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reign. But Caplan’s home base was the greater Los Angeles area. Caplan was originally from Des Moines, Iowa, where his family ran a bakery, prior to his lightning moment – witnessing “the perfect punch,” which Sugar Ray Robinson landed on Gene Fullmer in the fifth round of their rematch in Chicago on May 1, 1957. Caplan, 21 years old, instantly knew what business he wanted to go into. The man who gave him the ticket to Fullmer-Robinson II – brother-in-law Larry Rummans, a matchmaker who had plans to promote shows in California – would be his ticket into boxing. Later that year, Caplan and his newlywed wife, Sandy, moved to Los Angeles, where Rummans introduced him to real-estate developer Leo Minskoff, who was promoting shows in Hollywood with Louis. Caplan was hired as a PR assistant in 1962 and never left the sport, dabbling in matchmaking and ring announcing before getting full-
time publicity gigs with Parnassus and Eaton, who promoted weekly shows at The Forum and Grand Olympic Auditorium, respectively. Caplan said the loudest noise he ever heard was the explosive ovation Mexican fans gave Jose Becerra the instant the young Guadalajaran scored an eighth- round stoppage of Alphonse Halimi to win the bantamweight championship in the L.A. Sports Arena’s inaugural event in 1959. During the 1970s, Caplan was more than a bystander to the adulation and devotion Mexican fans had for their boxing idols; he helped promote a parade of wildly popular Mexican bantamweight champions that regularly filled The Forum and Olympic, and he proudly helped spread their legends beyond the Spanish-speaking community. Caplan often claimed that being a Mexican bantamweight champion in L.A. in those days was the equivalent to being the heavyweight champ (which is saying something, given his chief client held the
biggest prize in sports from 1972-’74). This golden age consisted of – in order of their title reigns – Ruben Olivares, Chucho Castillo, Rafael Herrera, Romeo Anaya, Rodolfo Martinez, Alfonso Zamora, Carlos Zarate and Lupe Pintor (Caplan’s favorite of the group). There are stories attached to every fighter and each event that Caplan was a part of, and he delighted in telling them. That’s what I will miss the most, the way “Uncle Bill” held court. Along with his good friend Don Chargin, Caplan was my go-to source for Los Angeles boxing lore. And, naturally, he had the best behind-the-scenes accounts of Foreman’s rise, fall, retirement, late-’80s comeback and eventual record-breaking second championship reign. Caplan was an integral character in a
A beaming Caplan listens to Joe Frazier after the Foreman rematch.
George and Bill at the 2002 World Boxing Hall of Fame.
lot of these stories, which are triumphant, tragic and absurd, but mostly funny. I won’t recount them here. Those tales are best told by those who knew Caplan best and go back long enough to have witnessed some of the historical events. We’ll try to collect the best Caplan stories in a feature article for the August issue, but keep in mind that even a sampling of anecdotes from his many decades in the business could easily fill a book. And that book would be penned by the most accomplished southern California-based sportswriters that are still with us – Bill Dwyer, Steve Springer, Doug Krikorian and former Ring editor-in-chief and frequent contributor Michael Rosenthal. Unlike some publicists, Caplan liked the media, and he was especially fond of the daily newspaper sportswriters. He was close with the great Jim Murray and was best friends with popular columnist Allan Malamud. But Caplan read everybody’s copy and appreciated the new generations of boxing scribes
that emerged in the 1990s and 2000s, mentoring Dan Rafael when he was with USA Today and encouraging internet pioneers like myself and Steve Kim. Caplan’s approach to PR was refreshingly simple: He combined what he enjoyed – boxing, sportswriters, talking and eating (Foreman was spot on when he nicknamed him “Buffet Bill”). Caplan would invite sports media and boxing folks for lunch or dinner, get a conversation going and then get out of the way to let the writers do their job. But it was difficult not to include Caplan in the articles. He was such a good talker – self-effacing, affable, humorous, entertaining and quotable, a writer’s best friend. He was also excellent on radio and TV, and even made his way to the silver screen. Yes, Caplan, who was good friends with writer-director Ron Shelton, was a proud SAG cardholder and appeared in several popular TV shows and films during the 1980s and ’90s, including Shelton’s Tin Cup , White Men Can’t Jump (along with
Malamud) and the boxing-themed Play it to the Bone . Despite hobnobbing with Hollywood, being involved in boxing’s biggest events of the past half century and representing the sport’s brightest stars, Caplan was just as passionate about drumming up publicity for club shows, preliminary fighters, prospects, past-prime veterans, trainers and managers. He had an affinity for the sport and all of its players and characters, so he loved his job and never forgot to have fun with it. The vanity plate on his Cadillac read: “FLACK” Caplan, who was 90 when he passed, was a boxing lifer who lived his life and career to the fullest – a big man with a big personality and even bigger heart, with enough love for the entire boxing community. He will be missed.
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