by Geoffrey Ciani (Interviewed by Jenna J & Geoffrey Ciani) – This week’s 117th edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio (brought to you by CWH Promotions) featured an exclusive interview with former heavyweight boxer Bobby HItz (21-4, 18 KOs) who now acts as the longest running promoter in the Chicago area. Hitz spoke about various topics including his upcoming April 9 card, his professional career, his fight with George Foreman, his views on the current heavyweight landscape, Manny Pacquiao, Emanuel Steward, and more! Here is what he had to say:
On his background in boxing and promoting:
“I’ve been promoting boxing here in the Chicago for over twenty years. I was a former heavyweight fighter. I was a Golden Glove Champion from Chicago. I compiled a record of 21-4 and had a fascination of the wonderful world of the business of boxing and that’s what I gravitated to once I decided to retire. During my career I had some pretty good fights and subsequently moved to Detroit and trained up there with Emanuel Steward. He took an interest in me and saw that I had a knack for the business of boxing, and subsequently when I came back to Chicago I was going to make a comeback and start fighting again. I decided to promote instead. So I here I am today and I had been promoting shows ever since.”
On what it was like during the journey in the transition from boxer to promoter:
“Well I’ll tell you, I always had a knack for the business. I always thought about the business aspect of it but unlike the fighters of today I was never concerned about making money or whatever because I figured in time it would come. I just wanted to fight. I enjoyed fighting and I think one of the things that the fighters from my era and prior to that versus the fighters of nowadays, we didn’t have one thing and that was called the internet. I think the internet has made it real hard to make fights because these kids nowadays will go and they’ll look up what the opponent’s mother had for breakfast or what size shoe his father has or what’s his favorite breakfast food or whatever the case may be. They really do all this background research and they kind of psyche themselves out of making good fights, whereas in my day it was a lot easier because we just got it. Here’s who you’re fighting. We showed up to fight so it was much different. So during that time period after I had fought George Foreman I stayed in Detroit and I found a kid in the gym by the name of James Toney. Here was a kid in James Toney, we discovered him, I got him to sign with us, and in two years time he went from a four round prelim kid to a world champion. He never concerned himself with he was fighting. In 28 months I think he had 24 fights and became a world champion after knocking out Michael Nunn. Here you have a guy who kept his nose to the grindstone, worked really hard and became a champion without worrying about all of the nonsense of what fighters do. So with that whole journey, being involved and taking him from that point and being involved every step of the way from prelim kid to world champion. That’s what Emanuel Steward kind of saw that I had a natural ability for. He pulled me aside one day and said, ‘You know, I’ve been watching you and you’re very good at what you do. I see how you have a knack for this whole thing. Once you’re done fighting you should consider staying in the business and doing something’. That kind of sparked my interest and that’s why I started promoting.”
On whether he is at all surprised that James Toney is still fighting today:
“Yeah, you know he’s one of those throwback fighters. I mean he’s an Archie Moore, he’s a Jake LaMotta, he’s a Sugar Ray Robinson. He’s cut from the cloth of those heroes of boxing in which not many guys can actually say they had done. I mean look, Sugar Ray Leonard retired when he had I think 30 some odd fights. Oscar De La Hoya had 30 some odd fights. I mean this guy’s a throwback. He’s really an old school fighter that you don’t see any more.”
On which boxers impress him the most that are really doing things for boxing:
“Naturally you have Manny Pacquiao. You got some guys coming up like a kid like Andy Lee, Marquez. There are a handful of guys that are really doing well and excelling.”
His views on the upcoming fight between Manny Pacquiao and Sugar Shane Mosley:
“Shane Mosley is the type of fighter that you never know which Shane’s going to show up. I’ll tell you on any given night he’s a dangerous guy. Manny is just in that stay busy mode right now until he can et that mega fight. I mean, my gosh how many weight classes is he going to continue to move up? Maybe he’ll be fighting Klitschko next after this. Who knows?”
Regarding his experiences working with Emanuel Steward and how he views him amongst today’s best trainers:
“Like I said, Emanuel is one of those throwback guys. I’ll tell you he takes a real great interest in the fighters that he’s personally training and he gives them that TLC, and that tutelage, and all his knowledge and being in Detroit, to me I got my Harvard education of boxing being around when of the greats Thomas ‘Hitman’ Hearns. I got to be around him, Dennis Andries, an up and coming Michael Moorer who was just young at that time. He was a light heavyweight. My dear friend Gerald McClellan was a middleweight and we all know what happened to him, but being around some of these great fighters, Jimmy Paul and just the old school guys, you really got to see how Emanuel embraced these guys and moved them up the latter. I’ll tell you those wars in the Kronk Gym, you look forward to having the fight once you go to the Krong and spar because with Emanuel that’s where you get your workout. He takes his time and he gives you all his knowledge. He’s one of the greats and him and I have had long conversations recently just about the future of this business. It needs to have some guys that are going to grasp that old school way of doing things like a Freddie Roach. Freddie Roach is cut from that cloth being with Eddie Futch. Some of these newer trainers, it marvels me as to what goes through their minds because in this business of ours and this sport of ours, some of the things you can’t change and they try to do all these new things. To me I just don’t get it. I mean Emanuel is an old school trainer cut from that old school cloth. He’s a dying breed. There aren’t a lot of guys like him any more.”
Regarding his experiences fighting an older George Foreman when he was on the comeback trail:
“Well I’ll tell you first of all, last time I checked 38 years old isn’t that old. So he was 38 years old when I fought him and that’s the whole point. Youth is wasted on the young and I was supposed to fight him four times, the fourth time being the time it actually happened. So these three other times I was in tremendous shape and they would pull me out and put someone else in my spot. I had the proper pigmentation. It was the George Foreman Pigmentation Tour and I was white, bright, and polite and I could fight a little bit. You look at the records and whatnot and so I took the fight on four days notice. Looking back had I had someone around me to tell me, ‘Listen this isn’t the right thing. That’s four days notice. What are you going to take a fight like that for?’ To me I had no fear of the guy and I’m a fighter. The fight was stopped prematurely. It never should have been stopped. I could tell you one thing, guys like Gerry Cooney and Michael Moorer and I love them they’re two of my favorite fighters, but these guys trained four or five months to fight George Foreman. Neither one of them got up. I got up, I was on my feet, and I was ready to fight again. It was a premature stoppage. That’s all I could tell you. To this day that’s a real sore spot for me. I’ve asked George many times and we became good friends, and I always tried to get a rematch with him because that wasn’t indicative of my talents and the fact that I took the fight on four days notice just shows that I have balls and I’ll fight anybody. And to this day I’ll still fight anybody.”
On how he would compare today’s heavyweight division to when he fought during the Mike Tyson era:
“I mean the landscape has changed tremendously. I got to tell you Mike and his era was the last of the great American heavyweights because since then you have al these guys from overseas. I think part of the problem is that a lot of our athletes are gravitating to other sports like football and basketball. Some of these fellows might not necessarily want to gravitate to boxing as the years passed because training has become much more sophisticated. So you have these younger athletes who are in let’s say in high school training who are not training at a different level. So the fact that they might have a career in the NFL or the NBA takes away some of these guys because what parent now is going to want his kid to be a fighter? If they had the opportunity to play football or basketball they’re going to gravitate towards that. We need to get some of these guys. Fighters, we’re born. We’re not created. So it takes that special person. I think the Tyson era was the last era of the great American heavyweights. Buster Douglas is a real good friend of mine and we sit and talk a lot long and large about it. There is a guy who came out of nowhere and became heavyweight champion. I think that if we start to develop some of these guys once again we can see another American reigning as heavyweight champion of the world. I mean a lot of times if you ask the common guy they can’t even tell you who the heavyweight champion is anymore.”
Regarding his April 9 fight card promotion:
“Yeah we have a fight April 9 at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana which is right outside of downtown Chicago about twenty minutes away. It’s a beautiful venue. It’s like being in Las Vegas in the Midwest. We pack the house every time out. We have a really great card put together. The Amidu brothers are headlining the show, Abdulai and Yakuba. We have a local kid from Hammond, Indiana named Ruben Galvan. Ninos Abraham is a Chicago kid. We have a pro debut with Paulie Settepani, we have Mike Kurzeja and Russell Fiore. We got a nice heavyweight we’re building him right now. He is about 8-0, David Latoria. We have a comeback with Johnny Lewus and actually Buster Douglas will be there with his heavyweight and he goes by the name of Junior, and Junior is an understatement because he is about 6’5” and about 290 pounds. He’s just a big solid heavyweight so Junior could be the next great heavyweight if he maybe takes on some of Buster Douglas’ skills.”
Regarding the program he uses to build fighters:
“I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve had guys. O’Neil Bell was my fighter who became the undisputed cruiserweight champion. We build real fighters through my program. This is synonymous with Chicago boxing and right now we’re building some of these younger fighters to hopefully build them into contenders or world champions. I expect big things, especially out of these Amidu brothers. One of them is 19-0 with 17 knockouts and the other kid is 19-2 with 17 knockouts and I expect these two kids to probably take on some of the top guys in the world eventually. I know Abdulai is one of Manny Pacquiao’s main sparring partners, actually and he gives him all he can handle right now. What intrigues me about these two fellows is because how I met them was a friend of mine approached me and told me someone wanted to meet me. Out of the building walks the famous actor Vince Vaughn, and Vince Vaughn said, ‘Hey I have these two friends of mine who are fighters’ and that’s how I met the Amidu brothers was through Vince Vaughn, actually.”
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For those interested in listening to the King Kong interview in its entirety, it begins approximately forty-four minutes into the program.
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