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Family got Duva to the top

Duva began his career as a boxer in the 1940s but quickly found his heart was into the business side of the sport

Web posted June 15, 1998

Associated Press

CANASTOTA, N.Y. -- Although Lou Duva stood by himself to accept his enshrinement Sunday into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, it was an honor he immediately shared with his ``two families.''

``This is not a one-man show,'' said Duva, one of 13 boxing greats and ring personalities in the induction class of 1998.

``Anybody thinks they're going to do it on their own, it's not there. You need teamwork. You need a team,'' Duva said as nearly 2,000 boxing fans looked on during a light drizzle.

Among the crowd were about 75 of Duva's family, friends and boxers, including past world champions Pernell Whitaker and Mark Breland.

``He's a great man,'' said Breland. ``We were always a tightknit group, the fighters and the family. Lou kept it together.''

The former boxers inducted were light heavyweight champion Matthew Saad Muhammad, flyweight champion Miguel Canto of Mexico and welterweight champion Antonio Cervantes of Colombia.

As the patriarch of what many consider boxing's First Family, Duva's career spans six decades and every aspect of the sport from throwing punches to promoting bouts.

During his acceptance speech, Duva halfheartedly chided the hall for electing him in the non-participant category.

``Non-participant? Can you imagine me in a fight, and I'm a non-participant. That's unbelievable. I'm looking to kick the hell out of somebody, and they're calling me a non-participant,'' said Duva, who remains fiery and fervently devoted to his fighters, and has gotten himself into a few altercations on their behalf over the years.

Duva began his career as a boxer in the 1940s but quickly found his heart was into the business side of the sport. Among the champions he has trained, managed or promoted are Hall-of-Famer Joey Giardello, Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Vinny Pazienza, Bobby Czyz, Mike McCallum, Johnny Bumphus and Breland and Whitaker.

By the mid 1960s, Duva was promoting amateur fights regularly at the Ice World Arena in Totowa, N.J. Over time, he began bringing national boxing teams from overseas -- Ireland, Italy, Poland -- to square off in international bouts against U.S. fighters.

Other non-participants enshrined Sunday were Herman Taylor, a Philadelphia promoter who put together some of the biggest boxing cards during a 50-year span that ended in the 1970s, and William A. Brady, a turn-of-the-century manager who worked with ring greats like James J. Jeffries, James J. Corbett and John L. Sullivan.

Muhammad, who reigned as the world light heavyweight champion from 1979-1981, was elected in his first year of eligibility, the ninth boxer to be so honored.

Cervantes, a junior welterweight champion who successfully defended his crown 16 times before retiring in 1983, is the first Colombian-born boxer elected to the hall.

Another hall-of-fame first was the election in the pioneer class of Mike Donovan, whose son, referee Arthur Donovan, was voted into the hall in 1993, thus making them the first father and son enshrined.

Elected posthumously were Sammy Angott, the world lightweight champion from 1941-1943 and in 1944; Frankie Genaro, a three-time flyweight champion in the 1920s; George ``Kid'' Lavigne, who dominated the lightweight division from 1896-1899; and Sammy Mandell, who held the lightweight crown from 1926-1930.

The 1998 inductees were selected by a 153-member panel consisting of members of the Boxing Writer's Association and boxing historians from a dozen countries.