Michael Katz wasn’t one to sugarcoat issues.
Not in actual life, and never in his writing.
Even those that cherished Katz described him as a curmudgeon whose feistiness fueled his larger-than-life persona.
These qualities served Katz effectively throughout his decades-long run as one of many nation’s premier boxing journalists.
“You could walk up to someone and sit down and talk to fighters. I swear this worked out for Katz, because he was a guy that you wanted to talk to. Fighters would sit down with him, and he’d get to know about their personal lives.”
Michael Katz, New York Each day Information sports activities reporter, is pictured at his desk in 1995. (New York Each day Information)
“He was the everyman,” recalled Tony Paige, a longtime WFAN host and boxing commentator, who was the Boxing Writers Affiliation of America’s president from 1993-96.
“Whether you were a hot-shot promoter with millions of dollars on the line or just Joe Blow from the Bronx or Brooklyn, everybody read him because he was informative and it was stylistic.”
“He loved the fighters, but he would look out for them in his own way while he wrote about the promoters and the bad deals involved in boxing,” Raissman stated.
“Boxing is the toughest deadline in sports journalism,” Raissman stated. “You would get these fights that would start at 11 o’clock New York time, and that was obviously before the internet.
“You’d have to have it in for your final [edition] by one in the morning. You’d always have to write while the fight was going on. It was so hard to do, and he was writing the main story, which sometimes could be anywhere from 500 to 1,000 words, and he would make that s–t sing on deadline. I was probably the most amazed by that part of his work.”
However the whole lot about Katz’s profession was daring. In 2012, he was inducted into the Worldwide Boxing Corridor of Fame.
“In a business of curmudgeons and contrarians, he was the king,” Raissman stated. “He was the king of them all because he covered one of the most corrupt sports in the world. It still goes on today, but he covered it with passion, with heart.”
Initially Revealed: January 29, 2025 at 2:35 PM EST
