He feared he was going to weigh 300 pounds and be the laughingstock of the boxing world.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry about it,\u201d assured matchmaker Don Elbaum, <\/b>a Damon Runyan character with an elfin-face, slicked-back hair dyed jet black, a nose that looked like it had taken a punch or three and, when he laughed, eyes that melted to slits. \u201cYou\u2019re gonna be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Dokes stepped up, Elbaum said he was at his side, as was a ring card girl who\u2019d been enlisted to sidle up to the guy handling the weigh-in.<\/p>\n
The ploy worked and with the official sufficiently distracted, Elbaum was able to deftly move his thumb beneath the weight scale beam so that it registered just 282 pounds.<\/p>\n
Dokes was delighted. Although he weighed 66 pounds more than he did when he\u2019d become champ, he didn\u2019t weigh three bills.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s stories like that that forever branded Elbaum a rapscallion of the ring, part P.T. Barnum, part, as well-known boxing author Thomas Hauser once put it, a travelling salesman who goes town to town selling magic elixirs. I especially liked the description longtime sportswriter Jerry Izenberg once used. He called Elbaum \u201ca hustler without malice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some people might not look favorably on Elbaum for his transgressions \u2013 and in the 1997 Erlanger fight, Dokes would suffer a broken jaw from a Phillips\u2019 KO punch \u2013 but I appreciated him for who he was. There was a kindness in his con.<\/p>\n
We first met almost 50 years ago at the Fifth Street Gym on Miami Beach, and he became one of the most colorful characters I knew in the sport I\u2019ve been most drawn to throughout my career.<\/p>\n
Elbaum died July 27th in Erie, Pa. His funeral was just over a week ago.<\/p>\n
He was 94 and had been involved in boxing for over eight decades.<\/p>\n
He promoted his first boxing show at age 15 and in 2019 he was enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Over the years he worked with many of the top names in boxing, including Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, Roberto Duran, Vito Antuofermo and Aaron Pryor.<\/p>\n
He also worked the other end of the sport when he put on his \u201cWorld\u2019s Worst Boxer\u201d show in Warren, Ohio, in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cBob Spencer was the nicest kid, but his fight record was 0-13,\u201d Elbaum once told me. \u201dHe begged me to get him a win in his hometown, so I matched him with Johnny Howard, who was 0-18.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had some \u2018so-called\u2019 papers drawn up and they signed them. It said the loser would quit the fight game. A picture of that ran in the paper and we got a four-foot trophy. On the bottom, I had \u2018World\u2019s Worst Fighter.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nothing but a four-round fight at the Elks Club. We packed the place, and they paraded the trophy all around before the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen they fought, and you know what?…. It ended in a draw!\u201d<\/p>\n
How appropriate for the fighters and, of course, Elbaum.<\/p>\n
He kept the gate receipts\u2026 and the trophy.<\/p>\n
Although raised in Erie and based in Philadelphia in his heyday, Elbaum had a long connection to Ohio and especially Dayton.<\/p>\n
He was born in Cincinnati and nearly blown up in Warrensville Heights, (that\u2019s a story we\u2019ll get to shortly.) But first his connections to the Miami Valley.<\/p>\n
Besides Phillips, whom he matched several times in his career, Elbaum also put on a card featuring one of Dayton\u2019s most storied fighters, heavyweight Tom \u201cRuff House\u201d Fischer, who went 37-11, fighting some of the game\u2019s biggest names in the 1970s and \u201880s, including Leon Spinks, Quick Tillis, Dokes in his prime, Jimmy Young and Ron Stander.<\/p>\n
Elbaum made matches for Xenia heavyweight Jimmy Huffman, accomplished Dayton amateur Michal Blunt and Mike Wyant, a former Hamilton Garfield High wrestler who\u2019d won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star as a Marine in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
Billed \u201cThe Hamilton Hurricane,\u201d Wyant was 19-2 as a junior middleweight when he was shot to death outside of a bar at a Hamilton shopping center in 1979.<\/p>\n
Elbaum promoted Aaron Pryor\u2019s stoppage of Danny Myers at Hara Arena in 1980 and he put on numerous closed circuit shows here, including big fights like Ali-Frazier, Frazier-Foreman and Leonard-Duran.<\/p>\n
Once at Dominics, I sat with him and asked about some of his most fabled boxing stunts:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow \u2018bout the deal with Sugar Ray Robinson?<\/p>\n
\u201cI promoted three of his last four fights. The first was in Johnstown (Pa.) in October of 1965.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the press conference, it hit me that it was exactly 25 years to the day since Ray had begun his pro career at Madison Square Garden.\u201d Elbaum actually was off three days on the date, but in typical prizefight tradition, particulars sometimes go down for the count.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all the press gathered, I figured we needed something special,\u201d he said. \u201dI had \u2018em turn out the lights and in came the four best-looking girls I could find in Johnstown. They carried a big cake decorated with 25 candles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I walked over with my hands behind my back and said, \u2018Ray, now don\u2019t ask me how I did it… but here.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI pulled out a pair of old boxing gloves and said, \u2018These are the gloves you wore in your first fight!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see Ray was moved. There were tears in his eyes and he cradled those gloves like a baby. The cameras were flashing. People cheered and that\u2019s when some guy yelled, \u2018Ray, put \u2018em on.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cI looked at those gloves and horror hit me.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when the guy yelled again, I leaned over to Ray and whispered, \u2018Don\u2019t you do it. You hear me? Don\u2019t put them on.\u2019 \u201cHe was puzzled until he looked closer at the gloves \u2013 which really had come from the trunk of my car \u2013 and saw they were both right-handed. \u201cWithout missing a beat, he looked up as though still moved, and told the guy, \u2018I can\u2019t. I just can\u2019t bring myself to put them on right now.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy got emotional and nodded and said, \u2018I understand, Ray.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Don King connection<\/b><\/p>\n
Asked if he had any regrets, Elbaum laughed and said there was one.<\/p>\n
He had introduced Don King, the Cleveland numbers kingpin who was fresh out of prison, to the fight game.<\/p>\n
For his debut, King said he wanted to put on a charity show to help a financially troubled hospital in Cleveland that cared for poor people.<\/p>\n
He knew of Elbaum\u2019s connections and asked if he could get Ali.<\/p>\n
Elbaum did.<\/p>\n
Ali fought the exhibition and Elbaum said $85,000 was raised.<\/p>\n
But in the end \u2013 in what became the blueprint of King\u2019s career \u2013 the hospital only got $1,500.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon once told me I\u2019d have been a billionaire if I\u2019d stuck with him,\u201d Elbaum said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him, \u2018No, I would have ended up in jail!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A beautiful sickness<\/b><\/p>\n
Actually, Elbaum did do a brief stint behind bars for tax evasion in the early 1990s, but soon after that he was right back to the game he\u2019d first been drawn to as a youngster when his uncle took him to see featherweight champ Willie Pep outwit Paulie Jackson.<\/p>\n
He claimed before that \u2013 at the prompting of his mom who\u2019d been a concert pianist \u2013 he\u2019d been something of a child prodigy on the piano.<\/p>\n
But after being introduced to boxing, the music that moved him most was the sound of a boxing gym: chattering speedbags, whirring jump ropes and a ring bell keeping time on sparring sessions. <\/p>\n
Over the years Elbaum wasn\u2019t just a promoter and matchmaker, he sometimes worked a boxer\u2019s corner, jumped in as a referee and once donned a white coat and gave prefight exams when the real doctor didn\u2019t show.<\/p>\n
Four times, he even got in the ring when an opponent bailed out at the last minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the ref had us touch gloves, I\u2019d whisper to the other guy, \u2018Don\u2019t forget who\u2019s paying you tonight,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Elbaum once told Hauser:<\/p>\n
\u201cBoxing is in my blood. It\u2019s a beautiful sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n
And on a winter night in 1972 that sickness almost became fatal when someone planted four sticks of dynamite in the front wheel well of his 1967 Pontiac that was parked at the Highlander Motor Inn in Warrensville Heights.<\/p>\n
As police quizzed him afterward, they asked if anybody had a beef with him.<\/p>\n
With perfect timing, Elbaum deadpanned:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re gonna need a bigger notebook.\u201d <\/p>\n
In truth, most people liked his roguish mix of chutzpah and charm.<\/p>\n
Once I asked how old he was \u2013 I later found out he was 63 then \u2013 but he fended me off with that day with a smile and a verbal jab:<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t tell you.<\/p>\n
\u201cBesides, my girlfriend back in New York thinks I\u2019m 46.\u201d <\/p>\n
With that, he leaned over and whispered:<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my other girlfriend thinks I\u2019m even younger than that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He feared he was going to weigh 300 pounds and be the laughingstock of the boxing world. \u201cDon\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[11534,1935,122940,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-346646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-mlb-baseball","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115033048644950654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}