Tris Dixon Gene Kilroy has paid tribute to the late Bill Caplan and called him one of boxing’s good guys.
Caplan, long-time publicist of, among others, George Foreman, passed away on Thursday, at the age of 90.
Heartfelt tributes have been paid to the Hall of Famer and, at Canastota, the flags have been flying half-mast as a mark of respect.
While Kilroy – Muhammad Ali’s advisor – and Caplan were on opposing sides of the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire in 1974, there was never any bad blood between them.
“I always respected him,” said Kilroy, from his home in Las Vegas. “I’m not caught up in that [I] don’t like [him] and all that. Everyone does their job and he was always loyal to George. He was a good guy.
“We always stayed in touch and called each other. He was a good guy. He was one of the great publicists, and he was loyal to George like there was no tomorrow. Let me tell you about George, before George got his ass beat [stopped by Ali in Africa], he treated everybody like shit. When Ali beat him, he became humble and he became nice and that’s why it got the grill deal, once he started telling people what they wanted to hear.”
Caplan was involved every step of the way with Foreman, including through his reinvention, but Kilroy has fond memories of the famous Rumble as much as anything else in his decorated career.
“That was the epitome of boxing, that was the epitome of Ali,” Kilroy said, before telling the story about how, with Foreman cut in sparring and keen to leave Africa before a rescheduled date, Kilroy had the authorities confiscate Foreman’s passport so he couldn’t leave as they waited for the cut to heal.
And while Caplan and Kilroy saw plenty of each other over the years, their paths in opposing camps rarely crossed in Africa.
“I was too busy with Ali,” Kilroy said. “I have respect for him. He was doing what he could do and he wasn’t with a pleasant guy [in the first coming of Foreman]. I was with a guy who loved everybody, he was with a guy who hated everybody. But we got on just fine. I don’t get caught up in the bullshit.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
