Hall of fame Class of 2017

[APerno]

Johnny Tapia
Marco Antonio Barrera
Evander Holyfield
Eddie Booker http://boxrec.com/boxer/12423


I am surprised by Tapia; needed to go get an education on Booker, but he surely had an impressive career.

[Ambling Alp II]

Holyfield and Barrera were obvious picks. Liked the Booker selection; I had voted for him when we did the Boxrec HOF.

Tapia is pretty much a filler. They wanted to put in four guys. Obviously a very good fighter, he is a notch below what a fighter should be to get in.

Yes, there are fighters already in that he was better than. Doesn't mean he should be in.

[elmersalsa]

I am satisfied with the list.

[hhascup]

Out of the 9 people that got in, I voted for 8 of them!

Every year I get my ballots and since I was put on all the voting committees I always come up 1 short.

I was with Steve Farhood the day it was announced, as I picked him up in New York for another voting committee, that would be the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame. Steve's such a nice guy and I am happy he made it in.

[Ambling Alp II]

You get to vote for this?

Can you tell us the criteria for getting in?
For example, how many people voted, what % of the votes you need to get in.
Do you have a run down of the voting totals? Who got the most votes but didn't get in?

[SaadOffTheDeck]

There is no percentage needed. The modern top 3 get in and that's it. Highly predictable vote. Glad Eddie finally got in.

[gilgamesh]

A worthy class most definitely

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Several guys should be in ahead of Johnny, but the voters are just recent media people. Laciar would have been my pick.

[hhascup]

Here is the list of Modern and Old-Timers that I received:

International Boxing Hall of Fame

Moderns - Last bout no earlier than 1989

Please check the candidates of your choice. You may vote for up to 5 boxers. You are not required to vote for 5, but you may not vote for more than 5. Ballots must be submitted by mail or fax by October 31, 2016. Three (3) will be elected.

Yuri Arbachakov
Paulie Ayala
Marco Antonio Barrera
Nigel Benn
Sot Chitalada
Donald Curry
Chris Eubank
Leo Gamez
Genaro Hernandez
Evander Holyfield
Julian Jackson
Santos Laciar
Rocky Lockridge
Miguel (Happy) Lora
James (Buddy) McGirt
Henry Maske
Dariusz Michalczewski
Sung-Kil Moon
Michael Moorer
Orzubek (Gussie) Nazarov
Sven Ottke
Vinny Pazienza
Gilberto Roman
Gianfranco Rosi
Samuel Serrano
Johnny Tapia
Meldrick Taylor
Fernando Vargas
Wilfredo Vazquez
Ratanapol Sor Vorapin

.
.
Old-Timers - Last bout no earlier than 1943; no later than 1988

Please check the candidates of your choice. You may vote for up to 5 boxers. You are not required to vote for 5, but you may not vote for more than 5. Ballots must be submitted by mail or fax by October 31, 2016. One (1) will be elected.

Georgie Abrams
Horacio Accavallo
Joey Archer
Jose Becerra
Eddie Booker
Johnny Bratton
Jimmy Carruthers
Freddie Dawson
Esteban DeJesus
Tony DeMarco
Hiroyuki Ebihara
Tommy Farr
Tiger Jack Fox
Ceferino Garcia
Betulio Gonzalez
Carlos Hernandez
Rafael Herrera
Al Hostak
Harry Jeffra
Peter Kane
Pone Kingpetch
Tippy Larkin
Jose Legra
Gus Lesnevich
Freddie Little
Jock McAvoy
Raul (Raton) Macias
Ernesto Marcel
Freddie Mills
Rinty Monaghan
Davey (Springfield Rifle) Moore
Gustave Roth
Lou Salica
Dave Sands
Petey Scalzo
Yoshio Shirai
Ernie Tewrrell
Kid Tunero
Rodrigo Valdez
Jiro Watanabe

[hhascup]

For the modern class most of the voters are from the BWAA and the rest are Boxing Historians around the World.

[Ambling Alp II]

Thanks for posting this!

For the moderns, its hard to say who to vote for after Barrera and Holyfield. Tapia is roughly even with several others.

For the Old-timers, I have no problem with Eddie Booker.
What bugs me is Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. I have said for years that he should be in. He is not even on the ballot!

[Tomasino]

Thanks for posting this!

For the moderns, its hard to say who to vote for after Barrera and Holyfield. Tapia is roughly even with several others.

For the Old-timers, I have no problem with Eddie Booker.
What bugs me is Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. I have said for years that he should be in. He is not even on the ballot!

Defeats to Scott, Spinks and Galindez against wins over Johnson and Saad...what are his credentials for the HOF? At his best he was an excellent fighter for sure.

[Bundana]

I don't like this thing they've done - extending the oldtimer group up to 1988!

So if what I think of as "modern" boxers, like Valdez, DeJesus, Gonzalez, etc. are one day inducted, it will be in the Old Timer category.

And at the same time we have Jack (kid) Berg, Armstrong, Zivic, etc. listed in the Modern category.

Somehow it just doesn't look right!

[Ambling Alp II]

Thanks for posting this!

For the moderns, its hard to say who to vote for after Barrera and Holyfield. Tapia is roughly even with several others.

For the Old-timers, I have no problem with Eddie Booker.
What bugs me is Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. I have said for years that he should be in. He is not even on the ballot!

Defeats to Scott, Spinks and Galindez against wins over Johnson and Saad...what are his credentials for the HOF? At his best he was an excellent fighter for sure.

He was at the same level as Galindez and Saad. He lost a razor close decision against Galindez and won a close one against Saad. Yes he lost to Scott, but he beat Jerry Martin who beat Scott. Martin was a very good fighter who probably would have beaten Saad if it wasn't for the officials.

The only thing he doesn't have is a lot of title defenses. Had Michael Spinks not come a long he would have had them. Same thing happened to Qawi who has been in for 12 years. If he would have got the decision against Galindez, he may have had a long reign.

Mustafa beat Marvin Johnson. Johnson beat Galindez and gave Saad a lot of trouble. Johnson himself should be on the ballot.
Mustafa gave Spinks a lot trouble. Probably his closest fight at light heavy.

Galindez has been in for 14 years, Saad for 18, Qawi for 12. Nobody questions any of them. Yet Mustafa can't even get on the ballot? That just isn't right.

[Tomasino]

Thanks for posting this!

For the moderns, its hard to say who to vote for after Barrera and Holyfield. Tapia is roughly even with several others.

For the Old-timers, I have no problem with Eddie Booker.
What bugs me is Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. I have said for years that he should be in. He is not even on the ballot!

Defeats to Scott, Spinks and Galindez against wins over Johnson and Saad...what are his credentials for the HOF? At his best he was an excellent fighter for sure.

He was at the same level as Galindez and Saad. He lost a razor close decision against Galindez and won a close one against Saad. Yes he lost to Scott, but he beat Jerry Martin who beat Scott. Martin was a very good fighter who probably would have beaten Saad if it wasn't for the officials.

The only thing he doesn't have is a lot of title defenses. Had Michael Spinks not come a long he would have had them. Same thing happened to Qawi who has been in for 12 years. If he would have got the decision against Galindez, he may have had a long reign.

Mustafa beat Marvin Johnson. Johnson beat Galindez and gave Saad a lot of trouble. Johnson himself should be on the ballot.
Mustafa gave Spinks a lot trouble. Probably his closest fight at light heavy.

Galindez has been in for 14 years, Saad for 18, Qawi for 12. Nobody questions any of them. Yet Mustafa can't even get on the ballot? That just isn't right.

Thanks man yeh it's tough when one of your favourites doesn't even make the ballot. On his nights he was superb to watch.

[Chuck1052]

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad may have had far more talent and skills than any of his contemporaries in the light-heavyweight division. While going on to have a notable career and was one of the best light-heavyweights of his era, Eddie had a tendency to stink out the joint and lose bouts that he should have won, all because he seemingly didn't put forth enough effort far too often. As a result, I am not surprised that Eddie doesn't have enough support to be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Moreover, I have strong doubts that he should be.

- Chuck Johnston

[Ambling Alp II]

Chuck, you have said this before and I don't get it. What specific fights did he lose that he should have won? James Scott is all that I can come up with.

[Chuck1052]

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad's bout with Victor Galindez definitely brought forth questions about his desire. As I recall, Gil Clancy's fellow commentator said that Eddie had a chance to be better in the future during the bout. Clancy replied that Eddie still had a chance to win the bout with Galindez if he put forth more effort, giving the impression that Eddie fell short when it came to having a sense of urgency.

For sure, Eddie wasn't losing that many bouts during his prime years. In fact, he didn't lose as many as I thought during that time. As an avid boxing fan during the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was giving my impressions of seeing him fight on television a number of times and reading critiques about him in boxing publications. In his Tonight's Boxing Program newsletter, Malcolm "Flash" Gordon wrote scathing comments about Eddie, wondering why promoters were signing him for bouts after his very indifferent performances.

I also saw Eddie stop Rudy Koopmans in person at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California during 1980. On the previous day while in San Diego, I saw Mathew Saad Muhammad knock out Lotte Mwale with a tremendous punch to the head in the fourth round. Since Mwale's back was blocking my view, I didn't seeing the punch that Mathew threw, which turned out to be an left uppercut. But I remember that the blow was so devastating that moisture flew upward from Mwale's head in a very violent manner.

Remember the short-lived boxing promotional group, Muhammad Ali Professional Sports, also known as MAPS? That promotional group staged the boxing shows featuring Mathew Saad Muhammad in San Diego and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad in Los Angeles on consecutive days. I had attended a number of other shows promoted by MAPS in the Los Angeles area. MAPS was spending many more times as much money to stage numerous boxing shows than they were taking in over a period of about two years. It turned out the money used to stage the shows came from a scheme in which a bank employee undertook to embezzle an estimated twenty-one million dollars from a Beverly Hills branch of Wells Fargo Bank.

- Chuck Johnston

[Chuck1052]

I have a great deal of trouble figuring out why Jack Hurley, a boxing man during the Golden Age of professional boxing; Frank Churchill, the father of professional boxing in the Philippines; and Larry Foley, the father of professional boxing in Australia have not been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Considering how important both Australia and the Philippines were in professional boxing history, both Foley and Churchill played key roles in boxing overall. Hurley was a larger-than-life boxing trainer, manager and promoter from the 1920s to the early 1970s. It may be that many people don't rate Hurley highly because he never managed a champion, but that was never held against him when he was alive. Bill Heinz, a truly great sportswriter, wrote that Hurley fascinated him more than any other sports figure.


- Chuck Johnston

[Senya13]

They also don't have either of Dowlings (father and son), who were in charge of Bell's Life in London (Vincent George in 1824-1851 and Frank Lewis in 1851-1867) and who had done as much for promoting and governing bareknuckle boxing as Richard K. Fox and Nat Fleischer had done for gloved boxing. How about Henry Downes Miles, who had compiled/written the most complete bareknuckle boxing history book ever written, certainly as much or more deserving than Pierce Egan, who was inducted.