MIKE KATZ with his grubby neck brace and ringside belligerence was old Las Vegas to me.
Gene Kilroy in his white convertible Mercedes, a gift from Tom Jones, is old Las Vegas to me.
Johnny Tocco giving a guided tour of his filthy gym and office is certainly old Las Vegas to me.
Faye Miller being greeted by a grinning Mike Tyson at the doors of her gym is old, old Las Vegas to me.
The press pack howling at 2am on a Friday night before the big fight, boozy inside the shadows at the Flame is old Las Vegas to me.
Searching for Mike Marley early in a fight week, jumping like a flea from cab to cab, is most definitely old Las Vegas to me.
Katz, who was 85, died last week and only Kilroy from my list is still living in the desert city, a place Kilroy made his own with a run of jobs as the top fixer in a city of fixers. His official title was Executive Host, but that does not cover agreeing a line of credit for a boxer or trainer or manager at 3am in the morning after a fight. That is the job of a fixer.
It’s been a long time since I was at a fight in Las Vegas, a long time since I had a steak with Kilroy and an even longer time since I went out and stood over Sonny Liston’s resting place. A passage to Liston’s grave should be essential, in my opinion; there was a time when no boxers came from Las Vegas, they just went there to get old and die.
Perhaps Tocco is the most Vegas of Vegas men; a survivor from the Fifties, still running a gym in the early Nineties and holding counsel with the best in the sport. His gym was loved by real fighters.
Tocco ran a boxing gym for 41 years in Las Vegas, the one I knew was on the corner of Charleston and Main and was once known as the Zebra Lounge. Tocco was Liston’s man and in his office, he had old Polaroids of Liston at a BarBQ, Liston smiling, Liston surrounded by children. He’s the man who told me how to find Liston’s grave: “Just look for all the toys,” he said, and he was right.
Liston, the most feared heavyweight in Las Vegas history, is buried in the middle of the children’s section of the Paradise Garden Cemetery. Yeah, Tocco was old Las Vegas. And, I guess, so was Liston; enigmatic fighter, mysterious death, forgotten criminal history. What could be more Vegas than Tocco showing Michael Moorer a little twist on a jab, nodding at Teddy Atlas and then sending me off to Liston’s grave. It’s like a scene from a movie.
At modern fights, the Las Vegas drifters and survivors from the ring come back to the casino floors that helped make some of them famous. And some of them rich. They are there, often anonymous in the line to try and get into the press conference. They wait, hoping that somebody recognises them and invites them in.
Riddick Bowe has been on that carpet a few times in the last decade, charging for a selfie and smiling. It must be tough for him when he watches Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis escorted in through VIP doors, security holding off the crowds. Bowe was Las Vegas for a few years, a giant. He fought there 11 times, including the unforgettable trilogy with Evander Holyfield and the crazy grudge fight with the MGM’s heavyweight-in-residency, Jorge Luis Gonzalez.
There was a time when Gonzalez in his full cowboy kit – hat, jeans, belt and boots – wandered the MGM, smiling and shaking hands. It was in the same MGM casino that Bowe, the fallen heavyweight champion, was asking 25 bucks for a picture 25 years later. That is a Vegas tale, an old Las Vegas tale.
Some of the heavyweights from the Lost Generation finished their careers and their time on earth in the city. Michael Dokes seemed a permanent fixture in the gyms and hallways in the Nineties. Dokes talking to Katz, I know I’ve seen that.
Old Las Vegas was an early afternoon meeting with Ed Schuyler and Pat Putnam in the legendary Flame. It always seemed to be midnight in the place. Sitting with great writers like Schuyler and Putnam and listening to tales of Muhammad Ali; that rat-pack press gang from the Seventies was very much alive and kicking in the Nineties. Not now, all the soldiers from the writing rows in Las Vegas are gone and they have mostly taken with them their memories. And that is a great shame.
Can you imagine having an early afternoon Bloody Mary with men that had stood next to Angelo Dundee in the Fifth St gym in Miami and watched a young Ali sparring. They had no phones to pull out and find a clip – they just told the story about the man and a million other fighters. They had watched and listened, and I watched and listened to them.
Don King called the best writers the “boss scribes” and they were. Often, hearing them file their fight reports on phones was an education. Katz was one of the boss scribes, a fixture and front and centre. Katz did confrontation and there was a lot of that back then.
In New York, one afternoon, just a few days before the Naseem Hamed and Kevin Kelley fight, Katz was thrown out of the Blue Velvet gym for asking Michael Jackson (yep, the singer) a tricky question. As Katz was being escorted out – and he was decent lump to budge – he was still firing questions at Jackson. He had switched to boxing questions during his eviction: “Mike, who you got in the fight?” Katz was hollering as the door closed on him.
There is a lot about old Las Vegas during a fight week that is missed and men like Mike Katz, who was difficult, made it special.
