Part One -- The Media Tour
I left UPI in November, 1984, after 19 years, the last eight of them as Executive Sports Editor, and accepted a position as Vice President/Sports with Lapin & Rose Public Relations in New York. The company had just been founded by Rich Rose, a veteran sports publicist who had previously worked on a number of major fights as second in command with Alan Taylor Public Relations.
Shortly after joining the company, the long-awaited fight between Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns was signed for April 15, 1985, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and we were contracted by the promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, to handle public relations and publicity.
After a few prep meetings, it was determined that I would be assigned to work with Hagler and Irving Rudd, Top Rank’s in-house director of public relations, would work with Hearns. First came the elaborate coast-to-coast-to-coast media tour, probably the most comprehensive ever undertaken. The final schedule called for us to hit 19 major markets in 12 days. Three of those days were scheduled for Las Vegas at the midpoint to take care of filming ads, taking promotional photos and recording commercial messages and public service announcements.
Hagler’s traditional training camp was at Provincetown, Mass, on the far eastern end of Cape Cod. He used to refer to it as "going to prison". This time, however, his training camp was to be located in the California desert at Palm Springs. Hearns, who normally trained in his native Detroit and Florida, would set up camp in Laughlin, Nev., about an hour’s drive south of Las Vegas.
There was some initial apprehension on my part about spending the better part of the next three months traveling and living with Marvin. I had covered a number of his title fights while I was at UPI and while he was always cooperative, he didn’t seem to relish dealing with the news media. What relieved me somewhat was recalling an incident just before Hagler’s first title defense against Mustafa Hamsho in October, 1981, at Rosemont, Ill. My flight from LaGuardia to Chicago had been delayed and I arrived at the media headquarters hotel just as the final news conference was breaking up. I saw Hagler and the Petronelli Brothers going out a side door and I caught up and explained my predicament. I was pouring sweat and still dragging my luggage and thankfully, Marvin agreed to give me some time. We slipped into an empty meeting room and Marvin gave me all I needed for an advance story.
The tour to end all tours was scheduled to begin in January with first-day stops in Boston and Detroit, the home bases of the fighters.
I flew to Boston the day before the kickoff event and met with Rick Valenti, a legendary figure in Bay Area boxing who had known Hagler since his youth and now had closed circuit rights for the fight in that area. Top Rank had awarded closed circuit rights to various regional promoters across the country and a good part of the tour included doing on-site promotion for the various distributors. We checked out Fanueil Hall, the site of the opening news conference, and I made a number of calls to the local media to confirm attendance.
We had a terrific turnout. A marching band and high school cheerleaders greeted the fighters, Arum was in top form beating the promotional drums and Hagler and Hearns made all the expected threats and predictions. After dealing with all the media interview requests, it was time to head off to Detroit where Hearns would headline the show.
Because of our tight travel schedule over the next two weeks, a decision had been made for the two groups to use private jets on the tour. After much bickering between the camps, the Hagler group had been assigned the Caesars Palace corporate jet and the Hearns group had been assigned a standard small private jet for the opening week, with the understanding that the parties would switch planes in Las Vegas for the second half of the tour. Little did I know what a major problem this would become.
The Caesars jet, a Gulfstream 800, was basically a flying hotel suite. There was a plush leather couch, several large easy chairs, a poker/blackjack table, a knockout flight attendant and lots of steak and lobster at mealtime. The travel group included Marvin, the Petronellis, me and sometimes Bob Halloran, the former sports broadcaster who was now an executive with Caesars World. The rental jet that Hearns was using had the traditional airplane seating configuration and very few other amenities.
In Detroit, it was Hearns’ turn to be the star of the day and there was another terrific turnout. Tommy and Marvin said all the expected nasty things about each other, each predicting a knockout victory within three rounds, the big crowd cheered Hearns and booed Hagler and there was a swarm of media. The first day couldn’t have come off any better.
I was on and off the tour for the rest of the first week. The fighters went on to Chicago and St. Louis and I flew on ahead to Dallas to make preparations there. I met up with the main group for news conferences in San Francisco and San Jose and traveled with them for appearances in Los Angeles and then on to the scheduled three-day weekend stopover in Las Vegas.
Most of the time in Vegas consisted of doing local media interviews, posing for promotional photos and filming the primary commercials to be used for the fight. That was set up with Marvin and Tommy head-to-head at a poker table and for perhaps the only time during the two weeks, it appeared that both of them were enjoying themselves. At one point, they both were straining to keep from laughing and I thought to myself that it was fortunate that there were very few outsiders looking on because this could kill the air of hostility and animosity we were trying to build up.
Everything was going great until Pat Petronelli, who was Marvin’s manager, dropped the bomb on me. Pat and Goody were brothers but with totally different personalities. Pat, who handled most of the managerial duties, was usually outgoing and enjoyed cracking jokes and often pulling pranks. Goody, who was more concerned with the training regimen, was very laid-back and soft-spoken, with a very dry sense of humor.
The call from Pat came late Saturday night.
"Joe, I know we’re supposed to switch planes Monday but Marvin took a look at the plane Tommy’s been using and he’s not going to do it," Pat told me in his most serious tone. "If Bob (Arum) makes us switch planes, Marvin’s going home and the tour is over. If fact, I want you to book us three first-class tickets back to Boston for Monday because I have a feeling that we’re going home."
At first I thought he was joking but then it dawned on me that Pat was totally serious.
"I don’t have any authority to book flights for you," I said. "I don’t have Top Rank’s credit card and I’m sure as hell not going to put three first-class tickets to Boston on my credit card."
"Then tell Bob we going home Monday if we have to give up the Caesars plane," he shouted before slamming down the phone.
Bob Arum is not a person who takes bad news very well, especially when it can jeopardize a multi-million dollar promotion. First came an F-bomb laden tirade that one would not expect from a Harvard-educated Talmudic scholar, complete with flailing arms and bulging veins in his neck.
"Get me Pat Petronelli," he screamed, "Somebody get him on the phone right now."
H stormed off with the some of the Caesars executives close behind. I went back to my room to pack, either for home or the brutal second leg of the trip.
The next morning I saw Pat and he was smiling as if nothing had happened.
"So what’s the story?," I asked.
"Oh, we’re staying on the Caesars plane," he said with a smile. "Bob talked with Hearns’ people and they agreed to it if they got the same type plane, so he’s renting a Gulfstream for them for the rest of the trip."
All I could do was shake my head.
We were scheduled to leave Las Vegas Monday and it was one of the longest days of my life.
We started off with a breakfast session at Caesars, and then raced to the airport to board the Caesars jet for a brunch news conference in San Diego. When we were done in San Diego, it was off to Phoenix for a mid-afternoon news conference, and then on to Houston for a cocktail party and a news conference. The day still was not complete. We then flew on the New Orleans to spend the night before an early morning news conference. Five cities in one day.
My internal clock was totally out of whack. I remember waking up in the middle of the night not knowing what city I was in, what time it was or what day for that matter. I had to check the room service menu to confirm we were at the Hyatt in New Orleans.
After the morning session in New Orleans, the main groups headed on to Atlanta and Miami while I headed off to Cleveland as the advance man. I was having clothing issues at this point. Since it was the middle of winter in the northeast and midwest and we were also making stops in warm weather locales like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San
Diego and Phoenix, we had to take two complete wardrobes. We were going from sub-freezing to warm ocean and desert temperatures back to sub-freezing.
Everyone was getting run down by this point and the fighters were getting burned out doing the same shtick in every city and answering the same questions.
"I need to get some new material." Marvin told me as the tour wound down. "I need some fresh stuff. We’ve got to work up some new insults. I want to catch Hearns off guard since you know he’s just going to keep saying the same stuff," he said with a sinister smile.
We were doing a lot of cocktail party meet-and-greet photo-autograph sessions with many of Caesars’ high rollers at most of our stops but the one in Cleveland stood out the most. I grew up in Bensonhurst, a pretty well "connected" area in Brooklyn, but this looked like a scene from "The Godfather" or "The Sopranos". By this time, I was counting the hours left in the tour.
We headed off for Washington and then on to Philadelphia, where we made our last stop with the Caesars jet. The final leg was a limo ride up the Jersey Turnpike to the Meadowlands and Giants Stadium for our final news conference. It was one of our biggest turnouts on the tour and I was happy to see a lot of my old friends from the New York media. When it was over, Marvin, Pat and Goody thanked me for my part in the trip and headed off to Newark Airport for a flight back to Boston.
A limo took me back home to Brooklyn. I welcomed the rest before heading off to training camp in Palm Springs.
(Next: Eight weeks of training)
