Michael Katz, renowned Daily News boxing writer, dead at 86

Michael Katz wasn’t 1 to sugarcoat things.

Not successful existent life, and not successful his writing.

Even those who loved Katz described him arsenic a curmudgeon whose feistiness fueled his larger-than-life personality.

Those qualities served Katz good during his decades-long tally arsenic 1 of the country’s premier boxing journalists.

Katz, whose Hall of Fame vocation included 15 years with the Daily News, died this week astatine property 86, leaving down a bequest that featured tireless sum of all-time greats including Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Larry Holmes.

“In an epoch erstwhile sports was controlling the entree to players and managers and coaches, boxing was the chaotic west,” said Daily News sports media columnist Bob Raissman, who covered boxing with Katz during the 1990s.

“You could locomotion up to idiosyncratic and beryllium down and speech to fighters. I curse this worked retired for Katz, due to the fact that helium was a feline that you wanted to speech to. Fighters would beryllium down with him, and he’d get to cognize astir their idiosyncratic lives.”

Michael Katz, New York Daily News sports reporter, is pictured astatine his table successful 1995. (New York Daily News)

Born successful the Bronx, Katz got his commencement arsenic a stringer with The New York Times, paying his dues during the aboriginal 1960s earlier moving to the newspaper’s sports desk. He held galore jobs astatine the Times, including arsenic their planetary edition’s sports editor, earlier becoming a full-time boxing writer successful 1979.

In 1985, Daily News sports exertion Vic Ziegel hired Katz distant from the Times — a coup truthful important that it warranted a commercial.

“He was the everyman,” recalled Tony Paige, a longtime WFAN big and boxing commentator, who was the Boxing Writers Association of America’s president from 1993-96.

“Whether you were a hot-shot promoter with millions of dollars connected the enactment oregon conscionable Joe Blow from the Bronx oregon Brooklyn, everybody work him due to the fact that helium was informative and it was stylistic.”

Katz remained a must-read writer with The News, wherever helium started arsenic a wide sports columnist earlier shifting his absorption backmost to boxing.

His enactment stood retired during a aureate epoch of boxing successful which newspapers successful New York and beyond competed for stories, devoting important resources to their coverage.

“He loved the fighters, but helium would look retired for them successful his ain mode portion helium wrote astir the promoters and the atrocious deals progressive successful boxing,” Raissman said.

But Katz, whose beret and cervix brace gave him a distinctive look, wasn’t lone a fearless reporter. He was an adept writer, too, whose Times inheritance served him good during his tabloid battles arsenic a Daily Newser.

“Boxing is the toughest deadline successful sports journalism,” Raissman said. “You would get these fights that would commencement astatine 11 o’clock New York time, and that was evidently earlier the internet.

“You’d person to person it successful for your last [edition] by 1 successful the morning. You’d ever person to constitute portion the combat was going on. It was truthful hard to do, and helium was penning the main story, which sometimes could beryllium anyplace from 500 to 1,000 words, and helium would marque that s–t sing connected deadline. I was astir apt the astir amazed by that portion of his work.”

Katz near The News successful 2000 for HouseofBoxing.com, a website that would aboriginal crook into MaxBoxing.com. It was a bold determination for a paper stalwart during the aboriginal stages of the internet.

But everything astir Katz’s vocation was bold. In 2012, helium was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

“In a concern of curmudgeons and contrarians, helium was the king,” Raissman said. “He was the king of them each due to the fact that helium covered 1 of the astir corrupt sports successful the world. It inactive goes connected today, but helium covered it with passion, with heart.”