"The Ring Magazine Scandal"

Don King was bribing John Ort son in law of Nat Loubet who was brother in law to Nat Fleischer. King bought ranking for Holmes opponents among others to make them credible opponents

It was pretty well known in the boxing world, Flash Gordon had the balls to write about it until a few masked guys supposedly gave him lumps over it

it was on the news and all the papers but dont think if went as far as jail for anyone....King started the ABC organizations outside the USA to avoid prosecution

 

A couple of articles to read

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092354/index.htm

http://theboxingtribune.com/2011/03/revisiting-the-ring-magazine-scandal/

 

I've been reading the Magazine since the sixties and been a regular subscriber since the late seventies and I've never heard of this!

 

Farhood as Editor mentioned it numerous times in an attempt to clean up the Magazine's reputation with it's ratings.

 

Malcolm Gordon belongs in Canastota for this alone.
[Don King can induct him!]

 

There were a variety of publications which covered the scandal of the late 1970s ABC United States Boxing Tournament and Ring Magazine. The tournament was set up to crown United States champions in the major weight divisions, not bad idea so far. Where the idea went wrong is that there were a number of very mediocre and inactive fighters who were included in the tournament, but shouldn't been in it. At the same time, there were American fighters who were excluded despite being far better than many of the fighters who were in the tournament. As I recall, Marvin Hagler was perturbed when he was excluded.

I don't remember the Ring ratings at the time as much I do about Ring's inaccurate records of certain fighters, the allegations of kickbacks, Mark Kram getting fired from Sports Illustrated for accepting money, Howard Cosell shilling the tournament on telecasts, the ho-hum bouts staged at Federal installations (where there weren't any athletic commissions?), the ill-advised involvement of Jim Farley of the New York State Athletic Commission and the assorted characters involved in the tournament, including Al Braverman, Paddy Flood, Chris Cline and Ring Magazine's Johnny Ort.

There was one allegation about a kickback of $2,500. out of a $7,500. purse for a bout in the first-round of the ABC Tournament. In regards to the inaccurate records compiled by Johnny Ort, I remember that Lew Eskin, an editor of a boxing publication at the time, found a discrepancy when looking at one fighter's record and a past issue of Ring Magazine.

There was another boxing tournament staged at the same time which was shown on independent television channels across the country. The production quality of such telecasts certainly didn't match up with ABC's, but the fights were often better. Possibly the most memorable bout of the other tournament was between Vito Antofermo and Eugene "Cyclone" Hart, a thriller which was far better than any bout in the ABC Tournament. Unfortunately, the other tournament also was halted prematurely.

- Chuck Johnston

 

The book 'The Life & Crimes of Don King' gives a heavily detailed account of the scandal.

 

King was dirty as they come, He formed the WBC,WBA, in foreign country's to avoid US laws, smart and he is the one who crowned the puppets to do his bidding......This is one of the reasons I am not happy with a lot that went on during the Holmes era...guys with 10 fights getting shots, Coetzee dropping Snipes 2x but losing so that Reynaldo got the title shot (almost backfired when Snipes dropped Holmes hard) split tittles to avoid fighting #1 contenders, Rating control to keep deserving contenders at bay or rated by sanctioning bodies while being not rated by others.

 

The man had potential. If Don King hadn't been such a nice guy, he might've found himself elected or appointed to high public office, or presiding over courts of law. Just wasn't sleazy enough to qualify, I guess, falling short of the Mark Twain standard to be more corrupt and slimy for realizing higher achievements.

Not sure he made the least of himself and his abilities like the number of POTUSes, VPOTUSes, elected state and federal legislative saprovores, judicial and clerical amoebae I have known over the years, but he does seem to have profited well enough from whatever lesser amorality than they he was imbued with.

 

Agree on the whole but look at Snipes-Coetzee again and keep in mind that it was in New Jersey, where they scored on the round system. A round with two knockdowns (or one) counted no more than a round where a guy won by a whisker by landing a few more jabs.

A close fight either way by rounds but not if they were using the 10-point must system -- which they weren't at the time.

 

No, but he was certainly a role model for those who learned to get in the pig sty to mold **** better than he.

Yesss!!! That's what they are. There no longer remain any undisputed championships in boxing!

What belt holders are wearing and being recognized for today are:
Split Tittles!!! In this day and age, anybody whoever Dons [odious pun intended] the gloves can aspire to a WBC Tittle, a WBA Tittle, an IBF Tittle, a WBO Tittle, an *** Tittle, a GAY Tittle, or even a SUPER DUPER SPITTLE TITTLE, in any one of 42 classifications, including Dyke, Tranny and Hermaphrodite categories, including dwarf, normal sized and sumo designations. [I haven't followed boxing in eons, but I understand from somebody who's peered into the cesspool that Dung King himself is a superheavyweight Split Shittle Tittle holder.]

 

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. :hi:

Don King wasn't yet born when the National Boxing Association was formed in 1921. He was still running numbers in Cleveland when it changed names to the WBA in 1962, and wouldn't promote his first fight for another 10 years.

The WBC was formed in 1963, again well before Don King promoted his first fight.

So he didn't create them. What he did was take advantage of the system -- he read the rules. In both cases, the governing body is made up of a voting board of commissioners from the various countries that are part of the confederation. What King did was figure out how it worked and he paid for all these delegates from all these small countries to go to the convention every year (and showered them with gifts, I'm sure) so that he basically stacked the vote.

It's shady, it's crooked, I agree. But he did not CREATE the situation so much as take advantage of it.

 

well he took something and put his stamp on it and formed it to his liking and put the right people in place.....I read a story about a guy who had his male genitalia removed and they called him Miss, I don't know if I would call him a MIss but he was no longer a Mister