Personal memories and tribute to Bert Sugar

Just wanted to drop something quick on Bert Sugar, who was a good buddy... At the end of the article I have about 20 quotes of Sugar from our conversations over the past few years.. I was deeply saddened on Sunday afternoon when I found out that world renowned boxing historian and friend Bert Sugar had passed at age 75. Surrounded by close friends and family at Northern Westchester Medical Center near his home of Chappaqua, New York, Sugar, who had been battling with lung cancer, was said to have died from cardiac arrest, as reported by CBS New York. Known to the masses for his sharp sense of humor and trademark cigars and fedoras, Sugar had a wealth of boxing knowledge and a passion for the sport that was unrivaled. During his time covering boxing, Sugar wrote over 80 books, served as the editor to the Ring Magazine, won the Boxing Writer’s Association of America ‘Nate Fleischer Award’ in 1990, and was elected into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005. Upon hearing the news of Sugar’s passing, those involved in the sport have been offering their condolences in droves to the man who simply was hard not to like. Slapstick humor and insight aside, Sugar truly was a great guy to know and interact with. It was May of 2001 when I first crossed paths with Sugar inside of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, as I was in town to cover my first major fight, the Felix Trinidad-William Joppy middleweight title bout at Madison Square Garden. Just beginning to get my feet wet in the sport as a writer, it seemed surreal to see Sugar and other boxing luminaries on the scene at the time. Years later and just months after I had relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada, I again spoke with Sugar, this time inside of the Mandalay Bay shortly after the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones Jr. rematch had wrapped up on April 3rd, 2010. At the time there was no topic hotter in the sport than a possible fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao and Sugar vented to me about his frustrations towards Mayweather, who he felt was trying to demand too much to make the fight a reality. “Right now I question whether he really wants to ,” Sugar said of Mayweather as he took his cigar out of his mouth while walking to the media center. “He threw out bullsh*t proposals and said that he was the equivalent of Martin Luther King because he boldly dares. When did he become the government? When I was a kid the line was ‘Who died and made you king?’” Despite appearing to be perturbed at the time because of his disdain towards Floyd, Sugar was kind enough to give me his number for future reference and I was sure not to let those ten digits go to waste, as I kept in touch with him on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis thereafter in order to talk boxing. I loved the idea that I was able to now reach out to such an iconic figure and with his name not in the headlines as often, I made a point to keep tabs with him about the revolving storylines taking place in boxing. I found Sugar to always be candid as he waxed poetic on such names as Mayweather, Sergio Martinez, Nonito Donaire, Juan Manuel Marquez, Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, and several others over the months. And outside of boxing, Sugar was just as jovial and also kind enough to invest time in getting to know who I was outside of my profession while never acting as if my time wasn’t important to him. Late last year I began to correspond with Sugar about boxing a bit less when I found out that his health was becoming a concern but still made a point to check in with him to see how he was coping. On Friday afternoon I gave Sugar a call and found him to be in pretty good spirits despite the fact that he had just recently spent 21 days in the hospital. “I had everything from cancer, to internal bleeding, to pneumonia. They were probably looking for terminal acne, I don’t know what they were looking for,” Sugar would quip. Feeling concerned, I asked Sugar if he was feeling any better. “I feel better every day but I’m still taking scans, and tests, and bullsh*t,” stated Sugar. “And I’m writing, I’m writing a book, I just got two articles accepted by magazines.” Still upbeat to the point where he felt like talking boxing, Sugar and I previewed the HBO-televised Erik Morales-Danny Garcia bout from Houston, Texas and its many subplots. Little did I know that it would be the last time I would have Sugar on the phone and some of his final words seem almost haunting to me. “It’s always nice to hear from you after all this time,” said the always-affable Sugar. “Tell all my fans I’m coming back. It’s a slow take but I’m coming back.” Less than 48 hours later and I was floored when reading about Sugar’s death. There was really nothing not to like about him and I always appreciated just how deep his passion for boxing ran and how decent of a person he was. I always asked Sugar when he was coming back to Vegas for the fights, as I was open to the idea of taking him around the city to various gyms to see him interact with the new crop of fighters emerging in the area, but he seemed unsure. All he could promise me was that he would buy me a drink when he came back out. I wish I had been able to soak up more knowledge from him or had more discussions about the everyday world with Sugar but such is the way of life. Our days are never promised and all we can do is appreciate Sugar for everything he meant. I’m happy to have called Bert Sugar a friend and I hope that he's looking over us and that he'll still be enjoying the fights. . Bonus quotes from Sugar . During the two years I kept in touch with Sugar, I enjoyed interviewing him a great deal and did the best I could to keep up with an ongoing column going featuring his take on the fighters, fights, and events taking place in boxing. Below are some of Sugar’s excerpts from our many talks. “It was a great virtuoso performance by Pacquiao. It was a one-sided ass whooping was what it was. 40,000 people make more noise than 23,000 to begin with. And it was an excited and an excitable crowd who applauded and cheered everything that Pacquiao did. And if you had any friends in Manila there was no need to call them because they were all there at the fight.” – Sugar’s ringside reflections from Pacquiao’s November 2010 thrashing of Antonio Margarito “The reason I say that is Americans are still caught up in their mental underwear, an obsession almost, with the heavyweights. It goes back to John L. Sullivan. They want to see heavyweights because they hit harder. Americans love bigger things. They love bigger banks accounts, bigger cars, bigger chested woman and bigger fighters.” – Sugar on the state of boxing today "Oh I think it was shocking. You could hear it in the voices of the announcing team. He shocked everybody in that sixth round. I had never heard, as Manny Steward screamed into the microphone, say 'Oh my God!' when Berto hurt him and he came back with that left and he knocked down Berto." – Sugar weighing in on the wild sixth round of Victor Ortiz’s April 2011 upset over Andre Berto “He couldn’t fight and Mora wouldn’t fight. It was a two-fall proposition. One couldn’t get off and the other wouldn’t let him. It was just a dreadful fight and the decision was even worse. Mosley won but the judges must have fallen asleep. I know I did. Somebody in the row in front of me told me to stop snoring because I was keeping him awake.” – Sugar’s take on the dreadful bout between Shane Mosley and Sergio Mora in September of 2010 “The whole situation would take me over twenty hours to discuss. Texas probably cited the second amendment about allowing the right to bear arms. It’s not hard to get a license to do anything in Texas so that was a gimme. Jerry Jones wants the fight down at the Cowboys Stadium and it will happen. I knew it would happen no matter what California or Nevada said.” – Sugar on the licensing issues surrounding Antonio Margarito prior to his bout with Pacquiao