Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You ... The Bobby Czyz Story, Part Two of Three

By Michael Swann

Bobby’s manager, Lou Duva wanted Bobby to resign a long-term contract but Bobby was mistrustful and began working on a fight to fight basis.

“Lou Duva was a master of deception,” Bobby recalled. “He was a great manager, phenomenal matchmaker, second to none. They called him the trainer of champions. He couldn’t train a dog to bark. His expertise was in managing and promoting, but not training.”

(Tommy Parks, a guard at Jamesburg Reformatory when Bobby’s father was there, was Bobby’s trainer. Parks had trained Rubin Carter and Bobby’s father liked him. Parks and Czyz worked on a handshake agreement and Tommy served as friend and trainer throughout Bobby’s career.)

In 1984, the super middleweight division was created. It was made to order for Czyz, who was having trouble making the 160 pound limit, and was physically limited with a 68” reach. The veteran Murray Sutherland was also a Duva fighter and gained the newly created IBF super middleweight belt over journeyman Ernie Singletary with a 15 round decision. Sutherland was signed to fight Korean Chong Pal Park, and Bobby was under the impression that he would get his shot against the winner.

Park knocked out Sutherland and the Duvas didn’t have options on him, and the prospect of a Czyz title fight vanished.

“He [Duva] told me that Murray Sutherland was fighting Park and I had the winner,” Bobby said. “I was upset that he lied to me. He said he wanted a contract on me or he wasn’t promoting me. So I went to [New Jersey promoter] Carlo Dee.

Along with his new promoter, Bobby also became self managed, as he would remain for the rest of his career, (although he did hire Arnie Rosenthal to be his managerial agent in 1992). He also made the move to the light heavyweight division where the talent was greater but so were the opportunities.

After eight straight wins since the loss to Hamsho, finally, at the age of 24, Bobby stopped Slobodan Kacar in five to win the IBF light heavyweight title in September 1986 at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. Kacar, an Olympic Gold Medallist in the 1980 Moscow Games for Yugoslavia entered the fight 21-0 but it was Bobby’s time and he was not to be denied.

Czyz defended the title three times in less than 14 months, all by knockout. Seemingly at the top of his game, he appeared on the cover of KO Magazine two months before he met Prince Charles Williams, his mandatory challenger, on October 29, 1987.

Bobby hurt Williams early in the fight, but apparently punched himself out. William, meanwhile got his second wind and landed a variety of accurate punches that caused Bobby’s right eye to swell progressively throughout the rest of the fight to the point that the fight was stopped after round nine. Almost 20 years later Bobby is still bitter that referee Carlos Padilla gave Williams a standing eight count after a Czyz right hand drove Williams sagging into the ropes in the third round, giving him the chance to shake the cobwebs before Bobby could follow up.

The writer Greg Smith says that Bobby’s mother was crying in the corner after the stoppage, wanting reassurance that he wasn’t seriously hurt.

The loss to Williams began an unexplained rough patch in which Czyz lost four of six fights. He lost a majority decision to former titlist Dennis Andries, won a split decision over former belt holder Leslie Stewart, scored a TKO over unheralded Mike Devito, then lost a convincing decision to WBA titlist Virgil Hill.

In June 1989, he got another shot against IBF titlist Williams and was stopped in 10 rounds in the rematch. Czyz , as always, showed heart and resolve but Williams was fast and just had Bobby’s number, the only man to stop him in the 1980’s.

Czyz announced his retirement shortly after the second Williams fight.

By March, 1990, he was back in the ring, winning three straight solid victories. Unable to get another shot at the light heavyweight title, he moved up to cruiserweight to challenge Robert Daniels for the WBA belt on March 8, 1991.

According to Bobby, Bob Arum signed him to fight Daniels for $225,000. Arum told Bobby that he would have to cut his purse to $185,000 but would give him $40,000 in tickets.

“So do you know what [Arum] does? He calls the newspapers and tells them he gave me tickets. I didn’t know that until I went to sell them and they say, ‘Well you got them for free.’ I had to tell them that I made a deal with the casinos to sell them the tickets at half price for the high rollers. So at least I got half.”

Boxing smartly, Czyz took a split decision from Daniels for his second world title. Bobby was back on top again. He defended the title twice and began doing some ringside commentary for Showtime in 1992 and all was well until Bobby was hit by a car.

The injury kept him out of action until 1994 and he was forced to give up his title.

Six months after his return, Bobby challenged David Izequire for the IBO cruiserweight title. After performing well in the first three rounds, Bobby’s back went out and the dangerous Izequire took over, flooring Czyz in the fourth. Bobby was unable to come out for the fifth round, and again retired after the fight.

Bobby seemed settled and content doing the color commentary for Showtime Championship Boxing but the competitive juices continued to flow. He returned in March 1995 as a heavyweight and won three straight fights, including a victory for the obscure WBU super cruiserweight title in December 1995.

Czyz was to fight but twice more in his career, losing by TKO to Evander Holyfield in May 1996, and then was stopped in two by future WBO titlist Corrie Sanders for the WBU heavyweight belt in June 1998.

There was considerable controversy surrounding the events in the Holyfield-Czyz fight. Despite Holyfield’s dominance in the ring, the fight was actually stopped because Czyz couldn’t see. Greg Smith reported that Bobby’s eyes appeared to be red and inflamed and that referee Ron Lipton examined Holyfield’s gloves. Bobby told Smith that the day after the fight skin peeled off his face from the forehead to the chin. Smith quotes Czyz as saying that Holyfield head butted, elbowed, forearmed him, thumbed him, and that he was a “dirty fighter.”

Against Sanders, Czyz was floored in the first round and again in the second before the fight was stopped. It was fitting that just as he called for many times from others from behind the microphone, the warrior went out on his shield.

Even today, Czyz has little respect for Holyfield, except to say that he was the “ultimate overachiever.”

“He’s just full of (it),” Bobby continued. “That bothers me. I don’t know what religion it is that says you can have 12 kids with nine different women and not be married to them and it’s okay. He’s a fraud. He was a 188 pound cruiserweight, and then he went to 218 pounds. You cannot gain 30 pounds, lose body fat, and maintain that physique without artificial enhancement. It can’t be done. Not possible. He gets a pass in the media for one simple reason - he believes in God.”

In February 2003, Czyz incurred his fourth drunken driving offense in six years. Published reports stated that he was driving over 30 MPH over the speed limit with a blood alcohol level of .14. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and lost his driver’s license for the next 20 years. He was already paying $7,000 a year in automobile insurance.

Czyz is defensive about the matter. He feels that the system wanted to make an example of him because a writer “thought he was going to expose me and some of my bad behavior and he made such a big deal out of it that the sentencing was not totally proper and they threw the book at me.”

Is Bobby Czyz an alcoholic?

“No, I just made bad decisions,” he replied. “ I went to rehab and the doctor said, ‘Based on our tests, you’re not alcoholic.’ I said, ‘No you have to diagnose me as an alcoholic or the insurance won’t pay it. It’s $6900 a week and I don’t need the aggravation either.’”

Czyz described his stay in rehab, where he was admittedly a less than exemplary inhabitant.

“I go to the rehab,” he begins. “They start telling me ‘You’re going to have this, you’re going to have that, and you’re going to shake.’ I’m bored. I can’t have a couple of glasses of wine before I go to sleep because I do have chronic insomnia. So I’m in my room doing pushups and grunting, and the nurse came flying into the room wanting to know what was wrong with me.

“They had these classes. It came back to AA and following the steps. They kept saying that when they follow the steps they give credit to God. But when they (mess) up it’s their fault. I asked them how does that work? When you stay clean God says you did good, He’s going to let the other ones (mess) up?

“I told them that I know that most of you counselors are reformed alcoholics or drug addicts. They got mad at me and pulled me down to the office. They told me, ‘These people need guidance and it works for them.’ I told them that Jesus Christ died 2000 years ago. What happened to all the people in the 5000 years before him? Did they all go to heaven by default?

“After that they kept me away from everybody and asked me not to speak about it.”

Unfortunately, the DUI charge and its aftermath apparently cost him his job at Showtime. He had continued his work there throughout the later stages of his career, and in many ways became as well known for his broadcasting as his boxing. He was, along with Jim Lampley, part of the historic Showtime-HBO collaboration that broadcast the Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight. He never hesitated to give his honest opinion, entertaining some while exasperating some power brokers in the game. But he was articulate, sharp and enthusiastic, and viewers saw him as the voice of reason and logic.

And he is bitter about his dismissal to this day.

“When they fired Ferdie Pacheco, they allowed him to retire on the air,” Czyz explained. “They’re cowards - put that in print. Showtime will let a convicted murderer promote for them but my DUI was too much publicity.

“They fired Ferdie Pacheco but gave him some dignity by letting him say goodbye on the air. Ferdie not only didn’t want to retire, but was furious when they fired him. They didn’t have the decency to let me come in to resign or bow out gracefully. They just gave me a couple of dollars and said just walk away.

“Jay Larkin [Showtime’s former Vice President of Sports and Events Programming] took me aside one day and said, ‘Firing Ferdie was one of the hardest things that I ever had to do. I hope I never have to fire you. Make sure you tow the line. We have some people in the hierarchy who don’t like you and they’re looking for a reason to get rid of you because they don’t like your personality. Jay told me that Matt Blank [Chairman and CEO of Showtime] hates my guts and didn’t want me on the air.

“After a while I got a reputation. I would say if fighter “A” is [thoroughly beating] fighter “B,” if “B” gets the decision there can only be two reasons. One, because the judges were incompetent, or two, they had an agenda and they’re frauds.

“Showtime took pride in the fact that I said those things, but when [a promoter] has an exclusive deal with Showtime and his fighter wins a fight he shouldn’t have won, I say there’s an agenda. Now Showtime looks like they’re in collusion with [the promoter]. Now it starts embarrassing them a little bit.

“People ask what the agenda is. And I say, follow the money and you’ll find the agenda.”

Czyz feels that he was blackballed.

“I was told that I wasn’t. But my agent called HBO about a job and they said, ‘Bobby is synonymous with Showtime. It just wouldn’t work.’”

Jay Larkin, contacted for a comment in relation to this article had this to say:

“Bobby has tremendous talent as an analyst. He’s a natural. Whatever his personal demons, they remain just that, personal. He has had some very tough personal breaks but he can still turn things around and be a terrific analyst. As you know, it’s a very shallow talent pool. On a personal level, I wish him nothing but the best. He has the same huge heart that he had as a fighter in those two losses to Charlie Williams.”