Writers write. Fighters fight. Michael Katz did a lot of both.
He was insightful and outrageous, generous and cantankerous, angry and forgiving, impatient and understanding, annoying and funny.
He also could deliver a line and use a cane as though it were a jab. Katz was a lot of things, often all at the same time.
Curmudgeons aren’t charming. But Katz was the exception, a charming curmudgeon who could out-write and sometimes out-fight anybody else at ringside. From typewriters to the early Internet, there was never anybody quite like him.
“Nobody did it better,’’ Tim Smith, his friend and successor at The New York Daily News, told me in a text message Tuesday after news of Katz's death, at 85, in Brooklyn, New York.
Nobody then.
Nobody now.
Any story about what made him so special has to start with what he wrote. How he wrote. Here’s a sample: Katz at his best for The Daily News on the infamous “Bite Fight” in June 1997:
"Biting off more than he could chew, Mike Tyson was disqualified for twice sinking his teeth into Evander Holyfield in the third round of last night's rematch between the two biggest money-making fighters in history. It was the kind of performance that, outside the ring, could be construed as a parole violation. Tyson may not have lost his freedom last night, but by biting off a piece of Holyfield's right ear, spitting it on the canvas, and getting disqualified after trying for a second helping on the other ear, his place in history will certainly be on the pages with the villains and cowards."
Fearless, forthright and funny. One paragraph under deadline is a snapshot of Katz’s insightful skill set and willingness to express his outrage, yet still done with a touch that could make his readers smile.
Often, Katz is remembered for the outrage and only that. But there was a reason for it. He was a writer who expected more from the fighters he genuinely liked.
Again and again, that would become evident in feature stories and fight accounts. He had an ability to find a nugget of goodness in crazy characters that scared the hell out of just about anybody else. Like Tim Smith said, nobody has ever been so good at it.
Maybe that’s because the curmudgeon understood crazy. In part, he knew what those fighters were thinking. Whatever it was, there was always an evident empathy in his writing for what fighters do and why they do it. Over the years, I – along with Tim Smith, Dan Rafael and Keith Idec – were lucky enough to have Katz as a mentor and even a friend. He called us each “kid.”
It was his way of saying you’ve got a chance.
But being one of Katz’s kids could sometimes lead to some crazy places. The stories are endless. As I sit here in the MGM Grand for Saturday’s David Benavidez-David Morrell Jnr fight at T-Mobile Arena, I’m in a place where so many of them happened. Here are just a few:
June 4, 2004. Katz-Ron Borges. Katz, then a full-time writer for Maxboxing.com, was covering the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Sturm fight at the MGM Grand for the New York Times.
Borges, who still knows more about boxing than anybody I know, was there for the Boston Globe.
Inevitably, they were rivals.
In the MGM Grand’s media room, the tension between them turned hostile. The best fight writers of the day fought each other. Sort of. Katz had been criticizing Borges for doing commentary on Don King’s network.
During an interview scrum, one interrupted the other.
Katz wielded his cane. His hat came off. His neck brace, then a trademark, got bent out of shape.
Only Top Rank Chairman Bob Arum hit the floor. He was trying to break them up. The story generated widespread attention – even more than a major fight won by Hopkins. Katz and Borges even landed on the New York Post’s back page. The Post, of course, called the fight-writers’ fight a draw.
The next day, I ran into Katz outside of the work room. I reminded him that Borges was a veteran. He had fought in Vietnam. Katz stopped, looked at me and said:
“Kid, no wonder we lost that war.’’
Then, there was an afternoon in the mid-1990s at Tyson’s Las Vegas home, not far from where singer Wayne Newton lived.
I was among a number of writers invited to spend some time with Tyson. Tyson and Katz knew each other well. Tyson asked Katz if he wanted to see his yard. Katz asked me to come along. The yard included statues of history’s greatest conquerors. We walked past Napoleon, then Julius Caesar and Lawrence of Arabia. Then there was Alexander the Great.
Katz stopped and said: “Mike, did you know that Alexander the Great was a homosexual.’'
A surprised Tyson stopped, looked at me, and then at Katz.
“Still, a bad motherfucker,’’ Tyson told Katz, who smiled.
It was a friendly moment, a moment when Tyson was approachable instead of just another bad MFer.
Then there was January 1999. Tyson was about to fight Frans Botha, also at the MGM Grand. Before the fight, on January 16, the promoters took the writers out to dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant.
We were in one room. Other diners were seated on the opposite side of a curtain. On that side of the curtain, there was a customer annoyingly smoking a cigar. I looked across the table and saw a look of disgust cross Katz’s face.
Suddenly, Katz, an ex-smoker, started shouting at the blue smoke coming from the table behind the curtain.
“Put it out, put that damn thing out!’’ Katz yelled.
The smoke kept coming. Finally, Katz got up, stepped behind the curtain and pointed his rear end at the stunned diner. Katz let his rear end do the talking with a noise and smell that filled the room.
Then, he said: “If I have to smell your shit, you’ve got to smell mine.''
The fight was the next day.
Sure enough, it unfolded with some Tyson controversy, almost predictable at that point in his career. Tyson tried to break Botha’s arm.
After Tyson was declared the winner, the writers gathered in a back room for the postfight newser. The expectation was another round of Tyson threats and expletives.
When Tyson entered the room, however, he held up his hand, looked at us and said that, first, he wanted to ask a question.
“Michael Katz, is it true that you farted in somebody’s face last night?’’ Tyson asked.
For once, Katz was speechless. But it was a moment, another example of how Katz always was able to find some offbeat goodness in another crazy moment from the one fighter who scared ordinary fans more than any other.
Katz understood them, an understanding that was – still is – at the heart of his timeless writing.
Nobody did it better.
Rest in peace.
