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► . — — — Loughran Says TV Will Keep Shady Element Out of Boxing Studio Supervision Could Eliminate Phony Managers And Ruthless Racketeers By JACK CUDDY United Press Sports Writer NEW YORK, N. Y., May 7.— Sleek Tommy Loughran, former light-heavyweight champion, said today that television was "the best thing that ever hapepnd to boxing" because it will eliminate the parasite managers and ruthless racketeers that infest the sport. In the lobby of the New York Athletic Club, where he lives, 48-year-old Tommy spoke with the double-barrelled authority of an ex-champion and a current television performer. Robust, brown-haired Loughran, who fought out of Philadelphia during his career of 227 professional bouts; peered into the future through an imaginary video camera and declared: "Television will revolutionize boxing." Tommy of the slightly cauliflowered left ear and starboard list of the nose, talked with the poise and broad "A" tendency of Gene Tunney during his discussion of television boxing. At 48, the man in the double-breasted brown suit explained that he coupled the profitable occupations of being a year-round Wall-Street sugar broker in New York and a winter-months emm-gee for a Philadelphia television station. May Be Staged on Studio Basis "Right now fighters and managers are worrying because television seems to be paring down the gates at big clubs like Madison Square Garden and killing off the small clubs," he said. "Well, thats true. Thats exactly what its doing. Television is bringing about great and beneficial changes." For major fights, the number of paying fans is decreasing each year, whereas, the number of television spectators is increasing by millions, -he explained. Those contrasting trends will result within a few years in big-time fights being staged on a "studio basis." At the same time, it is true that the widespread televising of fights is killing off small clubs throughout the country, he admitted. And those small clubs have been the incubators of boxing talent since the days of John L. Sullivan. Everyone has been asking, "What will replace or substitute for those small clubs as schools for professional talent?" The man who wrested the 175-pound title from Mike McTigue in 1927 and gave it up to become a heavyweight in 1929, came up with the first logical answer. He said: "The staging of bouts at small clubs will be replaced by the televising of home-town bouts by small stations. The neighborhood television of local talent will replace the small clubs. Those local bouts will be televised on a studio instead of a club basis." He emphasized that during his career he had an honest manager and no mobster connections, "but I was an exception." He declared that today most fighters must have phenagling pilots and racket-guy connections to move up. However, in a few years advertising agencies will take over the fighters as "talent" and thereby eliminate the managers and the mobsters, he predicted. And the boxers will benefit thereby getting a much larger share of their purses and by being associated throughout their careers with "decent people." CHARLIE FUSARI— New Jersey welterweight has been signed to meet Tony Janiro in a ten-round bout in either Newark or Jersey City the first week in June.
