Boxing's foremost researcher/historian?

Alive or dead?

 

Hhaascup

 

Mr. Toledo, not least for getting Cocoa Kid inducted into Canastota last year. He's actually generated boxing history with his tenacious detective work. Herbert Lewis Hardwick now has a nice Wikipedia biography since S89'S eight part "JUST WATCH MAH SMOKE" was released. There are some very serious and influential active published historians on boxing [most certainly including yourself], but is Cocoa immortalized today w/out Stoney's input?

It is said a bad lawyer often loses a case, while only a GREAT lawyer can very rarely win a case. With Cocoa Kid, and "JUST WATCH MAH SMOKE," Stonehands89 actually made, and then WON the case.

 

mike silver

 

Foremost? I don't believe he's the news maker Stoney's been in bringing unknown greats into the light, but a very strong case can be made that Henry's the most influential, with the greatest power. [It's widely speculated that he has tremendous say over who gets on the IBHOF ballot, for example.]

 

Certainly, he's an acolyte and disciple of yours. [Chief among many you've accumulated over the years.] And you yourself, my choice as the sport's foremost memoirist among established authors.

Steve Compton is not somebody I'd care to sell short as a researcher/historian, specifically on Greb. Harry's rapidly ascending reputation as an usurper to SRR's historical primacy as the P4P ATG has been spearheaded by him, even as others have independently arrived at the same conclusion. In the process, two time Greb conqueror Tommy Gibbons is getting a lift, and Tommy always deferred to older brother Mike as superior to himself. The long taken for-granted supremacy of Robby's status seems now made less of granite than limestone. This requires formidable powers of re-framing and revisionism in the absence of any competitive film on Greb, and some success has been achieved in usurping Robinson's place for Harry in the minds of many historical boxing buffs.

Next up may be a careful evaluation of the period from 1915 to 1920. Dempsey believed that the art of boxing reached a zenith of sorts within this time frame, then started declining. Benny Leonard may have epitomized this zenith. S89 used 1920 as the starting date for his "Gods of War" series. Looking ahead, there may be some scrutiny of the film scarce WW I era for dedicated researchers and historians to expand upon.

 

If "JUST WATCH MAH SMOKE" had been published, say 35 years ago, when boxing was still a headline sport on prime time network television [instead of the niche interest it eventually became, triggered by the Mancini-Kim disaster], had the IBHOF existed then, and S89 had then gotten Cocoa Kid inducted there on the strength of that expose, we might be talking Pulitzer for investigative journalism. In an earlier era before Mancini-Kim re-stigmatized boxing so severely in the mainstream press, that story would have been huge news, big enough to garner Cocoa a knowledgeable and properly well educated induction. [Mancini-Kim induced a lot of sportscasters and sports scribes to editorialize against boxing, in favor of the profession's abolition. Boxing became persona non grata in much of the mainstream and sporting press after that.]

 

The late Hank Kaplan would be among the best of all time. Does anyone know what happened to his collection of memoribilia, clips, etc., that was said to be the largest in the world?