Boxing Writers on the Take in the Golden Era

It was Malcolm 'Flash' Gordon who exposed the 1977 Ring/US Championship scandal. Check out this article about it.

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

 

I don't have the book, but the accusation is supposedly about him during the Pueblo/Denver period, before he became famous as boxing and baseball writer in New York American. In this case, it'd be better to hear what Otto Floto or Emerson Dickerson had to say about him, as they were sports editors of Denver Post and Denver Rocky Mountain News at the time Runyon started his writing career in Colorado. Nagler couldn't know Floto as he died in 1929 many years before he started writing sports. I don't know when Dickerson died, but I doubt Nagler could be familiar with him either. So his words could be based on gossips rather than actual knowledge.

 

Man,how we could use Flash's inside reporting today.He would have a field day.How I miss his newsletter.

 

The evidence is overwhelming!
Both of Gene Tunneys books "Arms For Living" and "A Man Must Fight"
contain many direct associations of boxing writers of his day making it clear they appreciated "gifts" and that his Mgrs Doc Bagley and later Billy Gibson recommending to young Gene they best comply. He did.

I would be strongly influenced by what Barney Nagler had to say about Runyon and mention also, in Breslins book "Damon Runyon A Life" in the opening pages he referred to not only Runyon on the take but all the newspapers of the 1920s containing writers of all stripes who would write most anything when they got paid under the table.
Surely this is known to students of the great crash of 1929.

Lastly, Barney Nagler himself was strongly maligned in Ferdie Paccecios book "Blood In My Coffee" as himself always being the first one with his hand out to Chris Dundee and others.
No heroes, and the Lance Armstrong scandal of today contains much of the SOS!!

 

So much for newspaper decisions

 

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying Nagler is kind of a "secondary source" if his statements were to be used to accuse Runyon. You know what I mean.

 

It seemed to be centered in nyc. Its practice in other areas is less likely.

 

That was because 'No decisions' were the only way you could fight legally in NYC at the time.

 

there are two british books that mention very briefly the corruption of the boxing board and that it was the Promoters who called the shots and were the paid the piper. Tony Van Den Burg's "Who Killed Freddie Mills?" and referee's Eugene Henderson's "Box On" both are brief on the matter but very clear about these facts.

 

The two Tunney books and the below incident in Harry Grebs career.


volution of the sports section in American newspapers from 1920 ... - Page 306

books.google.com/books?id=OsI7AAAAMAAJ
George Raymond Rinehart - 1932 - Snippet view
The charges of bribery were made by Harry Greb, boxer, decalred that he was forced to grease the palms of reporters ... president of the year-old New York Boxing Writers Associa- 2 tion, and member of the staff of the New York Sun, saying: 1.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Os...a=X&ei=dcYOUe-vF-bF0AGDwYHACA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg

 

What were they like?

I'm from the UK & was only born in 70's so heard about them but you don't see them online or being sold (well I ain't anyway). I've heard them described as the best boxing literature that could be found at one point, is that true or just hyperbole in your opinion?