IT CAN be argued that Russell Peltz is the greatest club show promoter in boxing history. Has there been any other promoter who ever ran with such consistency in their territory as Peltz once did in his?
These days, Peltz is semi-retired from boxing. He no longer promotes, but he does act as a manager and advisor for a number of fighters, the most prominent of them being Bryce Mills, a super-lightweight who sports a 19-1, 7 KOs record.
“My other fighters are just so-so,” Peltz admits. “I enjoy helping them and at the same time it allows me to continue to keep my hand in boxing.”
Occasionally, this writer and Peltz meet up for lunch at a Duffys in Boca Raton, Florida, where we both have winter homes. Obviously, boxing will dominate the conversation, alternating between the past and the present.
“Don’t get me started,” Peltz might say on a variety of topics.
Clearly, he does not like where the sport is today compared to yesteryear.
“Boxing was a big part of my life” says Peltz, “not just as a promoter, but as a fan.
“I loved it, but it is no longer the sport it was. I have a difficult time following it as closely as I used to. There is so much wrong with it compared to how things used to be.”
Because he is so attuned with preserving boxing history, Peltz, who is an inductee of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, has upped his complaints in recent years as to the process of how one gets a place in the Hall. But more than that, his anger is vented at those who are ultimately entrusted with the decision.
“Most of those given a vote have no clue about boxing history,” he says.
“They are given a ballot and then cast their vote strictly on name recognition.
“An example would be Jack Hurley. Maybe five of 50 voters would have even heard of him. And if they did, all they would remember is that he managed Boone Kirkman, who was on the cover of Ring magazine.
“Hurley promoted the Rocky Graziano-Tony Zale rematch in Chicago, and Floyd Patterson’s title defense against Pete Rademacher, among many other things.
“It is embarrassing that he is not in the Hall of Fame.
“The same goes for great newspapermen like Eddie Muller from San Francisco, who for a half century was the dean of boxing writers on the West Coast.
“No disrespect to the media members who have already been inducted, but Eddie Muller is far more worthy than most of them. It is sad that he’ll probably never get in because the people voting have no idea who he is, because they never do their homework.
“The biggest problem,” says Peltz, “is the sanctioning bodies.
“When we just had the WBA and WBC, it was OK. There were just two champions and they would normally fight one another.
“When the IBF and WBO came into existence, it added two more, making it difficult to have just one champion. Professionally, I benefitted from the extra sanctioning bodies, but it’s not good for the sport.
”It’s not just the sanctioning bodies, but all the different weight classes. It allows fighters to duck one another by moving around from division to division.
“But it is different if a fighter wants to stay in one weight class. Marvin Hagler, who fought for me, was a career middleweight. He should not be criticised because he never moved up in weight.”
If Peltz were still promoting at the Blue Horizon, the shows would be on weeknights, like in the past.
“I think that ESPN’s Friday Night Fights changed the dynamic and made boxing more of a weekend sport,” he says.
Peltz is not the biggest fan of mythical fights.
“It’s easy to say that Lennox Lewis would have destroyed John L Sullivan without a fuss, but that does not take into account when they would have fought.
“If Lennox had boxed in John L’s era, he would have been closer to his size and his technique would have been different from what it was. It’s best to just compare fighters from the same era.”
However, Peltz knows that boxing fans want a larger scope than that and he is willing to branch out to a degree.
“In my opinion, Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight champion in history,” he says.
“That does not mean I think he would have beaten Muhammad Ali. I happen to think that Louis was a greater fighter in his era than Ali was in his.
“As far as Ali being so much of a bigger societal icon, I’m not so sure. It’s not an area where I care to go, but you can make a valid case for Louis being more popular and impactful among black people in his era than Ali was in his.
“That is no slight on Ali at all. This generation might not fully comprehend what Joe Louis meant to people when he was champion.”
Peltz’s boyhood favourite was former world light-heavyweight champion, Harold Johnson.
In large part because Archie Moore beat his idol four times out of five, Peltz rates the ‘Old Mongoose’, as the greatest light-heavyweight in history.
“A lot of people say Ezzard Charles was the best, because he got the better of Moore in their fights,” says Peltz, “but I rate Charles as a heavyweight champion. He never held the light-heavyweight title.
“The light-heavyweight division had some great champions.
“If I had to name a top 10 in no particular order, I would put Harold Johnson, Michael Spinks, Bob Foster, Billy Conn and Tommy Loughran on it. Loughran was arguably the greatest fighter to ever come out of Philadelphia.”
Peltz is an admirer of both Sugars – Robinson and Leonard.
“Robinson was probably the best of all time,” says Peltz, “but Leonard is underrated historically because he did not fight as much as the champions of the past.
”When we talk about all-time greats, we should mention Luis Rodriguez and Emile Griffith,” he adds.
“When they lost something off of their fastball [were past their primes], they were still able to go into the hometowns of contenders and perform, make the necessary adjustments and beat them. That is something Roy Jones could never do.”
”The average fan does not even know who the world heavyweight champion is,” continues Peltz.
“They can mention the names of [Floyd] Mayweather and [Mike] Tyson as fighters they have heard of, but would then struggle to name the rest.”
There is one argument that Peltz grudgingly accepts: Years ago not every fight was televised. With social media being far into the distant future, fans would have to wait to find out the result of a fight by reading about it in a newspaper or a boxing magazine. Now, they can virtually always see it in real time.
Another factor that Peltz probably dismisses is the availability of old fights that can be watched on YouTube.
Years ago, fight footage of the greats of the past was so much harder to come by. However, for all of the positives, the negatives outweigh them for Peltz.
And bad decisions have continued to irk him.
“The worst one I ever saw involved my fighter, Tyrone Everett,” says Peltz. “He beat Alfredo Escalera by a mile, but it was stolen from him. Unfortunately, there is rarely any accountability from judges. They will continue to get assignments even after turning in poor scorecards.”
When Peltz promoted, his shows were of the no-nonsense variety.
He put on the best fights possible, prioritising the fans over his promotional self-interest. But perhaps the best part was that, unlike today, fans attending would usually get home at a reasonable hour because there would be no long intermissions between the fights, be it at the Blue Horizon or the spacious Philadelphia Spectrum, where Peltz ran the boxing department.
“Everything seems different today,” says Peltz.
“Boots Ennis drew 14,000 people when he fought in Philadelphia. It was a great crowd, but how many of the people who attended were true fight fans, like when Hagler fought [Bennie] Briscoe?”
Peltz is associated with Briscoe more than any other single fighter. It is something he is proud of. Because they were both middleweights from Philadelphia, comparisons between Briscoe and Hopkins are occasionally made. Peltz is naturally partial to his man over who would have won in a head-to-head matchup.
“Bennie could fight pretty dirty,” says Peltz. “I am not sure how Hopkins would have reacted to the low blows.
“Boxing will never be what it was,” he continues.
“Promoters are more interested in building up a fighter’s record than putting him in a competitive match.”
And the writers are no better either, according to Peltz.
“The writers today are not as knowledgeable. The old-time writers would go to the gyms and learn about the fighters. They don’t do that anymore,” he says.
There is a troubling trend of boxers taking too many punches which in turn leads to damage that does not show up until many years later.
Peltz is not a believer that it’s a result of their fights.
Says Peltz: “I think most of the problems fighters have is because they spar too much.
“I could tell you all about the Philly gym wars where guys would go all out day after day.
“I used to witness Dwight Muhammad Qawi and Michael Spinks get into pretty spirited sparring sessions at Joe Frazier’s gym that were better than many real fights
Before our bill arrives, Peltz gets in a blow against the casinos.
“They hurt boxing in a big way,” he says. “Guys are not fighting in their hometowns anymore, like Briscoe did in Philadelphia and Pazienza did in Rhode Island.
“In the past, there was an order to the business. Promoters paid the fighters directly. Now the manager might pay for the opponent and travel expenses. A real promoter should pay both fighters and take care of the expenses.
”There are a lot of good fighters around today, but the ones of the past were better. They fought more. There is no substitute for the experience factor.”
The sport that Peltz once knew is gone forever, but he has plenty of fond memories to fall back on – and that’s exactly what he does.
If you want to know about Russell Peltz’s career, it is advised that you pick up a copy of his outstanding book, Thirty Dollars And A Cut Eye. Peltz gives a detailed account of all the shows he promoted over the decades, primarily at the Blue Horizon in Philadelphia.
