LOVERRO: Legendary writer Mike Katz was as colorful, combustible as the fight game he covered

OPINION:

The first fight I covered was Evander Holyfield versus Larry Holmes in Las Vegas in June 1992. I walked into the legendary hangout, The Flame, and sitting at the end of the bar were Ed Schuyler from the Associated Press, Pat Putnam from Sports Illustrated and Mike Katz of the New York Daily News — the holy trinity of boxing writers.

It was like a rookie baseball player walking into a New York bar in the 1950s and seeing Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snider sitting there. After a while, they invited me down to sit with them and I would become part of that special group of boxing scribes.

They were often as colorful as the fighters they wrote about.

Katz, a Boxing Hall of Famer who also wrote for the New York Times and later maxboxing.com, passed away last week at the age of 85. He was the most Runyonesque of all the boxing scribes, a short, bearded man whose neck brace and walking stick were his visual signatures.

Washington’s own world super lightweight champion Sharmba Mitchell once mistook me for Katz, without the neck brace and cane. After that, he always called me Katz for laughs. I considered it a privilege.

He was New York City born, a writer who had worked his way up from copy boy to reporter on the New York Times sports desk and would move to Europe in 1966 to work for the Times international edition. He returned to the United States in 1972 and worked for the Times until 1985, when he moved to the Daily News.

Katz had a combination of flair, fearlessness and compassion that was the perfect fit for covering the fight game, which requires a love of the human condition to do well.

I covered many fights with Katz. We were both ringside in Las Vegas on April 12, 1997, for a welterweight title bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Pernell Whitaker. De La Hoya won a unanimous decision by ridiculous scores. We both thought Whitaker got robbed, but Katz was a little more expressive about it than I was. When De La Hoya refused to give Whitaker a rematch, Katz gave him the nickname “Chicken” De La Hoya in print.

People would sometimes ask me why I wrote about boxing. I would tell them the Willie Sutton story. The legend goes that when the famous thief was asked why he robbed banks, Sutton answered, “That’s where the money is.” Boxing is where the stories are in sports, and Katz was a master storyteller – sometimes even becoming part of the story.

Katz once got into a brawl in the press room with the Boston Globe’s Ron Borges, another great boxing writer and a tough guy you wouldn’t want to get into a fight with. But Katz, who was often at war with promoter Don King, criticized Borges for going on King’s network, and later, during a press session when they were arguing over whose question was next, Katz raised his cane and they tumbled onto the floor, knocking over promoter Bob Arum.

It made the back page of the New York Post.

By the way, Arum once sued Katz for libel because of a piece he wrote in the Daily News criticizing Arum for promoting a fight on Yom Kippur. Katz was Jewish, as is Arum.

He was high maintenance. I remember one of the public relations people with Main Events promotion in a panic before the second Riddick Bowe-Andrew Golota fight in Atlantic City because he had messed up Katz’s ringside seat. “Of all the guys for me to screw up,” he said.

I was fortunate enough to earn Katz’s respect and friendship — even when we almost killed him.

Once, after a fight at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, four of us were going out for drinks. We were getting into the compact car of Royce Feour, the boxing writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal – me in the front passenger seat and Philadelphia Inquirer writer Robert Seltzer behind Feour. We were waiting for Katz to arrive. When he finally did, as he was getting into the car behind me, Feour asked, “Everybody in?” Katz had one foot in the car. Seltzer said, “Yeah, go ahead.” Feour takes off and there was Katz, one leg in the car and the other bouncing along outside of it, screaming at Feour to stop. He did, and fortunately for us, it was too close quarters to take a beating from Katz’s stick. He was fine, and it set up a night of grousing entertainment from Katz. He was an outstanding grouser.

It’s a tough business, inside and outside the ring. No one knew that better than Katz, an American original.

• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.