned the Jr. Lightweight title and moved up to lightweight.  On January 14, 1984,  Chacon challenged Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini for the WBA Lightweight title in Reno.  At the age of 32, Chacon was past his prime but still had the heart of a champion.  Bobby went toe-to-toe with the brutal Mancini but was backed into the ropes where he was taking a beating.  The fight was finally stopped in the third round to save Chacon from further punishment.

This would be the last time Bobby Chacon would ever fight for a world championship.  However, it was also the last time Bobby would ever lose.  Chacon would continue to box on and off for more than four years, winning all seven of his fights including a seventh round KO over former WBA Lightweight Champ Art Frias. 

Bobby's biggest fights,  however, were not just in the ring.  During his career he was challenged by the suicide of his wife Valery the night before a title fight.  He lost his 18-year-old son Bobby Jr. to a drive-by shooting,
and he battled with drug abuse and jail time spent on domestic violence charges.

According to the story I read in USA Today, Chacon is attempting to put his life in order.  He lives in a skid row hotel in downtown Los Angeles and teaches boxing in a gym set up downstairs.  Bobby's memory may not be sharp any longer but my memory is strong when it comes to Bobby Chacon.  The Bobby Chacon story is a special one to me and one I will never forget.

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Randy's World Of Boxing
By Randy Gordon

Don’t ya’ just love it when so many of these so-called boxing writers tell you that they have no interest in Mike Tyson, then scoot across the Atlantic to cover his fight?  I know.  They say it’s their obligation.  They say it’s their job.  They have to do it.  Bull!  These yellow journalists cover Tyson because they want to cover him.  While his latest fight -- starching, is more like it -- wasn’t exactly what any of us wanted to see, quick and destructive endings always must be considered when buying a ticket to or covering a Mike Tyson fight.  I found it funny -- but totally expected -- that the incredibly-hypocritical columnist of the New York Post, Wallace Matthews, would rip into Tyson after the bout.  Face it.  Tyson was destructive.  He was awesome.  He was ruthless.  He was also off his temper-controlling medication, which, when it comes to a professional prizefighter, is just what the doctor ordered on fight night.  Okay, so Tyson whacks out incredibly over-matched Lou Savarese in 38 seconds.  Okay, so he goes after Savarese even as the referee is clearly waving his arms and indicating that the fight is over.  Matthews, who leads the league in out-of-the-ring altercations and challenging people to fights, then wrote one of his poison pen columns on what an animal Tyson is and how his act has grown stale.  Quite frankly, I think his act has a renewed vigor.

Asked about heavyweight king Lennox Lewis, Hanibal “The Cannibal” Tyson, who has been known to eat body parts before, said, “I want to eat his heart.  I want to eat his children.”  Jeffrey Dahmer he is not.  Mike Tyson he is.  He is a great, great, first-round fighter.  Those first few moments against him are chilling.  For anybody.  Even Lennox Lewis.  I guarantee that if Lewis gets hit with one of those bombs in round one, all 6'5" of him will head to the floor, just the way all 6'5" of Lou Savarese toppled.  If Lewis should make it past the first, and perhaps second round, then the fight will be his.  I worked with Francois Botha against Tyson.  We prepared him for a first-round assault unlike anything he had ever seen.  He was ready.  Savarese was not.  Botha took Tyson into round five and was beating him.  Then, he stopped listening to the corner and was nailed.  He became over-confident.  Another round or two and Tyson was all his.  After the fight, Tyson was a complete gentleman.  To Botha, to Botha’s camp and to the media.  To Savarese, he was an animal.  A savage, untamed animal.  Part of the reason was the medication.  Another was respect.  Tyson respected Botha.  Botha never said anything nasty about Tyson.  Savarese never stopped bad-mouthing Tyson (“I was his size when I was 12!”).  Did Tyson try to hurt Savarese?  He sure did.  And when the fight ended as fast as it did, Tyson, much like a young Roberto Duran when he ended a fight quickly, wanted more.  In his fight mode, he threw additional punches even though the fight had ended.  Duran did it and Tyson does it.  The referee should have been facing the man with the live ammo and the nasty reputation, rather than the stricken fighter, and stopped him from punching.  Fighters punch after the bell and after stoppages all the time.  Doesn’t make it right, but they do it.  Believe it or not, it’s more a physical thing than an emotional thing.  Perhaps too much adrenaline is flowing.  Perhaps testosterone levels rise through the ceiling.  Although I never condone late punches and really wish he hadn’t thrown the after-the-fact shots, I have no problem with Tyson doing what he did to Savarese.  Tyson is a 34-year-old former world champion with a world of demons running amock in his head.  But I’m not concerned with what he does outside the ring.  I’ll leave that to his promoters, friends, advisor Shelly Finkel and to his battery of attorneys.  In the ring is all I am interested in.  And it’s in the ring I think he’s still awesome.  He may not be able to beat Lennox Lewis over 12 rounds.  But, no fight starts with the 12th round.  They all start with Round One.  And in that initial round, nobody is better.  Nobody!  I look forward to seeing it.

A few of us were talking about great managers/advisors recently.  The names of so many of history’s greatest managers came up.  Included in the group were such Hall of Famers as Al Weill, Gil Clancy, Cus D’Amato, Jim Jacobs, Angelo Dundee, Emanuel Steward and Lou Duva.  Also mentioned were Dennis Rappaport, Rock Newman, Carlos Eleta and Dave Wolf.  A number of oldtimers, such as Jack Kearns, Joe Jacobs and Irving Cohen also were mentioned.  The discussion was, “Who Was The Greatest Manager of All Time?”

I think many of the names listed are indeed all-time greats.  All were exceptional.  However, there is only one name I think of when I think of great managers.  The man I have in mind is incomparable, the way Sugar Ray Robinson, especially as a welterweight, stands alone.  The man is Shelly Finkel.  He has absolutely no competition.  Finkel manages.  He guides.  He negotiates.  He is a father figure/manager/agent/psychiatrist rolled into one.  He is the complete package.  If he were a fighter, he’d be Sugar Ray Robinson.  He’s quick on his feet and quick in his thinking.  His combos are lethal and his power deadly.  Among those he manages or has managed are Alex Ramos, Johnny Bumphus, Tony Ayala, Tony Tucker, John Molina, Mark Breland, Evander Holyfield, Pernell Whitaker, Tyrell Biggs, Fernando Vargas, Zab Judah, David Tua and Mike Tyson.  His managerial brains and negotiating skills were a huge part of the tremendous success then-fledgling promoter Main Events enjoyed throughout the 1980's on their rise to becoming a promotional powerhouse.

So, you can talk all you want about Jim Jacobs and Dave Wolf  and all the rest.  When they wanted advice, they turned to the best there ever was, a man right in their midst--Shelly Finkel.  It’s only a matter of time until he gets elected into boxing immortality--the Hall of Fame.  It’s where he belongs.  

Is there a chance Oscar de la Hoya will ever lose a fight and admit he lost?  Don’t count on it.  He’ll just blame the loss on whoever may be working his corner for that particular fight.  I had to laugh when I recently heard him respond to the question “Why did you let Gil Clancy go?”  Oscar’s response was  “He couldn’t teach me anything anymore.”  Yeh, right!  The Giller has forgotten more about boxing than Oscar will ever know.  Since 1992, when he turned his back on Shelly Finkel after all-but-acknowledging Finkel would be his manager, Oscar has left a trail of hired-then-fired managers and trainers.  There is no chance he’ll change.  Ever.  It’s who he is.  A rattlesnake will always be a rattlesnake.  Only with Oscar, his bite has become less venomous over the last year.  

THE CHANGE THAT REFRESHES: Reading Tim Smith’s columns in the New York Daily News is like taking a swig of ice water on a hot summer day.  This is especially so after dealing with over a decade of negativity from Smith’s predecessor, Michael Katz.  Now, if only the New York Post’s Wallace Matthews--another of the “New York Negatives”--would retire...

Kudos to trainers Al Gavin and Eddie Troiano on the great job they did in training and conditioning light heavyweight Eric Harding.  Gavin, as we know, is among the sports’ best trainers , as well as being its number one cutman.  His protégé, Troiano, is on his way to being recognized as one of the best trainers in the game...Want to know the most overrated one-two punch in the sport?  Manager Marc Roberts and heavyweight Shannon Briggs.

WHEN THUGS MEET THUGS: August 19 should be an interesting, for lack of any better word, day.  Actually, the two or three days preceding that should be interesting.  For at that time, Prince Naseem Hamed will be fighting at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in the Connecticut hills.  Nobody has a louder, more obnoxious entourage than Hamed.  Nobody is more egotistical than the unbeaten loudmouth from Great Britain.  I know, I worked for him.  On the other side, no casino has a rougher, no-nonsense Gaming Commission than Foxwoods. I know, I worked for them. Its commissioner, Roy Butler, has a sense of humor about as funny as a school bus accident, the personality of a tree and knows very little about professional boxing.  His job qualifications are that he’s an Indian and the Indians are in charge at Foxwoods.  He was the best choice of a very weak lot.  His right hand man is “Wild” Bill Hickey, an ex-Connecticut cop who is an extension of Butler.  The fight fraternity affectionately calls them “Beavis and Butthead.”  Foxwoods Boxing Commission is also run by an Indian.  His name is Joey Carter. Lucky me. At Foxwoods, I worked for him, too. As the head of the commission he makes a great fight fan.  Unlike Butler, Carter has a great personality.  And unlike Butler, Carter doesn’t sound as if he has marbles in his mouth when he speaks.  On a real state commission, however, Carter -- who would rather be playing golf --  would make a great receptionist.  On a real state commission, Butler would make a great file clerk.  Yet, at Foxwoods, both have large staffs.  Foxwoods Gaming Commission think nothing of yelling at, threatening and even manhandling visitors who don’t comply with their set of rules, many of which are ludicrous.  Are you ready for one such ludicrous rule?  How about “No Gum Chewing in the Dressing Room.”  Butler once told me “the gum could be laced with a performance-enhancing stimulant.”  Duhhh!  That was basically his response when I told him, “If that’s true, then the fighter will flunk his post-fight drug test.”  Another time, Butler and his thugs refused to allow James Toney to share a dressing room with his stablemate, Lucia Rijker.  Finally, after much complaining by Freddie Roach, the trainer of Toney and Rijker, Butler had his staff put up a curtain in the dressing room so the likelihood of Rijker and Toney seeing each other naked would be minimized.  A few nights later, Carol Channing was in with a show.  Her actors and singers changed backstage in front of each other.  Base-assed naked were dozens of men and women.  Nowhere was the Gaming Commission to stop them.  Ahh, it should be a riot when the Prince’s Thugs meet Foxwoods’ Thugs.  I do mean a riot.  I worked with The Prince when he fought Wayne McCullough in October 1998.  The Atlantic City casino we stayed in bent over backwards to make Naz happy.  The hotel’s president, Ken Condon, was among the most professional executives I have ever met.  Still, Naz was not remotely happy.  His thugs even engaged in some fisticuffs with hotel security at the weigh-in.  Naz and his boys have no idea what they are in for and up against at Foxwoods.  Nor do “Beavis and Butthead” realize how thuggish and disrespectful Naz and his crew can be.   Also, if Naz so much as forgets his passbook or a single medical is not on hand, one of Foxwoods super commissions will threaten to cancel the fight. The fight itself -- Naz vs. Augie Sanchez -- is interesting.  But if they make it into the ring, that will be a story unto itself.  You see, it’s getting Naz through several days at Foxwoods which will be a task.  For when Thugs meet Thugs, anything can happen.  They deserve each other.

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MUHAMMAD ALI’S LEGAL BATTLES

By Adam Pollack

apollack11@hotmail.com

On April 19, 1971, the United States Supreme Court reversed Muhammad Ali’s conviction for refusing to enter the military.  Most Americans are aware that Ali refused to enter the U.S. Armed Forces and that his conviction for refusing to do so was eventually overturned.  Ali has gained international heroic status for taking the position he did, which cost him a three and a half year absence from the boxing ring.  However, what is not well known are the factual and legal intricacies surrounding his legal battles.  This article chronicles the story of Muhammad Ali’s legal fight history as it relates to his draft status, draft evasion conviction, and loss of his boxing license.

Ali’s Draft Classification and Administrative Appeals

As required by law, on April 18, 1960, Cassius Marcellus Clay registered with the selective service, Local Board No. 47, Louisville, Kentucky.  Later that year, Clay won the 178 pound division Olympic boxing gold medal.  In 1962, Cassius Clay was classified 1-A by Local Board No. 47, Louisville, Kentucky.  This meant that he was available for military service and eligible to be drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces.  However, in March of 1964, as a result of a mental examination, Cassius Clay (then Cassius X) was classified 1-Y.  This meant that he was not qualified for induction in the armed forces under the current standards.

On February 25, 1964, 22 year old Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight championship when Sonny Liston retired in his corner after the sixth round.  The next day, Clay announced that he had joined the Lost Found Nation of Islam, otherwise known as the Black Muslim movement.  He renounced his “slave name” and stated he would be known as Cassius X until he could assume a Muslim name.  Shortly thereafter, the World Boxing Association (W.B.A.) stripped Ali of its title because of his religious conversion. 

Cassius Clay, now known as Muhammad Ali, stopped Sonny Liston in the first round on May 25, 1965, successfully defending his world heavyweight championship.  Ali followed that win with a stoppage of former champion Floyd Patterson in twelve rounds.

On February 17, 1966, after having been considered by the Examining Station in accordance with the current regulations (which had been lowered in light of an increased need for soldiers), Ali was found fully acceptable for induction into the military.  He was classified 1-A in accordance with his original 1962 classification.  A week later, Ali submitted to the local draft board a Special Form for Conscientious Objector (I-O).  This was the first time he claimed that he was a conscientious objector to war.  Ali also requested a personal appearance before the local board regarding the change of his classification from 1-Y to 1-A.  After granting Ali a personal appearance, the local board again classified him 1-A, eligible for service.  Ali appealed the decision to the Kentucky Appeal Board.

Shortly after Ali won a fifteen round decision against George Chuvalo, on May 6, 1966 the Kentucky Appeal Board determined Ali was not entitled to the I-O (conscientious objector) status.  The complete file was referred to the Department of Justice for an advisory recommendation as required by the Selective Service Regulations.  The Department of Justice then requested an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.).

Ali continued his title defenses, stopping Henry Cooper on cuts in six rounds and knocking out Brian London in three in May and August 1966, respectively.

Following the conclusion of the requested F.B.I. investigation, a special hearing was held in Louisville.  On August 23, 1966, the hearing officer reported his belief that Ali was sincere in his conscientious objector claim.  At that point, Ali additionally claimed to be a minister of the Lost Found Nation of Islam.  He contended he should be exempt from military service as a “regular minister of religion” (known as the IV-D classification).

Ali again defended his heavyweight championship in September and November of 1966, stopping Karl Mildenberger in the twelfth round and knocking out Cleveland Williams in the third round.

On November 25, 1966, the Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Conscientious Objector Section, recommended to the Kentucky Appeal Board that Ali’s request for conscientious objector status be denied.  Following that recommendation, on January 10, 1967, the Kentucky Appeal Board again denied the requested conscientious objector claim.  Two days later, Local Board No. 47 in Kentucky unanimously found that Ali was not entitled to the ministerial exemption.  The Local Board reconsidered Ali’s classification a week later at the written request of General Lewis B. Hershey, the National Director of Selective Service, and again classified him 1-A.

On February 6, 1967, Muhammad Ali won a fifteen round points decision against Ernie Terrell, regaining the W.B.A. title.

Following another appeal, on February 15, 1967, the Appeal Board for the Southern District of Texas also classified Ali 1-A.  A week later, the National Director of Selective Service, General Lewis B. Hershey, appealed Ali’s classification to the National Selective Service Appeal Board (also called the Presidential Appeal Board because it is composed of three members who are appointed by and act for the President, who has the power to decide claims).  Ali himself could not file this appeal because the regulations required that one or more members of the appeal board dissent from the classification (which had not occurred) before a registrant has a right to file the appeal.  The National Director of Selective Service had the discretion to file the appeal anyway, even though there were no dissenters regarding Ali’s draft classification.  On March 6, 1967, the three member Presidential Appeal Board (which included a black member) reviewed Ali’s entire file and unanimously classified him I-A, denying the conscientious objector status.  Muhammad Ali had fully exhausted his administrative appeals.

On March 22, 1967, Muhammad Ali defended his heavyweight championship for the ninth time, knocking out Zora Folley in the seventh round.  This was to be Ali’s last bout for over three and a half years.  A  week later, the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky refused to grant an injunction against Ali’s induction into military service prior to presenting himself at an Induction Station.  Subsequently, the Supreme Court of the United States denied the application for stay of the District Court’s order.  Therefore, Ali was required to submit to induction into the armed forces.

Criminal Conviction for Refusal to Submit to Induction Into the Armed Forces,Loss of Title, and Legal Appeals

On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali reported for but declined to submit to induction into the armed forces on the grounds of his religious beliefs as a minister of the Islamic Religion.  The W.B.A. immediately stripped Ali of his title.  The New York State Athletic Commission suspended Ali’s boxing license.  However, the World Boxing Council (W.B.C.) continued to recognize Ali as champion.

In June, Ali’s federal criminal jury trial resulted in his conviction for knowingly and willfully refusing to report for and submit to induction into the armed forces of the United States.  Although he had no prior criminal record or charges, Ali was sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of $10,000.  Imprisonment was delayed pending the results of Ali’s appeals.

On May 6, 1968, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, satisfied that he had been fairly afforded due process of law without discrimination, affirmed Ali’s conviction for refusing to report for and submit to induction into the armed forces of the United States.  Ali’s appeal sought a declaration that the Universal Military Training and Service Act was unconstitutional as applied to him because of “systematic exclusion” of blacks from membership on draft boards, and, that there was no basis in fact for the denial of a ministerial exemption or the conscientious objector status.

Due Process - Black Representation on Draft Boards

Ali’s first basis of appeal claimed that he was denied due process of law because the ratio of blacks on draft boards did not reflect their ratio in the population.  Ali was correct that there was not only a local imbalance, but a nationwide imbalance of black membership on draft boards.  However, the court found that the absence of a proportion of blacks in accordance with their ratio to the population was not required by the law. 

The racial imbalance on draft boards resulted from the federal appointments by the President upon recommendations of the governors of each state.  The appointments were the result of the political process, which does not require such appointments to reflect population ratios.  The court compared appointments as a result of the political process to a malapportioned legislature.  The court held acts of such a legislature are not invalid and the laws which it passes are not void.  There is no right to be classified and inducted by a selective service board composed of a percentage of black members which the black population bears to the total population. 

Even if Ali’s objection regarding the proportionality of blacks on draft boards was valid, it could not stand in light of the fact that a three member board which was one third black had unanimously classified him eligible for service (1-A).  The Presidential Appeal Board acts for the President himself, as it is the President who is vested with the functions and duties of the determination of questions with respect to inclusion for, or exemption from military service.  The Appeal Board considers matters of classification de novo.  That is, its classification is one of first instance and not a mere affirmation or reversal of the Local Board.  Any prejudice or error on the local level is cured by a fair and fresh consideration on the appeal, because the action of the board of appeals completely supersedes the action of the local board.  One of the three members of the Presidential Appeal Board was black, and therefore Ali’s draft status ultimately was determined by an appeal board which was 33% black, reflecting a greater percentage of blacks than in the population as a whole.

Ali had never charged or provided evidence of discrimination because he was black.  As he had simply asserted a denial of due process because of the composition of the draft and appeals boards, the basis of his appeal was not sound.  The court noted that Ali had been classified 1-A on seven different occasions; on four different occasions, Ali was classified 1-A (available for military service) by his local board, twice more by appeal boards in Kentucky and Texas, and once by the National Selective Service Appeal Board.  All votes were unanimous.  Ali was afforded every procedure known to the Act and the regulations, and an appeal to the Presidential Appeal Board to which he was not specifically entitled.

Denial of the Ministerial Exemption. 

The scope of review of local board decisions in draft cases is very limited and the range of review is the narrowest known to the law.  The court has authority to reverse only if there is a denial of basic procedural fairness or if the conclusion of the board is without any factual basis. 

Ali claimed that the denial of the requested ministerial exemption from military service was without any factual basis.  A Congressionally created exemption from military service includes regular or duly ordained ministers of religion.  A regular minister of religion is one who teaches the principles of religion as his customary vocation.  A regular minister of religion must be recognized by his or her church, sect, or organization as a regular minister, although he or she does not necessarily have to be formally ordained as a minister of religion.  The exemption is intended for the leaders of the various religious faiths and not for the members generally.  Preaching or teaching the principles of one’s sect, if performed part-time, occasionally or irregularly, are insufficient to bring a registrant under the exemption.  The activities must be regularly performed and comprise the registrant’s vocation, and the registrant must have a recognized standing as a minister. 

The court found the evidence which the local board had before it was much more than necessary to constitute a “basis in fact” for Ali’s 1-A classification and denial of the ministerial exemption.  Ali was certified as a minister by the National Secretary of the Lost Found Nation of Islam and by its leader, Elijah Muhammad.  He contended that he spent 90% of his time on his ministerial duties.  However, although he contended he became a minister in 1964, his vocation appeared to be professional boxer.  In the first information which he supplied to his local board on selective service forms, his occupation was shown to be that of “professional boxer” and “professional prizefighter.”  The Report of Medical History dated January 24, 1964 showed his usual occupation to be “boxing.”  His Current Information Questionnaire dated February 2, 1966 listed his occupation as a “professional boxer” and his work as “professional fighting.”  Just three days prior to his reclassification to 1-A from 1-Y, Ali wrote Local Board No. 47 on February 14, 1966, stating that “My occupation is professional boxer, and I am at present the Heavyweight Champion of the World.” 

Even when he filled out the Special Form for Conscientious Objector dated February 28, 1966, though claiming to be a member of the Nation of Islam, he did not claim to be a minister.  His March 17, 1966 letter to the Local Board No. 47 protested that his reclassification imposed “grave hardship upon me as heavyweight champion of the world at now age 24.”  Finally, when he appeared in person before the Local Board on March 19, 1966, boxing was listed as his livelihood.  Accordingly, the court held Muhammad Ali’s vocation was clearly that of a professional boxer.  

Denial of Conscientious Objector Status

“The knowledge that military service must sometimes be borne by – and imposed on – free men so their freedom may be preserved is woven deeply into the fabric of the American experience.” 

President Lyndon B. Johnson, Message on Selective Service to the Congress, March 6, 1967. 

Technically, every adult American citizen may be constitutionally compelled to serve in the armed forces.  There is no constitutional right to exemption from service for conscientious objector or ministerial status.  However, Congress is empowered to create exemptions from military service.  Therefore, the conscientious objector or ministerial exemptions from military service are purely matters of  Congressional legislative grace.

Muhammad Ali’s appeal also claimed there was no factual basis for the denial of his status as a conscientious objector.  Only  a general scruple against participation in war in any form can support a claim for conscientious objector status.  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held there was more than adequate evidence to justify the rejection of Ali’s claim, for he did not object to participation in war in any form.

Ali’s claim that he was a conscientious objector began on February 18, 1966, one day after his reclassification to 1-A.  In his appearance before Local Board No. 47 on March 19, 1966, Ali claimed hardship on account of taking care of his parents and paying alimony to his former wife.  The board’s record stated, “His religion teaches them not to take part in any way with infidels or any nonreligious group.”  Also, “Clay objects to being in service because he has no quarrel with the Viet Cong.” 

He wrote a lengthy letter to his local board dated April 16, 1966 in which he repeated his above-referenced hardship claims.  He protested that two years of military service would cause him serious financial loss in being unable to pursue his livelihood as a professional boxer.  The letter read in part,

Two years is a very long time in the life of a heavyweight champ. . . I may never be able to overcome this time of loss of boxing sharpness and come back from the service and earn the kind of money required to pay off these financial obligations, even though they may be abated during the time of military service.  I would therefore be in hock for the rest of my life, whereas if I can get in a few more fights, which are lined up through the fall of this year, I should be able to settle these permanent financial obligations from the money I should get within this year, which I am at my peak of shape and am the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The local board reaffirmed the 1-A classification.

The Department of Justice requested an F.B.I. investigation and a special hearing on the character and good faith of Ali’s conscientious objections.  The special hearing was held on August 23, 1966.  The hearing officer reported to the Department of Justice that Ali stated his views in a convincing manner and answered all questions forthrightly.  He believed Ali was of good character, morals and integrity and sincere in his objection on religious grounds to participation to war in any form.  He recommended that the conscientious objector claim be sustained. 

However, the Department of Justice opposed Ali’s claim, concluding that Ali’s objections to participation in war insofar as they were based upon the teachings of the Nation of Islam “rest on grounds which are primarily political and racial.  These constitute objections to only certain types of war in certain circumstances, rather than a general scruple against participation in war in any form.”  Therefore, Ali’s grounds for conscientious objector status were inconsistent with its requirements. 

At the F.B.I. special hearing, Ali stated,

If the Honorable Elijah Muhammad looked me in my face and he who I believe is directly from Allah, Almighty God Allah, and if he looked at me and advised me, which I’m sure he wouldn’t, to fight in any kind of war, if he advised me to I would.”  He also stated, “I wouldn’t raise all this court stuff and I wouldn’t go through all of this and lose and give up the millions that I gave up and my image with the American public. . . if I wasn’t sincere in every bit of what the Holy Qur’an and the teaching of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad tell us and it is that we are not to participate in wars on the side of nobody who - - on the side of nonbelievers, and this is a Christian country and this is not a Muslim country, and the Government and the history and the facts shows that every move toward the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is made to distort and is made to ridicule him and is made to condemn him and the Government has admitted that the police of Los Angeles were wrong about attacking and killing our brothers and sisters and they were wrong in Newark, New Jersey, and they were wrong in Louisiana, and the outright, everyday oppressors and enemies are the people as a whole, the whites of this nation. 

Ali also affirmed at the F.B.I. special hearing that he was correctly quoted by the Chicago Daily News on February 18, 1966 in stating, “I don’t have no personal quarrel with those Vietcongs . . . . Let me tell you, we Muslims are taught to defend ourselves when we are attacked.  Those Vietcong are not attacking me. . . .  Why should we Muslims get involved?” 

The Nation of Islam’s teachings did not preclude fighting for the United States because of objections to participation in war in any form but rather because of objections to policies of the United States as interpreted by Elijah Muhammad.  Therefore, the court held there was adequate evidence to justify the rejections of Ali’s claim.  The court cited United States v. Spiro, 384 F.2d 159 (3^rd Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 956 (1968), in which the court upheld the denial of the conscientious objection claim of a Roman Catholic who said he would fight only in a “just war.”  Ali, like the Roman Catholic, was not opposed to war in any form.

In March, 1969, the W.B.C. declared the heavyweight title vacant because of Ali’s inability to defend the title as a result of his continuing legal problems.  Ali had not fought for two years.

Influence of Wire Taps on Ali’s Criminal Conviction.

On March 24, 1969, Ali argued that his draft status and criminal conviction had been improperly influenced by illegal wire taps.  The Supreme Court of the United States remanded Ali’s case to the lower court for a determination of whether electronic government surveillance used against him in his criminal trial were in violation of Ali’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Ali had been a party to five telephone conversations which had been improperly electronically overheard by agents of the F.B.I.  Ali had standing to challenge the legality of the surveillance even though it was not  his telephone under surveillance, but the telephones of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Elijah Muhammad.  It was necessary to determine whether his conviction was tainted by the information obtained as a result of the electronic surveillance.

The government never challenged the illegality of the surveillance.  However, the lower court was required to decide whether the evidence gathered against Ali grew out of his illegally overheard conversations or whether the evidence was obtained by means independent of the illegal wire taps so as to be purged of their influence.  If the recommendation by the Department of Justice to deny Ali’s conscientious objector claim was based upon illegally obtained evidence and not upon independent properly obtained evidence, the “basis in fact” which the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas found for his classification would have been defective.

A log of a March 24, 1964 wiretap of Elijah Muhammad’s phone (Log 2) stated, “Elijah said he wanted to see Clay as he was going to make a minister out of him when he quit thinking of fighting all the time.”  Another log of a telephone surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Log 4) stated “C said that he is keeping up with MLK that MLK is his brother, and with him 100% but can’t take any chances, and that MLK should take care of himself, that MLK is known world wide and should watch out for them whities (sic) . . .”  Ali attempted to show that because Log 2 reflected Elijah Muhammad’s wish that Ali become a minister, and because Log 4 reflected Ali’s reference to “them whiteys,” the logs would have an influence regarding his ministerial status and a bearing on the Department’s conclusion that his beliefs were political and racial, rather than religious. 

On July 14, 1969, the lower court held not only was there positive testimony that the logs were not used at all in the preparation of the Department of Justice report, but the logs were “so totally innocuous” that they could not have had any bearing on the defendant’s conviction even if they were used.  The Department of Justice’s duty was to submit a recommendation concerning Ali’s status as a conscientious objector, not a minister.  Therefore Log 2, regarding Elijah Muhammad’s desire to make Ali a minister, was irrelevant because it had no bearing on whether Ali was entitled to conscientious objector status.  The Department could have recommended Ali be granted conscientious objector status despite the fact that he was not a minister of his religion.  Even if the issue had been before the Department, the court found that the independent evidence that Ali was not a minister was overwhelming. 

The court also held that construing a passing reference to “them whiteys” as being the Department’s basis, or even partial reason, for holding Ali’s beliefs to be political and racial was “completely untenable.”  The conversation was not a theological discussion and the common slang reference was not within a context which could have had any bearing on Ali’s beliefs.  In addition, even if there had been such a context, there was ample evidence from an independent origin before the Department to conclude that the Muslim religion (as taught by Elijah Muhammad) held the white race in contempt.  Elijah Muhammad had said in the Supreme Wisdom, “The white race or Caucasian European race is known to God and his prophets as Satan, the devil, the enemy of God and his people (the original nation) power was given to them to rule with evil and falsehood the darker nations for six thousand years. . . If you understood it right you will agree with me that the whole Caucasian Race is a race of devils.”  Accordingly, the court found the information obtained in the wiretaps could not have been relevant to Ali’s conviction.

On July 6, 1970, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit again upheld Ali’s conviction, holding that it was “clear from uncontradicted testimony that none of the information obtained in the five wiretapped telephone conversations was used in the F.B.I. investigation of defendant’s conscientious objector claim, or in the preparation of the adverse Department of Justice recommendation made in connection with defendant’s original request for conscientious objector classification."

Ali’s Fight to Fight

The New York State Athletic Commission suspended Muhammad Ali’s boxing license on April 28, 1967 because of his refusal to submit to induction in the Armed Forces of the United States.  The W.B.A. had also stripped Ali of his heavyweight title on that date.  However, Ali continued to be recognized as champion by the W.B.C. until March 1969, when the title was declared vacant because of Ali’s inactivity for two years as a result of his legal problems (and the fact that no state would license him to fight and Ali’s passport had been revoked).  Later that year, Ali was convicted by a jury of the federal felony of refusing to submit to induction into the Armed Forces, and was sentenced to a term of five years imprisonment.  During his criminal appeals, Ali had been at liberty upon a $5,000 bond. 

On September 22, 1969, Ali applied to the New York State Athletic Commission for renewal of his expired license to box in New York.  On October 14, 1969, the Commission unanimously denied his application because his “refusal to enter the service and felony conviction in violation of Federal law is regarded by this Commission to be detrimental to the best interests of boxing, or to the public interest, convenience or necessity.”  Ali had no other criminal record.  Following the Commission’s decision, Ali brought an action for a preliminary injunction restraining the Commission from denying him a license to box in the State of New York.

On September 14, 1970, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Ali’s motion for a preliminary injunction restraining the New York State Athletic Commission from granting him a boxing license.  Ali’s Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim was based in part on his charge that the Commission’s action was arbitrary and capricious in that Ali’s conviction for draft evasion had no rational relationship to the regulated activity of boxing and was therefore irrelevant to the proper exercise of the Commission’s functions.  Ali also alleged that the Commission discriminated against him in violation of his rights under the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the government to treat similarly situated persons similarly, without discrimination.  In support of his equal protection claim, Ali demonstrated numerous other occasions in which professional boxers who had been convicted of crimes had been licensed despite their records.  For example, Joey Giardello had been convicted of assault.  Rocco Barbella, also known as Rocky Graziano, had twice been convicted of petty larceny, and had been court martialed while serving in the United States Army and convicted of being absent without leave and disobeying orders.  Graziano was sentenced to one year hard labor and a dishonorable discharge.  Sonny Liston had been convicted of armed robbery and assault with intent to kill.  Unlike Ali, these boxers had been granted licenses to box.

The Commission’s records revealed at least 244 instances in recent years in which it granted, renewed, or reinstated boxing licenses to applicants who had been convicted of one or more felonies, misdemeanors or military offenses.  Some ninety-four felons licensed included persons convicted of activities such as second degree murder, burglary, armed robbery, extortion, grand larceny, rape, sodomy, aggravated assault and battery, embezzlement, arson and receiving stolen property.  The fifteen military offenses included convictions or dishonorable discharges for desertion from the Armed Forces of the United States, assault upon an officer, burglary and larceny.  Thirty-five licenses were granted to felons and misdemeanants in 1968 and 1969, subsequent to the suspension of Ali’s license. 

Furthermore, the Commission had not in the past distinguished between recent convictions or sentences not yet served, and those older or served.  The Commission’s records revealed numerous instances where a license had been issued in the same year of the applicant’s conviction of a serious crime.  Twenty-eight boxers had been licensed to box while on probation, and twenty-six while serving their sentences on parole.  Regardless, such distinctions would have the undesirable effect of discouraging a convicted applicant from exercising his right to pursue an appeal. 

The court held that denying Ali a license because of his refusal to serve in the Armed Forces while granting licenses to hundreds of other applicants convicted of other crimes and military offenses appeared to be on its face intentional, arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination.  The court could not find a rational basis for singling out the offense of draft evasion as detrimental to the interests of boxing while holding that criminal activities such as murder, rape, and arson were not so classified.  Draft offenders do not usually pose rehabilitation problems or threats to the public safety in the way that convicts of other crimes do.  Additionally, there could be no rational basis for distinguishing between a deserter from the Armed Forces, to whom a license was granted, and a person who refuses to serve in the first place.  Therefore, the court granted Ali’s motion and enjoined the Commission from denying him a license to box.  Although his criminal appeals were still continuing, Ali would be able to box again.

In his first fight in three and a half years, on October 26, 1970, Muhammad Ali stopped Jerry Quarry on cuts after the third round.  In December, Ali knocked out Oscar Bonavena in the fifteenth round.  Then, on March 8, 1971, billed as ‘The Fight,’ Muhammad Ali lost a unanimous fifteen round decision to Joe Frazier in a bout for the Heavyweight Championship of the World.  Although this was Ali’s first professional boxing loss, there was another round to be fought, more important to Muhammad Ali than any boxing match . . .

The Final Round of Ali’s Appeal of His Criminal Conviction and Denial of Conscientious Objector Status

Muhammad Ali’s legal appeals finally ended on June 28, 1971, when the Supreme Court of the United States addressed the denial of Ali’s application for conscientious objector status.  In order to qualify for classification as a conscientious objector, a registrant must satisfy three tests:  He must show that he is conscientiously opposed to war in any form, that this opposition is based upon religious training and belief, and that the objection is sincere.  If Ali failed any of the three tests, his conscientious objector claim could not be valid under the law. 

It seems clear that Ali failed at least one of the three tests; that which required opposition to war in any form.  In addition to the statements cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Ali had testified that Islam did not allow war “unless declared by Allah himself, or unless it’s an Islamic World War, or a Holy War . . .”  The Islamic just war, or jihad, was a war in which Ali would take part.  Clearly, Ali was not opposed to war in any form.  Therefore, the Department of Justice had written a letter to the Appeal Board stating that Ali’s beliefs “do not appear to preclude military service in any form, but rather are limited to military service in the Armed Forces of the United States . .  . . These constitute only objections to certain types of war in certain circumstances, rather than a general scruple against participation in war in any form.  However, only a general scruple against participation in war in any form can support an exemption as a conscientious objector under the Act.”   As Ali was not opposed to war in any form as required by the law, he did not fulfill the requirements necessary for conscientious objector status. 

The D