Boxing and the Mob

Boxing and the Mob

By Simon Graham

Boxing promotors, we either love them or loathe them, however, without them it’s fair to say that some of the greatest battles to ever take place inside the boxing ring would never have happened.

Modern-day promotors are now just as famous as the boxers and champions they represent, you would be hard pushed to find a top promotor not linked to a lucrative TV company. Top Rank Boxing for instance owned by Bob Arum signed an exclusive deal to air their bouts on ESPN while Matchroom and Eddie Hearn are signed to Sky and DAZN.

While Boxing is booming, the megabucks involved between competing promotors and their respective media outlets often see superfights fall by the wayside leaving us the fans frustrated by the politics between the networks who try to get the best deals for their fighters.

In retrospect promoting boxing cards has come along way since the days of hardened criminal Frankie Carbo and the hold the Mafia had on boxing during the 1940s and into the 60s. Carbo and the Mafia pretty much owned the welter and middleweight divisions during that time. To get ahead in the pro ranks if you were told to lose, you lost, that’s how it was in those days.

During the decades in which organised crime ruled boxing it was always open to exploitation. In a sport that pits two boxers against one another, it was much easier to control a fighter and insist they take a ‘dive’ as it was to control a whole team, sometimes losing a fight could be more profitable than actually winning.

At the center of organised crime during the 40s and 50s was Carbo, while other mobsters controlled the docks, tobacco and alcohol, Carbo took control of the illegal gambling that surrounded boxing. His influence would decide who fought who, and who would fight at New York’s premier venue Madison Square Garden.

The Garden was owned by wealthy businessman James Norris who had started to buy up most of boxings big venues whilst also securing lucrative TV deals. However, unable to fill the venues with top bouts he turned to Carbo who by now had many of the big named fighters in his pocket, between them they set up the IBC International Boxing Club, with threats of violence, intimidation, and payoffs they monopolised every big fight in the country.

Desperate to break the Mafia hold on organised crime the US Government tuned its attention to the corruption associated with boxing. Unable to gain any tangible evidence the Kefauver Committee subpoenaed the Raging Bull Jake LaMotta to a high court hearing, at which both Carbo and Norris refused to answer any questions. In a shocking admission that would rock the boxing world, LaMotta admitted that to get his title shot at Marcel Cedan he had to throw a fight against mob owned Billy Fox.

Finally, enough evidence had been gathered to sentence Carbo to 25 years in jail, but this did not deter his involvement in boxing, from behind bars he focused his attention on his new money earner, ex-convict Sonny Liston.

The American boxing fans would never warm to Liston because of both his background and involvement with the mob. But nontheless those fans were convinced that Liston, a sullen, moody powerful man would be world heavyweight champion for some time. Even the young, brash and arrogant Cassius Clay was given little to no chance of beating him. Both fights with Clay/Ali were surrounded in mayhem, controversy and mystery, all we are led to believe instigated by the mob.

During the golden era of boxing the dark side of the sport often reared its ugly head. Sonny Liston was the last hold the mob had on professional boxing, what truly happened to him and his subsequent death we may never know. As for Frankie Carbo he was released from prison due to ill-health in 1975, the following year he passed away in Miami, Florida, mob rule was finally counted out.