The CyberBoxingZone News


Bruno on Boxing
Joe Bruno

January 24, 2000

Bruno on Boxing
By Joe Bruno---Former vice president of the Boxing Writers Association and the International Boxing Writers Association

News Item: International Boxing Writers Association Reborn It was a great idea and a wonderful concept that went by the boards for lack of interest. Now It’s trying mightily to make a comeback.

In 1980, Marc Maturo of the Gannett Newspaper chain in Westchester, New York, started the International Boxing Writers Association, a group of boxing writers from around the world. Maturo is also a lifetime member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and a voting member for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The New York Boxing Writers, which had been around since 1926 (Ed Sullivan was it’s first President), reacted as if a male German Sheppard had lifted it's right leg and tinkled on it's hallowed trees. The New York Boxing Writers, which exists only to give out it’s yearly awards, mostly to its own members, immediately fought back by changing its name to the Boxing Writers Association, even though it’s membership was, and still is 95 % New York City based. The old group, besides being adverse to its own name, was also glutted with public relations people whose only purpose was to push forth the fighters their bosses, people like Don King and Bob Arum, had presently under contract. The conflict of interest in the New York Boxing Writers was, and still is stifling.

This reporter was in the middle of this mess. I was the vice president of the New York Boxing Writers, but frustrated with the old group’s lack of initiative in doing anything positive, except glorifying itself, I eagerly joined the International Boxing Writers. Soon I was vice president of that organization too. Maturo, the founder, was the president.

Maturo tirelessly fought to give the new group credence. He recruited more that 130 members from around the world. Places like the Midwest and Far West United States, Europe, the Orient and even Australia now had representation through their own boxing writers. The New York Boxing Writers used any and all associations that they had nurtured throughout the years, to strike down the young insurgent group.

I was personally approached and told if I did not quit the IBWA, I would be ousted from the NY Boxing Writers. I told the person, who is now dead and who I will not even honor by mentioning his name, that his words sounded strangely like extortion, and that if he uttered one more word about his proposal, I would inject my size nine up his treacherous butt.

But the NY Boxing Writers used all its wiles and countless connections, to batter the IBWA into submission. By 1984, the IBWA, after a brief fling with IBWA world wide ratings, bit the dust due to the NY Boxing Writers efforts, and due to plain lack of interest among the promoters, the TV networks, especially HBO and it’s Wizard of Sleaze, Seth “The Shrimp” Abraham, and of course, the governing boxing organizations.

This was the early 1980’s. There was no Internet, and it was difficult to cultivate and maintain the IBWA because there was little communication across land and seas among it’s members. Now times have changed. The Internet is alive and well, and Marc Maturo is back with a vengeance.

"It’s a damn shame the New York Boxing Writers have so much influence, even though they only represent a minuscule part of the boxing writers all over the world," Maturo said. "They even have an influential vote for the Boxing Hall of Fame, and west coast writers like Jack Fiske, who was as good as any boxing writer the NY Boxing Writers ever had, will never get admitted to the Hall of Fame as long as the NY Boxing Writers have control." Maturo added, "And the New York Boxing Writers act as if the Internet doesn’t exist. There isn’t one member of the New York Boxing Writers who writes only for an Internet website."

Maturo is actively recruiting members for the IBWA. There will be two types of members. Any boxing writer who writes for any venue whatsoever, Internet or print, and any radio or television personality involved in boxing broadcasts and telecasts, will be admitted as a voting member of the IBWA. Any other person: trainer, manager, promoter, public relations person, cornerman, spit bucket or stool carrier, or just plain boxing fan, will be admitted as a non-voting member, and will receive our monthly newslatter. Period. No need to be a friend of so and so, as was, and is the deal with the New York group.

Maturo said, "The International Boxing Writers should be as powerful and influential as the Baseball Writers Association, if not more so. Boxing is truly an International sport, with no seasons. There’s a boxing match virtually every day somewhere around the world."

Any boxing writer interested in joining a group that will try to change the way the seedy business of boxing is run, contact Mark Maturo at e-mail: aldouchee@aol.com. Or at IBWA, 50 Mary Street, Suite 1, Tappan, New York, 10983. Members of the New York Boxing Writers are also invited to join. Like Wilfred Brimley once said, "It’s the right thing to do."

   



Upcoming Fights

Current Champions

Boxing Journal

On-line Encyclopedia

News

Main Page

[Return to Top]