By Jake Donovan (photo credit Jeffrey Freeman)

It was three days after his 32nd birthday when a southpaw journeyman by the name of Sam Reese – a dismal 6-5-3 (3KOs) at the time - was giving cruiserweight contender Louis Azille all that he could handle in their eight-round preliminary battle.

Azille ultimately won the Dec. ‘02 bout by majority decision, but it’s a tale I can never really tell because I didn’t arrive until the 4th round of the cruiserweight clash, one of six preliminary bouts supporting a heavyweight title bout between Chris Byrd and Evander Holyfield.

“You missed half the fight already, now your readers will only know half the story,” a voice in press row quipped before patting the empty chair next to him, inviting me to my assigned seat.

That voice was the legendary Jack Obermayer, who succumbed to a lengthy battle with liver cancer in passing away on Saturday morning. The award-winning scribe was 72 years old at the time of his departure, which came at his home in Lindenwold, New Jersey.

He is survived by a daughter, Ellen Kaplan, 44, and two granddaughters, Alexis Clawans, 18 and Sydney Clawans, 15.

On a personal level, he was also one of my mentors in the sport.

The aforementioned quote came at the start of a conversation during my salad-eating days as a rookie reporter for the now-defunct RealBoxing.com. Somehow, I’d lucked out and landed a seat next to one of the very best – and far among the most the most respected – writers in the rich history of the sport.

Affectionately known by those in the industry as “KO-JO”, Obermayer will forever be remembered as a fixture on fight night – 3,514 of them, to be exact, ranging from the biggest events of them all to any given club show anywhere in the East Coast.

For me, he was a role model of how to conduct yourself in this industry and how to approach any given fight night, no matter how big or small the show.

“Even big shows like this, the fans and even a lot of the writers don’t show up until it’s TV time,” Obermayer stated of the near-empty arena at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. “I never understood it. If there’s a fight in the ring, why wouldn’t you want to experience it or share it with those depending on you to tell the story for them?”

There was little in 53 years in the business that Obermayer didn’t experience. The staggering amount of shows he’s covered – which roughly measures out to more than 25,000 fights witnessed live from ringside – has spanned over 400 cities in every U.S. state but Alaska.

The journey was preceded by a passion for the sport developed as a child in Staten Island, N.Y., watching the sport with his father on Friday nights.

Obermayer first found his way to press row in 1963 – fittingly for the legacy left behind by “KO-JO” by covering the 1963 Fight of the Year.

The event took place at the famed Madison Square Garden, where New York’s own Doug Jones - coming off of back-to-back upset wins over Bob Foster and Zora Folley – dropped an unpopular 10-round decision to Muhammad Ali, who went on to become three-time heavyweight champion and the most iconic sports figure in history but at the time was a 17-0 prospect still known as Cassius Clay.

Exactly 3,513 shows later, Obermayer’s last ringside appearance came on June 4, 2016 – one day after Ali’s passing. The lead story of the night was Francisco Vargas and Orlando Salido throwing down in this year’s leading candidate for Fight of the Year, but Obermayer was 2,700 miles away on this particular evening covering a club show in Bristol, Pennsylvania.

That’s the legacy left behind by the renaissance man, a former amateur boxer and U.S. Army veteran who’d served in the Vietnam War years after having begun his writing career.

His brief amateur career (7-3), military enrollment and insane passion for covering as many fights as possible are the bonds Obermayer and I shared, though the only time our names belong in the same sentence.

Through his many years in the industry, his pearls of wisdom have graced the pages of Flash Gordon's "Tonight's Boxing Program", Ring Magazine, Boxing Illustrated (which later became Boxing Digest) & USA Boxing News.

His wealth of knowledge was lent to the fine folks at Fight Fax, the sport’s official records keeper whose database was kept current by its most dedicated supporter. His contributions led to enshrinement into the Boxing Hall of Fame for New Jersey in 2005 and Pennsylvania’s Hall earlier this year, as well as long overdue BWAA honors in receiving the 2010 John F.X. Condon Award for Long and Meritorious service (now known as the Barney Nagler Award).

Nothing can better encapsulate his passion than the manner in which he spent his break from reality while serving in Vietnam.

“My most exotic boxing trip was when I was in the Army, in Vietnam," Obermayer recalled to longtime scribe and former BWAA president Bernard Fernandez, who presented KO-JO with the aforementioned BWAA award in 2010. “I took my R&R to go to Bangkok [Thailand] to see Walter McGowan defend his WBC flyweight title against Chartchai Chinoi.

“Why? Because I wanted to, and because the U.S. government picked up my travel costs."

That passion also cost him quality years and two marriages, all while battling health issues over the past two decades. Whether or not there was any personal regret, he spent his many years on earth living his dream rather than wondering how his life would have been had he never taken that chance.

He said as much during our first conversation together, words that forever serve as inspiration to any journalist willing to go the extra mile.

“There’s always a story to be told,” Obermayer believed of any given fight. “There’s also always a story to be missed if you don’t experience it.”

Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Follow his shiny new Twitter account: @JakeNDaBox_v2