Of course, whenever someone dies, he’s always a “great guy.” People are never more two-faced than when giving praise to someone who’s no longer around to bother them, but in the midst of all the maudlin praise for recently deceased boxing historian and critic Bert Sugar, let me inject a note of reality. The plain fact is that if you are a were a fan of the current heavyweight champion Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali, or of European heavyweights in general, Bert Sugar repeatedly made it clear that he was the enemy.
At the end of his career, Sugar increasingly seemed a cigar-chomping man out of time, a guy who couldn’t handle the fact that the African-American heavyweights he idolized while coming of age as a boxing scribe in the 1960s were no longer a dominant force in boxing’s marquee division.
For a guy often described as being nice and accommodating in person, Sugar became downright nasty near the end of his life when the topic of the Klitschkos came up.
He was still the man that the mainstream media went to when it wanted opinions on boxing, and Sugar did his best to trash the Klitschkos every chance he got. More than one interview left me both angry and embarrassed for Sugar, who was blowing his credibility near the end of his life over some prejudices he just couldn’t get past. The fact is that Sugar never voiced a criticism of the Klitschkos that couldn’t be leveled at many other heavyweight champions with whom he had no problems.
He never failed to level the only partially accurate charge of the brothers being “boring” jab artists, yet he seemed to forgive Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis for the same grave sins. He never failed to slam the Klitschkos’ competition, yet he didn’t appear overly concerned at the lack of big names on the resumes of Rocky Marciano or Mike Tyson.
Article comments
1 - JC
Man, there is so much truth in this article. You hit the nail on the head and pounded it through the wood.
2 - Ken Biddle
Wow! Bert and others don't like the Klitschko brothers so we have a dark side?!? Get the eff outta here!
I love Vitali but I HATE Wlad. Am I a fellow Klitschko nut-hugger... from the Dark Side?
Nut-huggers don't need to be writing personal opinion, hate-mongering articles.
3 - Cybrarian
This isn't personal opinion or hate-mongering. It's a simple statement of facts - pointing out all the areas where Sugar was irrational. No one said he had to like the Klitschkos - either of them - but complaining about their KO percentage when it was way higher than his idols is just plain nuts. If he'd just said he didn't like them, no one would have had a quarrel with that. You don't have to like the Klitschkos. But Sugar reminded me of my father in law, who asserted that because he didn't like Wayne Gretzky, that Gretzky was a lousy hockey player. The 2 things are unrelated! Sugar did the same, asserting that the heavyweight division was dead and the Klitschkos were lousy boxers, for no other reason than that he didn't like them.
4 - Gutterdandy
"Wow! Bert and others don't like the Klitschko brothers so we have a dark side?!?"
Sugar abused his position as one of the leading boxing "experts" in America to wage a propaganda war worthy of Rocky IV against the Klitschkos. He knowingly misrepresented the facts about them merely because they were and are a threat to the legacies of his heroes. Call it a dark side, or just call him a "nuthugger" of his American boxing heroes, whatever suits you.
5 - Commerce Cowboy
The heavyweight division has been dead for years as has much of boxing. Not the Klitschkos fault. Those running it ran it into the ground. Matches used to captivate the nation. Now they can't give the fights away.
6 - Gutterdandy
"The heavyweight division has been dead for years as has much of boxing. Not the Klitschkos fault. Those running it ran it into the ground. Matches used to captivate the nation. Now they can't give the fights away."
Wladimir's last fight in Germany sold out a 50,000 seat arena. The Klitschkos regularly get crowds of 30-50,000 in Europe, plus millions more watching on television. They make on average 12 million Euros per fight, sometimes much more. So the heavyweight division is not "dead" -- but as the article states, that is the propaganda Bert Sugar and his ilk put out there. The fact is that when Americans are not on top of something, they tend to lose interest in it. As there are no heavyweights from the USA currently who can beat the Klitschkos, many in America have adopted a "take my football (or boxing gloves) and go home" attitude toward the division. Had there been no Soviet Union and had fighters from Ukraine and other Eastern bloc countries been allowed to fight in the heavyweight division all along, it's almost a certainty that the history of boxing would look very different.
7 - Commerce Cowboy
Who cares if he's big in Germany? So was David Hasselhoff as a singer.
8 - Gutterdandy
Yeah, and Tim Tebow is big in America.
9 - Trey ko
The Klitschko's are boring but they're still good fighters. I don't agree with this nonsense about Bert having it in for them because he was so in love with black fighters. I think it's because the standard bearer for boxing is non-American.
I actually knew Bert for years and had several arguments with him about boxers from all eras. FYI, his great boxer of choice was not Ali, it was Joe Louis. Black fighters don't dominate now because a lot of them are not boxing anymore; they've found easier, longer lasting ways to make a buck, whether it be football or basketball.
I know it's always enticing to have a racial angle in any argument, but this one falls short of reality.
10 - Gutterdandy
"Black fighters don't dominate now because a lot of them are not boxing anymore; they've found easier, longer lasting ways to make a buck, whether it be football or basketball."
That's a facile rationalization. The NBA and the NFL existed and were very popular in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Suddenly there are no dominant black fighters because they're all playing football and basketball? When only a miniscule percentage of people who want to play professionally actually make it. Laughable.
The fall of the Soviet Union and the consequent liberation of Eastern Europeans to fight professionally has changed the equation in heavyweight boxing forever. If there had been no Soviet Union, the history of boxing would look very different today.
11 - Jobriath
The gushing tributes to this anti-Euro Yank from the old boys boxing network have been nauseating, especially when you know damn well that many of the journos making them didn't even like the guy. But hey, it's good PR to love him now that he's dead!
12 - Dr Joseph S Maresca
Bert Sugar appeared in several big films playing himself. These films included Night and the City, The Great White Hype and Rocky Balboa. He was Editor of Boxing Illustrated and The Ring. Bert studied law and an MBA at the University of Michigan. He passed the bar.
He would have to be considered one of the most accomplished professionals in the boxing world. Luckily, I spoke with him once in 2011 just months prior to his passing. I enjoyed reading a number of his articles. Boxing, itself is a tough profession and it's hard to satisfy everybody.
13 - Leonard Gravy
He was a typically prejudice, blinkered yank who would prefer to have a World Championship in which only Americans competed. Oh hang on, isn't that all of there sports ?