If it wasn't for this, had today's boxing scene - with several "world" champions in several weight classes - been in the mess it is?
An interview from 2001, Katherine Dunn speaks with Herbert G. Goldman, a former managing editor of The Ring. Bert Sugar took over the ****zine in 1979 and ran it until 1983, in my opinion its best years. His first action was to fire John Ort. However, the damage had already been done, WBC and WBA were invited to the party, soon proven to be annoying guests as they never left. Instead they brought their buddies IBF and WBO.
Goldman: … in February of 1978, February 6 to be exact, in the midst of a blizzard, I started working at Ring ****zine.
How did that happen? You’d been reading Ring as a fan and scholar?
I had been a fight fan then for almost fifteen years. For a layman I had a very good knowledge of the history of boxing and so forth, and I needed a job. I did not want to be a teacher. I wanted a less violent profession than teaching, so I went into the sedate world of professional boxing.
1978, that must have been a hurly-burly year at Ring ****zine. There was the Ring ratings scandal.
I came in there, yes, in the wake of the championship boxing tournament which had been thrown off ABC in 1977. Nat Loubet was the publisher and editor of the ****zine, and John Ort was the associate editor, who was really in charge of the boxing. Mr. Loubet was more interested in the business end of things. It was alleged that The Ring, at the very least, was a very faulty record keeper. And at the worst was a rather corrupt organization. The tournament was thrown off the air.
My understanding is that there were allegations that John Ort had sold Ring ratings particularly for the benefit of Don King's tournament at that time.
Ring at that time was involved officially in the tournament. The tournament was using fighters rated by The Ring in their U.S. ratings, which they had instituted a couple of years before that. It was alleged that certain fighters managed by certain managers friendly to Mr. Ort were given preference in the tournament. It was also alleged that certain fighters who were completely unqualified were pushed into the tournament, after their records were completely falsified. Among these records was that of Mr. Ike Fluellen, who was apparently given two phony fights in Mexico. [Fluellen was] a Jr. middleweight, a journeyman fighter who hadn’t fought in 2 years. And all of a sudden two phony fights appeared and he appeared in the Ring Ratings and he was pushed up to a point where at one time he was Number 3 in the Jr. middleweight ratings of the U.S. according to Ring ****zine.
There were some uglier allegations that amounted to alleged attempts at extortion. You know, unless we have a piece of your fighter he doesn’t get into the U.S. Tournament. Certain managers of fighters like Marvin Hagler, according to what I was told, were approached in that fashion. These were all allegations. Nonetheless, when a fighter named Scott LeDoux failed to receive a decision over a fighter named Johnny Boudreaux in a heavyweight bout in the tournament, it sort of blew sky high.
A renegade boxing journalist named Flash Gordon had been screaming in print about the tournament and what was going on, and all of a sudden the whole thing blew. ABC requested copies of the Ring Record Book of 1977. They went through it and within 24 hours the tournament was thrown off the air. It was an ignominious defeat for Ring ****zine. Ring's sales had declined sharply back in 1962 and they had been on the down-slide ever since. This was to be a great comeback for them. Quite the reverse, It was a humiliating, ignominious defeat.
It had repercussions beyond Ring itself. It was this tournament and Rings’ disgrace therein , which lead to the increased prominence and power of the world sanctioning bodies because TV, and pointedly ABC, turned to the sanctioning bodies in terms of identifying who was who, what was a championship fight, and so on. It was in 1978, of course that Ken Norton, the proclaimed WBC champion lost his title to Larry Holmes on ABC. And of course Holmes went on to defend the title on that same network multiple times. This really gave prominence to the WBC and lead more or less to the dominance of the world sanctioning bodies and the world of boxing as we have it today.
An interview from 2001, Katherine Dunn speaks with Herbert G. Goldman, a former managing editor of The Ring. Bert Sugar took over the ****zine in 1979 and ran it until 1983, in my opinion its best years. His first action was to fire John Ort. However, the damage had already been done, WBC and WBA were invited to the party, soon proven to be annoying guests as they never left. Instead they brought their buddies IBF and WBO.
Goldman: … in February of 1978, February 6 to be exact, in the midst of a blizzard, I started working at Ring ****zine.
How did that happen? You’d been reading Ring as a fan and scholar?
I had been a fight fan then for almost fifteen years. For a layman I had a very good knowledge of the history of boxing and so forth, and I needed a job. I did not want to be a teacher. I wanted a less violent profession than teaching, so I went into the sedate world of professional boxing.
1978, that must have been a hurly-burly year at Ring ****zine. There was the Ring ratings scandal.
I came in there, yes, in the wake of the championship boxing tournament which had been thrown off ABC in 1977. Nat Loubet was the publisher and editor of the ****zine, and John Ort was the associate editor, who was really in charge of the boxing. Mr. Loubet was more interested in the business end of things. It was alleged that The Ring, at the very least, was a very faulty record keeper. And at the worst was a rather corrupt organization. The tournament was thrown off the air.
My understanding is that there were allegations that John Ort had sold Ring ratings particularly for the benefit of Don King's tournament at that time.
Ring at that time was involved officially in the tournament. The tournament was using fighters rated by The Ring in their U.S. ratings, which they had instituted a couple of years before that. It was alleged that certain fighters managed by certain managers friendly to Mr. Ort were given preference in the tournament. It was also alleged that certain fighters who were completely unqualified were pushed into the tournament, after their records were completely falsified. Among these records was that of Mr. Ike Fluellen, who was apparently given two phony fights in Mexico. [Fluellen was] a Jr. middleweight, a journeyman fighter who hadn’t fought in 2 years. And all of a sudden two phony fights appeared and he appeared in the Ring Ratings and he was pushed up to a point where at one time he was Number 3 in the Jr. middleweight ratings of the U.S. according to Ring ****zine.
There were some uglier allegations that amounted to alleged attempts at extortion. You know, unless we have a piece of your fighter he doesn’t get into the U.S. Tournament. Certain managers of fighters like Marvin Hagler, according to what I was told, were approached in that fashion. These were all allegations. Nonetheless, when a fighter named Scott LeDoux failed to receive a decision over a fighter named Johnny Boudreaux in a heavyweight bout in the tournament, it sort of blew sky high.
A renegade boxing journalist named Flash Gordon had been screaming in print about the tournament and what was going on, and all of a sudden the whole thing blew. ABC requested copies of the Ring Record Book of 1977. They went through it and within 24 hours the tournament was thrown off the air. It was an ignominious defeat for Ring ****zine. Ring's sales had declined sharply back in 1962 and they had been on the down-slide ever since. This was to be a great comeback for them. Quite the reverse, It was a humiliating, ignominious defeat.
It had repercussions beyond Ring itself. It was this tournament and Rings’ disgrace therein , which lead to the increased prominence and power of the world sanctioning bodies because TV, and pointedly ABC, turned to the sanctioning bodies in terms of identifying who was who, what was a championship fight, and so on. It was in 1978, of course that Ken Norton, the proclaimed WBC champion lost his title to Larry Holmes on ABC. And of course Holmes went on to defend the title on that same network multiple times. This really gave prominence to the WBC and lead more or less to the dominance of the world sanctioning bodies and the world of boxing as we have it today.
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