Class of 2025 Part 2: How I voted for the International Boxing HOF
I'm a longtime elector and this year cast ballots in 5 categories: modern men, modern women, non-participants, observers and old timers
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For more than 20 years I have enjoyed the great privilege of voting for the International Boxing Hall of Fame in various categories. I grew up about 90 minutes from Canastota, New York, site of the HOF, and have visited the museum many times beginning when I was in high school and college.
When I had my first newspaper job as a sportswriter in the early 1990s I would often have to drive to places like Syracuse or Rochester to cover a high school state playoff game in whatever sports season was going on and I would often build time into my travel schedule and stop at the HOF, which is right off the highway, to spend some time at the museum.
To now be an elector all these years later, I consider it a tremendous honor and I look forward to receiving the ballots each fall. I also dread it.
It’s an honor because I get to be a small part of shaping the history of the great sport of boxing, to which I have dedicated almost all of my professional life, with my votes. But it is also a thankless task because hard choices must be made. Sometimes there are more worthy candidates than we are allowed to vote for and even fewer are elected.
I do the best that I can. I take it seriously. I do my homework. I review the candidates’ resumes. I sometimes seek opinions from those in the sport I respect. And I go by my own decades of experience covering boxing and knowing most of the people I vote for.
I sent my ballots back before the Oct. 31 deadline and on Thursday the results of the election for the class of 2025 will be announced. Induction weekend will take place June 5 to June 8 with the induction ceremonies taking place June 8 at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York, which is about a 10-minute ride from the Hall of Fame grounds in Canastota. HOF weekend is a blast and a must-do event that every fight fan should put on their bucket list.
In Part 1, I revealed my votes and reasons for my votes in the modern men’s and modern women’s categories. Here, in Part 2, I will reveal how I voted in the three additional categories I cast ballots in: non-participants, observers and old timers. See below for my detailed explanation of my votes and photos of my official ballots.
Non-participants
From the 29-person ballot, electors can vote for up to five candidates and the top three will be elected. This is always a tough category because it covers so many different roles in the sport, including trainers, promoters, matchmakers, referees, judges, publicists, ring announcers, cutmen, etc.
Not that it is a hard rule I have, but all things being equal I usually try to vote for the most deserving (in my view) person in each realm, meaning a trainer, a promoter, a publicist, that sort of thing.
I used my full allotment of give votes and it was difficult not voting for, among others, trainer/cutman Miguel Diaz, trainer Abel Sanchez, legendary German trainers Fritz Sdunek and Ulli Wegner, WBO president Paco Valcarcel, Rudy Battle, a top referee for decades, and judge Duane Ford, who I have voted for in the past. But some years things change with the addition of other candidates to the ballot. There are many deserving people on the ballot.
Here is how I voted (alphabetically):
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