Goodbye, George By Steve Kim, MaxBoxing (July 8, 2011) Doghouse Boxing - Tweet
It's been a rough stretch
for the sport of boxing recently. Yesterday morning, it was announced that
longtime boxing scribe George Kimball had passed away at the age of 67. I can't
say I knew Kimball all that well but he was always cordial toward me. I can't
really do the man justice but I think these two articles encapsulate what
Kimball was all about:
To me, Kimball was part of a vanishing breed. The last of the old-school boxing
scribes, along with the likes of Michael Katz and Bernard Fernandez, who, by
the time I got into covering boxing in 1996 (first hosting a weekly radio show
devoted solely to boxing, “The Main Event,” and later on for the gone-but-never-forgotten
HouseofBoxing.com) were the old guard. Respected scribes who didn't just report
on boxing because they were given that assignment but protected their beat and
perfected their craft with great zeal and passion. Long before the
proliferation of websites and blogs, they were the opinion makers that the power
brokers were cognizant of. They were not only sent to cover fights and fighters
for days and weeks at a time; they also had regular columns that you could
count on. What they wrote mattered.
Those must've been the days.
Perhaps they may have looked down at us young whippersnappers, who with
sometimes flimsy credentials, were now encroaching on their press row turf.
However, as the daily papers began to shove boxing onto the back pages (so far
back, it was right alongside the “transaction” section behind girls’ JV
volleyball), they themselves found their work on the World Wide Web. Before
long, they found out it wasn't all that bad. Guys like Kimball, who was as
opinionated and tough as ever, stayed relevant by being online.
It was ironic; the very thing they may have resisted also kept them on this
beat that was once described as the “red-light district of sports.” Not saying
Kimball was one of those guys; I never got that sense, to be honest. But a new
outlet was provided for writers who were no longer given a platform by
newspapers to talk about a sport they were so closely associated with for
years. Until the very end, Kimball wrote about boxing.
What I'll remember most about Kimball is his brilliant book, Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran
and the Last Great Era of Boxing, which chronicled this quartet’s series of
fights with each other throughout the ‘80s that defined the era. Kimball
covered all nine of these fights for the Boston Herald. On the day that Bernard Hopkins
took Kelly Pavlik to school on
October 18th in Atlantic City, a special media gathering was
held inside the press room at the Caesars Atlantic to promote the book.
It's where I got my copy of this must-read and where I talked at length with
George about his comprehensive work. He was quite gracious with his time and
you got the sense that he felt lucky to be part of boxing history. Covering
boxing back then was different- which doesn't necessarily mean better- but it
was a time when journalists were given more access and had a more intimate view
of those they were chronicling. Their coverage may not have been as quick and as
immediate but it was more complete and consummate.
Eventually, I wrote this article on his book (http://philboxing.com/news/story-19615.html).
I tore through it on my flight back home to Los Angeles. If you were a child of the '80s
and a boxing fan, this book was something you couldn't put down. I strongly
recommend those who follow the “Sweet Science” to add this to their library.
When I think of Kimball, the first thing that comes to mind is Four Kings.
I asked him if this wasn't just a look back at a series of bouts but his own
professional history. He replied, "Oh, absolutely, it is a history. That's
what I did. It might not be what I am but it's what I did."
And he did it well.
WAKE-UP CALL
I don't want to say that promoter Yvon Michel of GYM gave me an early wake-up
call but if I was living in New
York and not L.A., he would've still caught me a bit earlier than
I usually get up. But hey, I'm just glad he returned my call, regardless. I asked
him what plans were for Jean Pascal, who many believed was going to face IBF light
heavyweight titlist Tavoris Cloud on October 15th, as part of an
HBO doubleheader that was to have featured Bernard Hopkins defending his WBC light
heavyweight crown against Chad Dawson. That was, of course, before
Hopkins-Dawson was moved to pay-per-view due to budgetary reasons.
Well, Michel explained to me that the plans are to have Pascal headline a show
in Quebec Cityon December 17th and the names he threw out were Cloud, Zsolt Erdei and Beibut Shumenov. Michel
said he would be meeting with HBO officials next week to see about what type of
license fee would be available. Regardless, I get the sense that with Pascal's
ability to draw, he will perform on this date with or without the network's backing,
which is the way it should be.
My question is this, if it isn't Cloud, will we not see the heavy-handed banger
from Tallahassee for another eight months?
ELIMINATOR
On Wednesday night,
junior middleweight Deandre Latimore announced on Twitter (@DeandreLatimore)
that the IBF had approved a fight between he and Vanes Martirosyan as an
eliminator to face their beltholder Cornelius “K9” Bundrage. It's certainly an
appealing match-up of two young ’54-pounders but this is just the first step in
the process to make this bout a reality.
"They ordered the fight; it's a fight we want to pursue and hopefully, we
can make it but there's a difference between ordering a fight and a fight
getting done. You'll go through a negotiation process and if you can't come to
an agreement, you'll go to a purse bid," explained Carl Moretti of Top
Rank, which handles Martirosyan. "At that point, you've got to see the
results of the purse bid and then go from there."
Also, finding a television platform is vital.
"With all due respect to ESPN and Fox Sports, this fight is a little
bigger budget than those and ESPN is off the air anyways, come the middle of
August. So the trick, I don't think, is making a fight with the other side. The
trick is where you can place it."
MAXBOXING RADIO
The latest edition of “MaxBoxing Radio” with Corey Erdman and me is up and
running:
So does the announcement from Ricky Hatton that he is retiring once and for all
end all the talk of him ever returning to the ring? The question is, is Hatton
a Hall-of-Famer?...Did you know that the Lucian Bute-Jean Paul Mendy fight is a
pay-per-view offering in Canada?
I guess it's a trade-off for health care...I have booked my flight and I will
be in San Jose at the HP Pavilion when Marcos Maidana and Robert Guerrero do battle on August 27th.
Like Bart Scott- CAN'T WAIT! ...Speaking of which, tickets for that show are
priced at $252, $127, $62 and $26 and go on sale today at 10 AM, PT and can be
purchased at Ticketmaster.com and the HP Pavilion Ticket Office...Just wondering how much of a threat Erislandy
Lara is to Paul Williams? I honestly have no clue...Long live John Mackey,
perhaps the greatest tight end in NFL history...As for Dick Williams, who also
passed away yesterday, to me, he'll always be the manager who led the San Diego
Padres to the 1984 National League pennant...Will anyone ever write the book, Four Queens on Anita Baker, Whitney Houston, Janet
Jackson and Sade?...
