Nat Fleischer: What's the deal ?

What were his thoughts on Berlenbach-Siki?

That being said/asked I agree. He seems all over the map. That being said Fleischer was only human with the same faults everyone has and so why some people put him on a pedestal and think he was this infallible boxing expert is beyond me. He clearly misrepresented himself sometimes saying he was at fights that he couldnt have been at in order to make himself look more expert. And it should always be remembered that the guy was always trying to sell magazines. That is a very important factor to remember when discussing the merit of his rankings, opinions, articles, etc. Another maddening issue with him is, probably due to not wanting to ruffle feathers or hurt his readership, the guy was incredibly inconsistent on the stances he took. He sometimes he would editorialize with righteous indignation about something (like Ali getting stripped for instance) and other times he almost completely silent (like much of the organized crime corruption that writers like Dan Parker and Barney Nagler attacked). The best thing I can say about Fleischer was that he was prolific and was a great ambassador for the sport and spreading and growing the sport.

 

The old Ring Magazine was of poor quality, frankly. The writing, editing, photography, graphics, timeliness of reports, were all pathetic. Bert Sugar, though a pretentious ****, at least cleaned up the Ring and made it more modern when he took over around 79 or 80. He was no great writer either, but it became better than it was.

 

I've always had this love/hate relationship with anything by Nat for years. I recall the first time seeing his all-time top ten lists and rolling my eyes. I recall around '75 when the Ring - now being run by Nat's son-in-law Nat Loubet - decided to re-do the top ten list and me storming around saying "It's the same top ten as Nat's just shuffled around a bit." Funny thinking about my ire towards the list now, but in reality, that top ten was voted on by some of Nat's staunch underlings such as Dan Daniel et al. But before I get too far out one has to realize that Nat was a fan before he created the Ring and these turn-of-the-century fighters were his heroes. And you don't criticize Nat's heroes. Such was the sway he held. I recall during the late '60s the Ring employed one of those new devices called a computer and implemented this vast Univac to determine a middleweight tournament. It ran for a couple of months in the issues of Ring matching this one with that one until the finale. Stanley Ketchel vs. Sugar Ray Robinson. And Robinson won. Oh, man, was Nat ****ed over that result. He came out with an article stipulating as fact that that simply could not happen. Don't mess with his heroes. But he did have a swarthy style of writing and he always had a soft spot in his heart for the serviceman. Sending free issues to bases around the country. I think he brought color to the game and Ring under his leadership was highly revered.

 

"The best thing I can say about Fleischer was that he was prolific"

Boy, isn't that the truth. It's unbelievable how much this guy wrote. I was stunned to learn about the number of unpublished m****cripts he'd produced a few years ago when I purchased a number of them back east from a used book seller who'd acquired them from the estate of Nat Loubet. Apparently, they'd been sitting in storage for a couple of decades. Later, I came across an old Sports Illustrated article from the 1960s in which Fleischer mentioned the unpublished m****cripts and told the writer that they were sitting in his office safe at Madison Square Garden. Among the works was a 600+ typewritten m****cript about the history of prizefighting in literature and two other 500+ page works on both the history of prizefighting/boxing in Chicago and New York, among a number of other smaller works. Evidently, he was unable to find a publisher for these because they were too large. In any case, I can only imagine the amount of time he spent banging these out on an old typewriter.

 

I think he was a huge positive for boxing, though in his own way nearly as self promoting as Sugar, but his position as Mr Boxing seems to have made him unassailable during his life time. There are inaccuracies in his books but perhaps they were well intentioned ,after all he didn't have the Internet to verify things at a second's glance.
I'm re -reading George Kimball's ,"The Manly Art". One section castigates Kevin Mitchell's " Jacobs Beach," for its many errors and Jacob's Beach was written post Internet, so no excuse for sloppy reference work there. When you compare someone like Adam Pollack's work to that of Fleischer's the difference is glaringly apparent but, as Clay Moyle has said, Fleischer was churning out these tomes all the time.Adam recently told me the amount of time his books take up before completion is astronomical.

 

Yeah, Siki took a hellacious beating against Berlenbach and the fight had to be stopped because it was feared he would seriously be injured because he wouldnt go down. If Fleischer said that he was way off base. Ive seen him write similarly inaccurate accounts of fights he was supposedly at. He was also the #1 fan of Dan Daniel and Dan Daniel is easily one of the worst writers Ive ever come across. That guy spewed more false and inaccurate bull**** than any boxing writer Ive come across and that says A LOT. Fleischer did a lot of good for boxing but he also did a lot of disservice to it as a supposed historian because he, his magazine, and its writers, dessiminated more myths, lies, falsehoods, and hoakum than likely all of the other boxing writers combined. The garbage they were selling has influenced generations of boxing fans and become accepted as the truth without question. Its only been in the last 10 years or so that many of the inaccuracies they wrote about over and over and over have been corrected.

One thing I will say is that the comparison between Sugar and Fleischer is way off base. Sugar was everything wrong with Fleischer x10 and none of the good stuff. The guy was not a boxing guy, he had no background in it (despite what he always said), he had no real knowledge of boxing history beyond regurgitating the same tired stories that were printed in magazines years earlier (most of which were false), and damn near killed the Ring entirely by using it as his personal piggy bank. He also killed the Ring Record Book by allowing Herb Goldman to have so much influence in it (dont get me started on Herb). Bert Sugar was all about Bert Sugar. Period. Nat Fleischer may have been a self promoter but at the end of the day thats where the comparison ends because he really did care about the sport and try to further it. Bert Sugar cared about furthering Bert Sugar.

 

I spoke to Nat many times, a very nice guy and smart and knowledgeable. He traveled to many fights himself but many he had to rely on reports from others. It was just very hard to see as much those days with no television and you had to depend on opinions and viewpoint of others. He could judge or comment on a fighter he saw but the rest was word of mouth. Look at his age and you will realize he was too young to see everything unless he was watching fights at 2 years old. That being said many of the so-called experts were really not. I always respected the opinion of good trainers and matchmakers-Freddie Brown, Ray Arcel, Teddy Brenner (MSG) Burt Sugar, Teddy Atlas, etc. all have a opinion as do many writers, but how many of them are accurate or correct....look at their picks next time and see how prophetic they are and you can also apply that to how they view the past.

 

His ratings are atrocious.

 

I didn't intend to equate Fleischer with Sugar.
Sugar is described by George Kimball as a "notorious plagiarist and bu**** artist and says Kimball ," is one of only two men ever expelled by The Boxing Writers Association Of America," he said that when Sugar was alive so I guess it's true.

 

I dont give a **** what Teddy Atlas says. Atlas is the most idiotic, bombastic, biased, lying, hypocritical, irresponsible, hateful, vengeful, english language mangling moron you could ever stick a mic in front of. On top of that his reputation as a trainer is the most overrated bull**** Ive ever seen. Hes ruined almost every fighter hes gotten ahold of and hes never trained a fighter to the title or even close that wasnt already a contender and finished product when he got him. Hes a ****ty trainer and a worse commentator and it says a lot that almost to a man the fighters hes worked with in the past hate his guts and have nothing nice to say about him.

 

I wonder who the other one was...

 

Ring Magazine was a boxing publication for 50 years at the time of Nat Fleischer's death during 1972. That is quite an achievement despite the fact that Fleischer had quite a number of faults.

How many old newspapers on microfilm were available in libraries at the time that Fleischer was writing prolifically on the subject of boxing history? It may not be the right question to ask because Fleischer may not have had the time to do extensive research with so many things on his plate.

- Chuck Johnston