BOXING GERALDINE: THE GO-TO-GAL OF
THE WORLD'S HEAVYWEIGHT
CHAMPIONS OF THE RING
The Story of How One Woman 'Fluked' Into the Macho World of
International Boxing
Geraldine Davies: International Boxing Events Queen
In the heavyweight world of boxing that is dominated
by men, driven by ability and fuelled with the mega millions of international
money, one woman stands large, larger than her 5’ 2” frame and she is known by
just the one name; GERALDINE.
A chance assignment that was given her decades ago
when she began a career as a booking agent in the travel industry found her
within months carving out a unique role for herself as international tour and
events manager ferrying big paying boxing enthusiasts from Europe and the UK
over to the USA boxing capitals of New York, Los Angeles and, of course Las
Vegas.
As her place in the industry grew more solid, Geraldine
became a promoter handling young fighters and staging bouts in a time when no
other woman on the planet thought to do the same or could ever manage to try.
But her role in the sport as a spectator tour manager
grew, evolved and propelled her even deeper into the middle of the boxing
industry and nose-to-nose with the true champions of the ring and
shoulder-to-shoulder with the powerhouses that train, represent and manage
these celebrated sportsmen.
Her behind the scene stories are legendary and her up
front knowledge of what makes the men of boxing tick is exemplary. I undertook
a series of meetings with her on behalf of pleasureseeker.me to learn what had
made names like Lennox Lewis, Nigel Benn and Michael Watson say…"Go to Geraldine, she’ll
sort it all out.”
Geraldine & Champ Mike Watson
PJ: Geraldine,
you have one of those jobs that you more or less created yourself and at the
beginning only you could do it because it changed and grew as you went along in
the boxing world. How long have you been in the industry and how exactly did
you sort of ‘fluke’ into it?
GERALDINE: I’ve
been involved in the world of boxing since 1977. I was working for a travel
agency at the time, Panorama, in
Brighton. We serviced corporate companies. My MD came to me one day, I’d just
had my first child and not yet returned to full time work, and he asked, “Would you like to do a couple of days work a
week?” I said, “Yeah, that would be
nice. Doing what?”
He said, “Boxing!”
I said, “What? What do you mean ‘boxing’?”
Well we had been approached by Boxing News, the bible of the boxing industry, a comprehensive in-depth
trade newspaper with interviews and all that. The editor wanted to book a Vegas
or a New York tour to watch a bout in exchange for free advertisements for
Panorama in his newspaper, a contra deal. I put the tour together, we got the
advertising and it put us on the boxing map. We cornered this niche market of
UK fans. This just expanded and eventually I went to Marcel Natz, the editor of
Germany’s Boxing News, there are a huge amount of boxing fans there, and I
gained hundreds more German clients with a similar contra deal.
PJ: So you used
your initiative to grow your market and it just took off?
GERALDINE: Boxing was going sky high. There were lots
of Vegas fights at that time and lots of charismatic fighters and promoters. It
was show biz. A promoter named Bob Arum, who got into boxing around 1965, was
becoming a big name to rival that of Don King. Bob founded Top Rank Inc., the huge boxing promotion corporation. Bob’s
background wasn’t boxing. He had been an Attorney with the United States Department
of Justice. He’d been an associate of Bobby Kennedy. He has the most
interesting perspective on the events surrounding both Kennedy assassinations. Bob
and I have become good friends over the years. He started out in a totally
different career too
By the time we got to be friends Bob had all the top
names; Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard. They were
magnificent middleweights at that time. We had our guys; Nigel Benn, Michael
Watson, Chris Eubank and so on. There was great showmanship and fans wanted to
be a part of it all. There were big fights 4 times a year. I would put together
the fans’ tour package and fly them out. I would buy fight tickets from Bob. I
had people from all over the UK, just everywhere, and the Germans. That went on
for a number of years and although boxing is a huge big dollar business it’s a
small world within the boxing fraternity and I got to know a lot of the
trainers, fighters and promoters, like Bob Arum, well.
I had dinner with Bob and Freddie Roach a few years
ago. If you don’t know Freddie, he’s got the gym Wild Card out on Hollywood and
Vine in LA and is a hugely respected trainer of great champions. Mickey Rourke
trained under Freddie when he decided to return to boxing in 1991 and donated
equipment to Wild Card. So the three of
us are having dinner and Bob says, “Geraldine
you don’t know something.” I said, “What?”
He says, “You were the first person ever
from the UK to buy tickets for my fights!”
The Promoters
Bob Arum
Don King
PJ: Any
particular memories about breaking into this world of boxing tours and events
promotions?
GERALDINE: At that time the promoter Mickey Duff and
trainer Terry Lawless were handling Frank Bruno. I called round to Duff’s
offices on Wardour Street in London. They had one of those spy-holes in the
door. It was like, “Who are you?” If
they didn’t know you they’d slide it shut and you didn’t get in. Mickey Duff came
into the game as a fighter.
He eventually became a promoter. At that time the
biggest UK promoter, known as ‘the
biggest promoter in history’ was Jack Solomons. Bruno was fighting Tyson
out in Vegas and Mickey was running his tours out there. I managed to get Mickey to let me come along
to one of his events in London and I came along with a load of leaflets for my
tours. He was like, “Geraldine, you’re
wasting your time handing out your leaflets at my event but go ahead.”
In the end he signed a phenomenal amount of people that
night and I signed about 250 for my tour. This staffer of his comes up and
tries to goad me about my smaller number saying Mickey had over 1,000 people
and I said, “So, that’s good but you know
what? Mickey’s got more overheads!”
PJ: You did some
direct promoting of fighters and bouts too. That made you a very rare thing; a
woman with an up front role in UK and even US boxing.
GERALDINE: Yes, I suppose it did. I never thought
about it that way. I promoted a large number of young fighters for a while and
the promotions were in cities like Wolverhampton, Birmingham or Telford. One notable fighter of mine was Richie
Woodhall who of course is now a sports broadcaster and commentator. I was given
some flyers from those early days and you asked me to find them didn’t you?
Well I can’t find them!
Richie Woodall
PJ: Did you
encounter any difficulty as a woman in the field of boxing?
GERALDINE: No. Actually I don’t recall any issues.
People, the guys, just knew me as Geraldine doing a job. There was no pushback
in my case anyway. Not when I was a promoter or in any of my subsequent
activities in the business. Even to this day with my company GDI Management people will say “Oh, here’s Geraldine, she’ll know how to do
that.” So nowadays in London I’m in demand to help them build everything
from support events, fund raisers, black tie nights and meet and greets, you
name it. I never held back. I was always ‘just there’, just there in amongst it
all. I still am but no longer heading the tour elements. The new behind the scenes faces don’t know
what I do or have done but they know that I’m Geraldine.
PJ: Your tours
became legendary and there was so much more than boxing laid on. Tell us a bit
more about how they ran.
GERALDINE: Well they grew in size and in complication
especially when I had the fighters’ accommodation/transport/press to manage too.
I’d put them in a separate hotel so
they’d have that time to get into the zone without interruption from fans. Not
always easy to do so I’d structure the tours on different price tariffs. So the
top end price might be in the same hotel as the fighter but the majority were
in more affordable hotels. I always lost weight in Vegas running between all
the hotels seeing to everyone’s needs. After all was done I’d sometimes get
calls at 3AM or something from one fighter or another about event details that would
be on their mind. I was on call around the clock.
I would take clients out to key gyms to tour them and
see the fighters doing light training, skipping routines, bag training that
sort of thing. They got to experience the atmosphere where the big names trained
and see behind the scenes at the venues like the LA Coliseum where some fights
were to be staged. I’d throw in some film buff tour stuff too. We’d usually
stay at the Ambassador Hotel, sadly
no longer there; it had the Coconut Grove
Club. It was where Bobby Kennedy was shot. The Brown Derby restaurant was right next door. I’d give them all
that sort of thing.
In Vegas I’d take them to a real old spit and sawdust
gym called Johnny Tocco’s but I
couldn’t go in there. Women weren’t allowed. They had bars on the window
because it was in a bad part of town. Most gyms were. I’d have to look through
the bars. It was rough and ready and fans loved it!
At Caesars Palace they had a pavilion where all the
big fighters like Hagler specifically, but also Alan Minter from the UK, used
to do a public workout for fans. Bo Derek the actress was a big fight fan and
she’d turn up at these training sessions. The fans would pay 5 dollars to go
and watch the fighters put on a show for them. Hagler would do his skipping
routine to Sweet Georgia Brown, he
was so laid back. There would be shadow boxing, light sparring and again bag
work. These were some of the things I added to my tours for fans. The boxers
loved it too. It brought them together with their fans. I’d invite retired
boxing greats to come and do meet and greets and pose for pictures with the
fans and sign autographs. I’d get Bob Foster and Jake La Motta to come down. I
also laid on tickets to the shows with Elvis and Sinatra and the rest of the
Rat Pack. I’d have Nigel Benn there making it even more spectacular for UK
fans.
I’d even arrange meet and greet lunches and audience
Q&A’s with the fighters like Jim Watt and UK fight commentators that
travelled out too. So the fans could get insider knowledge of the fighters and
insights on the fights from pundits of the day like ITV’s Reg Gutteridge, Jim
Rosenthal and Sky’s Gary Norman. I included everybody.
PJ: A veritable
Disney World meets Vegas for fight fans. Did you enjoy these excursions too?
GERALDINE: All the way. I loved the shows and I loved
to see the enjoyment both fans and boxers were getting. There were events too
like when the German fighter Max Schmeling had his 80TH birthday out
in Vegas. Nigel and I were invited and Tyson was there, Bob (Arum) too. Big Vegas
headliners would attend socials like this and I’d get to meet them along with a
few of my select big ticket fans. It was a really big deal for them. This sort
of mixing and PR was great for my business as a whole as it was also for the
hotels and the entertainers.
Of course the fight nights were spectacular too. In
Vegas Caesars Palace was the doyenne venue for fight nights seating about
16,000. On the night they’d lay a red carpet from curb side on the Strip
through the casino out to the back where the fight was. Sinatra would arrive
along that carpet surrounded by friends and minders. In the 80’s talents like Billy
Crystal and Tom Cruise would be seated ringside and in the 90’s I’d now be
seeing names like Samuel L. Jackson, Jack Nicholson, Denzel Washington, Meg
Ryan, Liam Neeson…all these A List fight enthusiast would come pouring in to
fixtures . Sometimes it would just be surreal. I’d think, ‘Geraldine, are you in a movie fan magazine or something?’ It would
be packed with Hollywood and I’d be working that room. It would be frenetic and
stressful.
I remember, especially in the 80’s, there would be
these amazing pimps and their working girls showing up. In the daytime these
girls would be arrested on the Strip, bailed by the end of the day and turn up
looking like supermodels in the most fantastic gowns looking even more like
stars than the real stars. It was pure performance!
PJ: So, Fight
Nights, Film Stars, Frank and floozies?
GERALDINE: Absolutely! Actually I used to lay on
weekends for certain clients to Nevada’s famous Chicken Ranch where that sort of thing is perfectly legal. I’d
arrange helicopter and limousines to ferry them out into the desert. Speaking
of deserts, one German client, against all warnings, decided to go explore
Death Valley and promptly got lost. Three days later everyone was frantically
looking for him and a Sherriff rode out, on horseback or in a car, I never
knew, and found this man eventually on the day before we were all to fly
out. Things weren’t always straight
forward.
PJ: What sort of
clients did you book on your tours then?
GERALDINE: All sorts. Big business men, taxi cab
drivers, hoteliers, famous gangsters. I had one regular client who owned all
the prostitutes in Hamburg’s Reeperbahn District. There were women sometimes,
wives and girlfriends who came out but not for the fights necessarily. For them
I would arrange all the best shopping tours in whatever city.
Ricky Hatton with Geraldine
PJ: Did you make
any female friends in your career in the male dominated arena?
GERALDINE: Bob Arum’s PA. Pat Rizzo. She was from
Brooklyn. I’d go in to see her when I arrived in Vegas to sort out my ticket
allocation. She spoke hard Brooklynese. I’d
walk in the office and she’d greet me, “Siddown, I’m busy! Siddown! So what
d’you want today, the tickets?”
I’d say, “You’re so effing rude!”
She’d say, “Yeah, but you’re English! But I love you
English but you know what I really love? Shortbread!”
So I said, “So are you going to be my best friend if I
bring you shortbread?”
“YES!” She squawked.
We always got on well.
PJ: Any regrets?
GERALDINE: Frank.
PJ: Sinatra?
GERALDINE: Yes. I was at a Jerry Cooney fight. Frank
arrived along that red carpet. The crowds went wild. I was yelling, “Frank! Frank!” He didn’t hear me, even
see me. I wasn’t ring side I was way up on in the stands but I thought, ‘Hey, not a problem.’ I knew I had two gold dust tickets to his
private party after the fight and I’d have his attention then. He only went and
cancelled the party at the last minute because of a sore throat. I was
devastated!
PJ: Whoopsie! Sorry!
And today, what sort of work do you carry out in the boxing world?
GRALDINE: I micro manage industry talent now. I’ve
stepped back a bit. I’m working with Champion Heavyweight Boxer, Scott Welch currently
on a few fight projects. I have several high profile campaigns of my own that
I’m building to do with boxing and some musical entertainment. I’m a big music
fan. I’m still friends with all the
fighters and especially Lennox Lewis and Ricky Hatton who I still work with and
Audley Harrison. I’m enjoying my friendship with and watching the growing
career of Anthony Joshua. I’m still very proud of the episode whereby I got a
recovered Michael Watson to walk the London Marathon. He had recovered from the
almost tragic fight with Chris Eubank that left him with severe head injuries.
We wanted his fans to see that he was not wheelchair bound and I created a
media blitz around him and the Marathon. This was back in 2003. The funny part
is that he was last to leave the starting point. Organisers removed route
barricades as the last runners, who set out before us, passed by them which
left us with no visible signs of what route to follow and Scotland Yard had to
scramble a helicopter for us. We heard “Look
up! Look up!” and they were above our heads and guided us back on course.
Geraldine Davies runs the UK based GDI Management and
functions in Personal Representation, Events Management, Media Liaison and
Public Relations.
IMAGE: TIM C. RICHARDSON
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