STEVE’S SOAPBOX
R.I.P. To The Dean Of Boxing Writers By Steve Kim
“If he had the opportunity to go after something, he was going to double and triple down on that opportunity, even if he didn’t feel that strongly about it.”
was irascible. He was curmudgeonly. He was Oscar the Grouch. He could turn on a dime. His fuckin’ cane was a lethal weapon – and I loved him.” In the 1980s and ’90s, Katz was arguably the most powerful boxing scribe in America. Pre-internet, almost every major paper had a dedicated boxing writer that did weekly columns and covered the big fights. And being based in New York (first with the New York Times and then the Daily News) meant he had the biggest bully pulpit. “He was very influential,” said DiBella, “because he was among the two or three best boxing writers of his time. But also because he didn’t give a single fuck and was a gigantic fan.” In that era, the likes of Katz, Borges, Wallace Matthews, Jerry Izenberg, Jon Saraceno, Pat Putnam, Ed Schuyler, George Kimball, Bernard Fernandez and Phil Berger were the guardians at the gate. What they wrote mattered. To DiBella, what Katz thought meant even more. “I consulted Michael Katz more about the matches I made and the decisions I had to make than I did anyone else in the press,” he admitted. DiBella believes that generation of writers was much more independent and downright ballsier than modern- day media members. He has a point. But being friendly with Katz didn’t shelter you from his barbs. “Katz would kill me when he was in on a fight I made,” DiBella says with a laugh. “One of my funniest stories ever was after [Arturo] Gatti had been in one of his losses – which was a bloodbath. In the next fight, Katz calls me and goes, ‘You’re a sick fuck. You’re the greatest matchmaker of your time, but you’re a sick fuck. You’re like the Marquis de Sade. What are you trying to do, kill people?’ “And then he goes, ‘I love it. It’s a great fight.’” A few days later, DiBella opened up the paper. “[Katz is] ripping me apart for putting ... Gatti in another World War, calling me ‘Marquis de Sade.’” Katz was fearless and perhaps
reckless in his approach. He could have the most poisonous of pens, something that DiBella admired. “If he had the opportunity to go after something, he was going to double and triple down on that opportunity, even if he didn’t feel that strongly about it. If he had an angle, if he had a story, he didn’t care who he offended. In fact, if he wasn’t offending somebody, he thought he wasn’t doing it right.” DiBella freely admits: “Michael Katz was a mentor in some ways, a dear friend of mine. He still went after me more than people I don’t get along with. You weren’t going to change Michael, and that’s why you loved him, because there was an honesty and a professionalism around his curmudgeonly, insanely hostile nature at times that just made him one of the best.” While Katz’s relationship with DiBella was mostly love with a bit of hate, it was hate and more hate with Arum, the founder of Top Rank, who was the unintended third man in the Katz-Borges fracas. “He clearly wasn’t objective,” said Arum, who admitted that other writers who came before him had severe biases of their own, pointing out that Dick Young was so anti-Don King that “when you read him, you had to take him with a grain of salt.” But what truly bothered Arum was that “Katz tried to peddle himself as
being fair. He wasn’t.” Things got so bad between them that Arum sued Katz for libel after he called him a “Yom Kippur whore” in a piece he penned for International Boxing Digest in 1997 as Top Rank promoted a fight card on HBO during that holy weekend. After some intervention from Thomas Hauser, a settlement was reached, and Katz did issue an apology. Things never thawed between the two. “No, I never liked Katz. I never liked his personality. I never liked the fact that he felt himself to be the oracle, when he wasn’t,” Arum told The Ring. “I thought he was a posturer and I didn’t think he was a great writer. That’s the truth.” Arum, who is now 93, has a much higher assessment of the generation of writers that came before the above- mentioned, including Young, Red Smith, Milton Gross, Shirley Povich and his personal favorite, Jim Murray. In Arum’s view, they were truly gifted wordsmiths. Those who came after them were “pale reflections.” Katz was not beloved by everyone. With his personality, and with what he wrote, he probably understood that better than anyone. There are many descriptions that have been written about him, but perhaps it was put the best by longtime manager Shelly Finkel, who at one time enjoyed a close relationship with Katz: “He was a boxing character.”
O n Tuesday, January 28, word started to Michael Katz had passed away at the age of 85. This news was confirmed as his colleagues who for years had a seat on press row beside him started to pen tributes in his honor. One of the most poignant came from Ron Borges (formerly of the Boston Globe), who at one time was his friend, and then a hated rival – to a point that they had an infamous skirmish at a Top Rank promotion that got physical and left Bob Arum spread throughout the boxing community that
on the floor as collateral damage. Borges had the grace to laud Katz for his talent and his moments of goodness, but also the honesty to point out his flaws. To love Katz meant that you would inevitably hate him at times. To be his friend meant that you were inevitably going to be his enemy, at least at certain points. That’s just the way it was with the talented and temperamental “Dean of Boxing Writers,” who wrote loudly and carried a big cane – that he wasn’t afraid to swing. Perhaps his unconditional love was reserved for his family, which seemed
The late, great Mike Katz was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2012.
to be the case. For everyone else, his feelings were a bit more volatile, depending on his mood or his internet connection that day. With him, you were either an ally or an adversary. There was almost no in-between. Lou DiBella, who from 1993-2000 was the “boxing czar” for HBO Sports, was among those who greatly admired Katz. He said of him, “Katz
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