Promoter, manager and matchmaker who was one of the most influential figures in British boxing
For the better part of three decades, the boxing promoter, manager and matchmaker Mickey Duff, who has died aged 84, was one of the most powerful and influential figures within British boxing, earning respect across the world for the depth of his knowledge, his business acumen, and an ability to develop the fighters whose careers he steered.
Duff could claim to have had a direct influence on the successes of 19 world champions, many of them winning the honour before the proliferation of world governing bodies diminished the achievement of being a title holder. With his business partners, Harry Levene, Jarvis Astaire, Mike Barrett and Terry Lawless, Duff was the British sport's dominant figure before the emergence of Frank Warren as a genuine rival in the 1980s.
His years of pre-eminence earned Duff considerable financial rewards and, before failing health limited his public outings in his last years, he loved nothing more than spending time with friends over a meal, regaling them with colourful anecdotes of his experiences. As he always said: "If I had my life again, I would do exactly the same."
The son of a rabbi who also owned a dairy shop, he was born Monek Prager into a Hassidic Jewish family in Tarnów, a small Polish town near Kraków. His first language was Yiddish. With the growing danger posed by the antisemitic government of Nazi Germany, in 1937 his father fled to Britain, followed a year later by his wife and two children.
The family settled in the East End of London and Duff recalled sleeping in Whitechapel tube station at the height of the blitz. At the age of 11, he was sent to a Jewish religious college in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. Four months later, it was already clear he was ill-suited to training for rabbinical qualifications and he was back in the East End, where he soon shared the area's passion for boxing.
He began training in boxing gyms, entranced by stories of East End Jewish boxing heroes such as Jack "Kid" Berg and quickly showed some ability as a fighter. His parents disapproved of the sport, and it was around then that young Mickey Prager, as he had become known, assumed the ring name Mickey Duff. The pseudonym was taken from a character played by Jimmy Cagney in a film at the time. Needing parental or school permission to enter the London Schoolboy Championships, he got a friend to forge a letter from his school allowing him to fight. He lied about his age to enter paid contests when he was just 15.
"I hit and I ran," said Duff in his autobiography, Twenty and Out (1999), describing his fighting style. "As a matchmaker I would never have booked myself." At 19, although he had lost only eight of his 69 contests, he realised he would never reach the top and decided to quit to become a matchmaker and later a manager.
Duff managed "Dashing, Bashing, Crashing Terry Downes" to the world middleweight title in 1961, when the hugely popular Londoner defeated the American Paul Pender. And he linked up with Levene and Astaire as genuine rivals to the leading post-war British promoter Jack Solomons, staging numerous sell-out shows at the Empire Pool, Wembley (now Wembley Arena), featuring boxers such as Downes, Henry Cooper and Billy Walker.
By 1966, they could be viewed as the sport's major players in Britain, when Muhammad Ali defended his world heavyweight title against Cooper in front of more than 40,000 spectators on a Levene, Astaire and Duff show at Arsenal's Highbury football ground. "It took us into the big league, where we stayed for three decades," said Duff.
Any student of boxing would confirm that a ruthless streak and genuine toughness are essential in the successful promoter. Duff had both, once banning the Kray twins from the opening night of the Anglo-American Sporting Club at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, where he and Astaire staged exclusive dinner shows for almost 20 years.
Lloyd Honeyghan, one of Duff's greatest champions, who defeated the outstanding Donald Curry in Atlantic City in 1986 to become undisputed world welterweight champion, said of Duff: "Mickey and I don't mix outside boxing. He looks at me as a pawn, a commodity. I don't like him." It was an observation that brought a withering riposte from Duff, who replied: "Fortunately, there's nothing in our contract that says we have to like each other." Duff could be confrontational and irascible, genuinely funny, but never dull.
Duff rated the former WBC light-heavyweight champion John Conteh as the best fighter with whom he had been associated, and he unquestionably had a soft spot for the gently spoken Duke McKenzie, who won world titles under his management at three weights. "He was a very good professional all through his career and a treat to manage," said Duff. McKenzie stayed loyal, telephoning Duff and speaking to him of their great nights, even when his old boss, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, could remember little of the detail.
Duff also played a key part in Frank Bruno's career. Although Lawless and George Francis were the big man's trainers, and he would ultimately win the world title at the fourth attempt on a bill promoted by Warren in 1995, Duff and Astaire clinched the deal for Bruno's first failed title shot against Tim Witherspoon in 1986, and Duff's close friendship with Mike Tyson's co-manager Jim Jacobs helped bring Bruno his second try in Las Vegas in 1989.
A huge gambler, Duff loved Vegas. From the 1970s onwards, he was paid by Caesar's Palace, his favourite casino, to act as their boxing consultant. He admitted that one reckless night on the tables, he lost $225,000, and as part of a deal done behind the scenes to strike off his massive debt, Joe Bugner went to fight Ali in Vegas. Duff would boast that he stayed ahead of the bookies on his boxing bets. His greatest win came when Sugar Ray Leonard confounded the odds to defeat Marvin Hagler in 1987. Wagering $200,000 on a Leonard victory with a Vegas casino, Duff won $275,000.
A long alliance between Duff, Astaire, Lawless and Barrett – a promoter who had exclusive rights to the Royal Albert Hall, and who came into their profit-sharing group when the aged Levene faded from the scene – saw them all acquire considerable wealth, with their shows normally broadcast exclusively by the BBC. Duff undertook an extraordinary work schedule and at one point claimed to be travelling around 500,000 miles a year.
In private, he stated that, as a result, he had failed as a husband: "I was away too much." He and his wife, Marie, whom he married in 1951, split in the mid 1990s (although they never divorced) and Duff then lived with his partner, Gloria Field.
He is survived by Gloria, a son, Gary, and two grandchildren.
• Mickey Duff (Monek Prager), boxing promoter, born 7 June 1929; died 22 March 2014 Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.
For the better part of three decades, the boxing promoter, manager and matchmaker Mickey Duff, who has died aged 84, was one of the most powerful and influential figures within British boxing, earning respect across the world for the depth of his knowledge, his business acumen, and an ability to develop the fighters whose careers he steered.
Duff could claim to have had a direct influence on the successes of 19 world champions, many of them winning the honour before the proliferation of world governing bodies diminished the achievement of being a title holder. With his business partners, Harry Levene, Jarvis Astaire, Mike Barrett and Terry Lawless, Duff was the British sport's dominant figure before the emergence of Frank Warren as a genuine rival in the 1980s.
His years of pre-eminence earned Duff considerable financial rewards and, before failing health limited his public outings in his last years, he loved nothing more than spending time with friends over a meal, regaling them with colourful anecdotes of his experiences. As he always said: "If I had my life again, I would do exactly the same."
The son of a rabbi who also owned a dairy shop, he was born Monek Prager into a Hassidic Jewish family in Tarnów, a small Polish town near Kraków. His first language was Yiddish. With the growing danger posed by the antisemitic government of Nazi Germany, in 1937 his father fled to Britain, followed a year later by his wife and two children.
The family settled in the East End of London and Duff recalled sleeping in Whitechapel tube station at the height of the blitz. At the age of 11, he was sent to a Jewish religious college in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. Four months later, it was already clear he was ill-suited to training for rabbinical qualifications and he was back in the East End, where he soon shared the area's passion for boxing.
He began training in boxing gyms, entranced by stories of East End Jewish boxing heroes such as Jack "Kid" Berg and quickly showed some ability as a fighter. His parents disapproved of the sport, and it was around then that young Mickey Prager, as he had become known, assumed the ring name Mickey Duff. The pseudonym was taken from a character played by Jimmy Cagney in a film at the time. Needing parental or school permission to enter the London Schoolboy Championships, he got a friend to forge a letter from his school allowing him to fight. He lied about his age to enter paid contests when he was just 15.
"I hit and I ran," said Duff in his autobiography, Twenty and Out (1999), describing his fighting style. "As a matchmaker I would never have booked myself." At 19, although he had lost only eight of his 69 contests, he realised he would never reach the top and decided to quit to become a matchmaker and later a manager.
Duff managed "Dashing, Bashing, Crashing Terry Downes" to the world middleweight title in 1961, when the hugely popular Londoner defeated the American Paul Pender. And he linked up with Levene and Astaire as genuine rivals to the leading post-war British promoter Jack Solomons, staging numerous sell-out shows at the Empire Pool, Wembley (now Wembley Arena), featuring boxers such as Downes, Henry Cooper and Billy Walker.
By 1966, they could be viewed as the sport's major players in Britain, when Muhammad Ali defended his world heavyweight title against Cooper in front of more than 40,000 spectators on a Levene, Astaire and Duff show at Arsenal's Highbury football ground. "It took us into the big league, where we stayed for three decades," said Duff.
Any student of boxing would confirm that a ruthless streak and genuine toughness are essential in the successful promoter. Duff had both, once banning the Kray twins from the opening night of the Anglo-American Sporting Club at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, where he and Astaire staged exclusive dinner shows for almost 20 years.
Lloyd Honeyghan, one of Duff's greatest champions, who defeated the outstanding Donald Curry in Atlantic City in 1986 to become undisputed world welterweight champion, said of Duff: "Mickey and I don't mix outside boxing. He looks at me as a pawn, a commodity. I don't like him." It was an observation that brought a withering riposte from Duff, who replied: "Fortunately, there's nothing in our contract that says we have to like each other." Duff could be confrontational and irascible, genuinely funny, but never dull.
Duff rated the former WBC light-heavyweight champion John Conteh as the best fighter with whom he had been associated, and he unquestionably had a soft spot for the gently spoken Duke McKenzie, who won world titles under his management at three weights. "He was a very good professional all through his career and a treat to manage," said Duff. McKenzie stayed loyal, telephoning Duff and speaking to him of their great nights, even when his old boss, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, could remember little of the detail.
Duff also played a key part in Frank Bruno's career. Although Lawless and George Francis were the big man's trainers, and he would ultimately win the world title at the fourth attempt on a bill promoted by Warren in 1995, Duff and Astaire clinched the deal for Bruno's first failed title shot against Tim Witherspoon in 1986, and Duff's close friendship with Mike Tyson's co-manager Jim Jacobs helped bring Bruno his second try in Las Vegas in 1989.
A huge gambler, Duff loved Vegas. From the 1970s onwards, he was paid by Caesar's Palace, his favourite casino, to act as their boxing consultant. He admitted that one reckless night on the tables, he lost $225,000, and as part of a deal done behind the scenes to strike off his massive debt, Joe Bugner went to fight Ali in Vegas. Duff would boast that he stayed ahead of the bookies on his boxing bets. His greatest win came when Sugar Ray Leonard confounded the odds to defeat Marvin Hagler in 1987. Wagering $200,000 on a Leonard victory with a Vegas casino, Duff won $275,000.
A long alliance between Duff, Astaire, Lawless and Barrett – a promoter who had exclusive rights to the Royal Albert Hall, and who came into their profit-sharing group when the aged Levene faded from the scene – saw them all acquire considerable wealth, with their shows normally broadcast exclusively by the BBC. Duff undertook an extraordinary work schedule and at one point claimed to be travelling around 500,000 miles a year.
In private, he stated that, as a result, he had failed as a husband: "I was away too much." He and his wife, Marie, whom he married in 1951, split in the mid 1990s (although they never divorced) and Duff then lived with his partner, Gloria Field.
He is survived by Gloria, a son, Gary, and two grandchildren.
• Mickey Duff (Monek Prager), boxing promoter, born 7 June 1929; died 22 March 2014 Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.