Eras & Icons: From Ali to Pacquaio/Mayweather

By Eric Raskin

Oscar De La Hoya, Mike Tyson - Photo Credits: Will HartSports fans always want to know who's next. But it's important not to lose sight of who was last.

Through almost the entirety of the existence of HBO Boxing, there has been a clearly defined superstar carrying the sport, a man (or, sometimes, "men") who served as the face of the fight game. Here's a look at the fighters who ruled their eras, in the ring and at the box office, since the first boxing broadcasts on HBO in the early 1970s:

(RELATED: Eric Raskin examines the next generation of up-and-coming superstar hopefuls.)

Muhammad Ali: Arguably the most famous sports figure of all-time, Ali's inclusion on this list should require no explanation, even to the uninitiated. He was never the same as a fighter after 1975's "Thrilla in Manila," but Ali's star status remained unsurpassed up through his final bout.

Sugar Ray Leonard: While Ali was losing three of his last four fights between '78-'81, the Olympic gold medalist Leonard turned welterweight into boxing's glamour division. Undefeated heavyweight champ Larry Holmes played second fiddle to Sugar Ray throughout the first half of the '80s – even when Leonard was largely inactive.

Mike Tyson: There was some overlap with the Leonard era thanks to Sugar Ray's legendary comeback win over Marvin Hagler, but from the moment he won a piece of the heavyweight crown in '86, "Iron Mike" brought the worlds of tabloid journalism and sports journalism together like no one before.

Oscar De La Hoya: "The Golden Boy" began to emerge when Tyson was in jail, and broke through as the man to put boxing on his shoulders around the time Tyson's teeth replaced his fists as his weapons of choice. It's safe to say there's never been a fighter with a bigger female fan base than Oscar. But he also fought every great fighter of an exceptional era.

Manny Pacquiao/Floyd Mayweather: Together—but very much separately—the last two fighters to defeat De La Hoya have replaced him. Pacquiao drives pay-per-view sales with charm and dynamic offense; Mayweather does the same with a persona that many love to hate and a defense that few can penetrate.

Remembering Famous Trainers Angelo Dundee and Goody Petronelli

By Kieran Mulvaney

The principal focus of last Saturday’s World Championship Boxing broadcast was, of course, on the televised bouts, which in Nonito Donaire and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. featured two of the most popular of the current generation of pugilists.

But between the two contests, the emphasis shifted, and sadly so; because even as a young wave of fighters – the likes of Donaire, Adrien Broner, Gary Russell Jr, and others – prepares to assume its role in the spotlight, the past several months have seen one member after another of one of boxing’s golden ages leave the stage.

Joe Frazier, one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, died in November in the same week that one of the greatest lighter-weight fighters of all time, Manny Pacquiao, prepared to meet his nemesis, Juan Manuel Marquez. Smokin’ Joe was joined shortly afterward by another of the great crop of 1970s heavyweights, Ron Lyle, whose slugfest with George Foreman was the first fight at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and remains one of the best.

And now, we have lost two heavyweights among trainers, with the passing of Goody Petronelli and Angelo Dundee.

Petronelli helped steer, at various times, the careers of fighters such as former middleweight and super middleweight Steve Collins, and unlikely Mike Tyson conqueror Kevin McBride. But, with his brother Pat he was best known for managing and training Marvelous Marvin Hagler, one of the very best middleweights ever to lace up the gloves (and one of the best southpaws to do so, which was directly attributable to Petronelli, who took the naturally right-handed fighter and turned him lefty). Hagler earned a middleweight shot later than he should have done – as Petronelli lamented, Hagler’s problem was that he was left-handed, black and good – and when his opportunity finally arrived, against Vito Antuofermo in November 1979, he had to be content with a draw. Ten months later, his turn came again, against new champion Alan Minter, and this time he would not leave his fate in the hands of the judges. Hagler bloodied Minter’s face over three rounds to annex the middleweight crown, a title he kept until he lost it in the final contest of his career, on April 6 1987.

His opponent in that fight was Sugar Ray Leonard, and Leonard’s trainer on that night, as throughout his career, was Angelo Dundee. If Petronelli was especially famed for his involvement with one great fighter, Dundee was forever celebrated for training two – Leonard and, before him, Muhammad Ali. When both had retired, he steered the second career of George Foreman, and was in his corner when Foreman shocked Michael Moorer and the world in 1994.

Hagler described Petronelli, a gentle and universally-loved figure, as an “unbelievably great human being”; much the same has been said repeatedly of Dundee, and with good reason. To speak with Dundee, even as he approached 90, was to speak with a man of genuine humility who seemed forever surprised and grateful that anybody would want to hear what he had to say. He loved boxing and everyone associated with it, and would not hesitate to help anybody – fighter, writer, trainer or spit-bucket carrier – who needed or wanted assistance or advice.

Twenty-five years after working in opposite corners, Petronelli and Dundee were united again, Petronelli leaving us on January 29 and Dundee passing away three days later. The world of boxing mourns their departure, but their achievements and their gentle personalities shall not soon be forgotten.

Larry Merchant Remembers Joe Frazier

By Kieran Mulvaney

Former heavyweight champion and Hall-of-Famer Joe Frazier died on Monday night, age 67. InsideHBOBoxing’s Kieran Mulvaney spoke to HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant, who began his career as a Philadelphia newspaperman, for his thoughts and recollections on the man who was surely the greatest fighter ever to come out of the City of Brotherly Love:

Joe Frazier was simply a terrific fighter. He fought in an all-out, aggressive, everything-on-the-line, pressure style that is rarely as successful as he was with it, at the level to which he brought it. Only two previous heavyweight champions, Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano, were as successful in that style, because it’s the hardest style to be successful with. Basically you’re putting your will, your nerve and whatever else you bring in terms of skill against another man’s, and taking the kind of enormous risks that invite disaster. You have to be able to walk through the fire to beat elite opponents. He was one of the rare ones who could do it.

Certainly, a reason he fought that way was his physical stature. I think it’s fair to say that how a man is made physically is a major part of how he fights. Dempsey and Marciano weighed between 180 and 190 pounds, and he fought in the low 200s at a time when heavyweights were getting bigger. He was relatively short, and to be successful, he had to fight in the hardest way there is to fight. Those kinds of fighters, especially when they are successful, are greatly admired. They take the biggest risks and they create the most excitement and drama. It’s a rare ability to be able to dedicate yourself in a way to be able to fight that way, to be able to take the punishment and keep going.

I have always likened fighting Joe Frazier to having an argument with someone who won’t stop talking. How do you answer? How do you reply? You’re on the defensive all the time. In the ring, the instinct for self-preservation often kicks in. When he fought Ali the first time, I called him ‘The Truth Machine.’ He would find out the truth about you, what you really had inside of you. If you were a boxer, did you also have the intestinal fortitude to stay in there with that man and try to cope with this force coming at you? If you were a puncher, were you able to trade shots with him and see who the better man was in that regard?

I would not have remembered this, but someone called me today and read me the lede I had written for the Ali-Frazier fight: “You can’t con Joe Frazier. He won’t allow it.” And if you couldn’t con Joe, Joe also wouldn’t try to con you. I said Joe was a truth machine, and that was the case outside the ring too. He basically told the truth about the way he felt about Ali, whatever the reasons were that he had those feelings. But everyone knew him as a good guy, as much as we can get to know a public figure.

I always thought of him as this fellow whose parents were sharecroppers, who came out of the poorest farm community, and who understood that you reap what you sow in terms of the effort you put into things. He came to Philadelphia to be a fighter, as many others – including, at some point, Ali, did – to learn his craft, and he learned it well.

Somebody once asked me: What would have happened if Frazier fought Mike Tyson? Because Tyson was a guy who tried to fight that same way as Frazier did. And I said the difference between them was that Mike Tyson was a mile wide and an inch deep, whereas Frazier was a mile wide and a mile deep. It seemed that Joe Frazier had a bottomless reservoir of courage, determination and will.