Jackie Kallen Q&A: ‘There Are Some Wonderful People in Boxing’ (Part 2)

Jackie Kallen, the pioneering female boxing manager who will be inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame later this week, recently spoke to BoxingScene about her remarkable journey in the sport. Reflecting on her late but significant recognition, Kallen expressed pride and humor, and shared insights from her 45-year career, the struggles of breaking into a male-dominated industry, her iconic pairing with fellow Hall of Famer James Toney and more.

Below is Part 2 of our BoxingScene Q&A with Malissa Smith. Click here to read Part 1 of the interview.

BoxingScene: Your legacy and part in boxing history are important, but you’re still in the game. In January, Mykquan Williams, the latest fighter you manage, had a sensational performance on ProBox TV, stopping Luis Feliciano. What are your thoughts on his performance?

Jackie Kallen: Yeah, I was really proud of him – more than I could say – because going into that fight, I knew that we were finding a guy who was actually signed by the promoter. So there was going to be a certain degree of expectation; Feliciano would get the nod if it was close. But I believed in Mykquan. I think he rises to the occasion, and I thought if push comes to shove, he’d pull it off. I didn’t want him to leave it to the judges, because you can’t do that. Sometimes the judges just don’t see it your way. So when you use your two fists as the judge, you can’t go wrong.

BS: You came up in Detroit during an iconic era of boxing. What are your thoughts on the current state of boxing?

JK: When you talk about boxing in Detroit and how iconic it has been – and, of course, Tommy Hearns is my best friend; we’ve been friends 45 years, and we see each other all the time. He lives close to me. We’ve shared birthdays, the births of our children and grandchildren. He’s just so special to me, and still everywhere we go in Detroit, people love him and want to come up and get pictures. But the days of the Four Kings in the ‘80s and the James Toneys in the ‘90s, I don’t think we’re going to see that again. It’s a different era. Today’s fighters don’t want to fight anybody. You’ll never see the best fight the best. We were spoiled by the fights like [Sugar Ray] Leonard-[Roberto] Duran and [Marvin] Hagler. You don’t see that anymore.

Everybody wants to protect their wins. When they say someone’s “0” has got to go, no one wants to put themselves in that position. They pad their records with a lot of meaningless wins against guys with records of 6-18 and things like that, just so they can see they’re undefeated. There’s fewer fights, obviously. There’s no more Showtime, there’s no more HBO, there’s no more ABC “Wide World of Sports,” there’s very few places where [fighters] could be seen across the board on free TV; you have to subscribe, you have to have a live stream.

So it’s harder to build a fighter and have him nationally known outside of the boxing world. It’s much, much harder. You have to be signed with the promoter. Because if you don’t have a promoter, you have to call around to get on cards. If the promoter has no interest in you financially, why would they want to fly you to their city, put you on a card, get you a win if you’re not their fighter? So every promoter has their own stable, and they use their fighters. So either you go in as an opponent or you have to sign with a specific promoter to get the number of fights you want per year and the right opponents. That’s a much different sport. But like any other business, you have to grow with the business you’re in. You have to go with the changes and adapt. Because the ‘80s and ‘90s are gone. You know, it’s a different era. So if you want to stay active in whatever business you’re in, you have to grow with the changes. So I’ve just adapted to the new boxing scene.

BS: For those that maybe don’t understand why he’s so great, how would you describe Tommy Hearns?

JK: You’d have to have been a fan back in the day, when he turned pro in 1977. Here’s a guy that knocked out his first 18 opponents. If you looked at a guy like Mike Tyson and said, “Wow, he was intimidating,” you needed to see Tommy Hearns when he gave you that staredown before the fight. You were almost defeated before you even entered the ring, because he had that look on his face like he really wants to hurt you. He defeated a lot of guys because he was just that mean. The sweetest guy out of the ring, but once he climbed through those ropes, it was a different story. Tommy was an amazing puncher as a welterweight – one of the best welterweights of all time, in my opinion. Then he went on to middleweight, junior middleweight, light heavyweight and cruiserweight. He just dominated every weight class. That’s really hard to do, like Duran did starting at lightweight, moving his way up; like [Manny] Pacquiao. There’s a few guys that are great like that, but they come very rarely. Tommy Hearns is one of those. He’s an all-time great. Most people, if asked their top 10 fighters, he’ll be in that list.

BS: And Hearns had a run at cruiserweight when he wasn’t even the same fighter that he was in his prime. Fighting at a division above his natural weight and past his prime, he was still tough to beat.

JK: That’s a great point. You’re right. He was way out of his weight class and he was still winning. That’s just raw talent and his dedication to the sport. He had such a big heart. He never asked to see a fight tape of who he was fighting. He never asked for their record. He didn’t care. He just said, “Line them up and I’ll knock him out.” That’s that attitude you don’t see much anymore. Now, with BoxRec and everything available online … we didn’t have any computers back in the day; we had no way to really know what we were getting in with. Today, you can study what a guy ate for breakfast. Back then, you just got in there and adjusted.

BS: How did it feel to have Meg Ryan play you in “Against The Ropes”?

JK: I really wasn’t thrilled with the way she portrayed me. It’s very hard to have somebody “be” you. How are you going to feel? I can’t explain it. She was younger, thinner, more famous. But I think overall, she did an OK job. I laugh at that question all the time, because it’s a weird feeling, someone being called Jackie Kallen. But it’s not you. But it’s supposed to be you. But it’s not. It’s a very weird feeling, that’s for sure.

BS: Any interesting Emanuel Steward stories to share?

JK: I have so many, because I was with Emanuel from 1977 until he passed. He opened his own restaurant for a while. So many people would come, and I said, “This is gonna be so successful,” and he hardly charged people. He was so generous. I don’t know how he ever made a dime because he was so wonderfully generous. The guys used to love to gamble. So they’d go to Emanuel’s house and they’d sit, play poker, or they’d shoot craps. He was so sweet about it. I don’t remember him ever losing as much as Tommy and the other guys, but he was just such a good man, a sweetheart of a man and a helluva good trainer. He had so many champions because he really knew how to train a fighter. I wish we had guys like that today. But, unfortunately, I don’t even know. I mean, Freddie Roach, of course, is great. But who would you say that about, to turn this around? Who do you think is the best trainer today?

BS: Training today is more about the emotion than it is about the technique. So if you can figure out how to get the most out of the fighter by saying the fewest words and capture what that moment means to the fighter, that is going to be a great coach.

JK: You just brought to mind Angelo Dundee in the Ray Leonard fight, when he said, “You’re blowing it, son.” It’s all he had to say to turn the fight right around. But I think you’re right, today’s trainers are more cheerleaders, and you cannot train every fighter the same. It’s like you have to know your fighters’ strengths and weaknesses and build on that. You can’t treat them all the same. You can’t teach the same jab to a southpaw and an orthodox fighter. You can’t teach the same style to a tall fighter as you would to a short fighter. It could be an inside fight or an outside fighter, you can be a brawler or a boxer. A good trainer is going to adjust to the style of that fighter, not just train everybody the same. And some of the trainers out there just have one style and that’s it.

BS: If you don’t say names, it’s boring. A guy like Bobby Benton stands out. Look at what he has done with O’Shaquie Foster and Regis Prograis, who fight completely differently from each other. Another is Brian “Bomac” McIntyre, who gets the most out of each fighter he trains, including Terence Crawford, one of the best in the world.

JK: That’s good. I’m glad that you’re keeping your eye on the young ones, because most people are going to go back to the Freddie Roaches and they’re gonna go back to the Eddie Mustafa [Muhammads] – the guys that have been around for a long time. And they’re certainly all still good. But I think you brought up a really good point: There’s a lot of good young ones coming up. It’s guys like you that help publicize those young guys, so I like that you’re doing the right thing by putting attention on them.

BS: In part because boxing is such a dangerous sport, it’s leaving network television and has become less relevant than ever to mainstream fans.

JK: Not to interrupt you, but I love the way you interview. You ask the right questions. That’s what’s gonna bring interest back to the sport, people like you who ask the right questions and shine a really good light on our sport. Because, look, we’re competing with MMA, which is doing great numbers compared to boxing. We’re competing with bare-knuckle [boxing] now, celebrity boxing. There’s so many different things. We never had guys like Jake Paul who were making millions of dollars. The guys that worked hard were in amateurs, through the Golden Gloves, PAL tournaments, the Olympics, and they never made what Jake Paul or Logan Paul are making. So it’s a much different business.

BS: Who was the best gym fighter you ever saw?

JK: I had a kid like that, who no one’s ever heard of. His name was Jeff Scheick. He was from Toledo. He was a middleweight. He knocked out everyone in the gym. He was like an absolute brute. I mean, I never saw a puncher like him. Then, when we got in a real fight, somehow he just lost and he was very average. But back in the gym the next day, strong as a bull. So that’s just the way it works out.

BS: Any Pinklon Thomas memories?

JK: Oh, I love Pinklon Thomas. I just saw him a few weeks ago. He was at his fight. I had him come and join me there. Pinklon, after he stopped fighting, when I started working with Bobby Hitz, I hired Pinklon as his trainer and we all went to Puerto Rico together for a fight. It was so wonderful because I had worked with him as a manager. Then all of a sudden, now he was working with me as a trainer. He’s a lovely man. Oh my gosh, Pinklon is the sweetest guy. And coming from where he came from – drug addiction and all the things that he had to go through – he’s a remarkable guy.

BS: How would Pinklon have done in this modern era of heavyweights?

JK: So hard to tell. People always say that, how would Joe Louis have done? You know, it’s so hard to tell. Because it was different, the sizes were different, their training methods were different. So it’s like comparing apples and oranges – you don’t really know. Because in his day, there weren’t that many 6-foot-6, 6-foot-7 giant kinds of guys. Just like in Joe Louis’ day, they were 185-190 pounds. So it’s so hard to compare. But like I say, as a person, they don’t come any better than Pinklon.

BS: You gave a speech in which you said, “Boxers aren’t psychopaths.” What’s the story behind that?

JK: I remember someone asked me, “How do you work with those psychos?” And I said, “They’re not all psychos.” I’ve worked with fighters that write poetry, that are dads to a lot of children, that are wonderful husbands and brothers and sisters, that have college educations. I just felt like everybody thought that these guys were all like … I hate naming names, but you look at certain boxers that have bad reputations, because they do go to jail and have domestic violence cases against them. They squandered their talent. You could probably guess which ones those are. It’s no secret. But they’re not all like that. When someone thought, how does this blonde, petite girl deal with all these psychos? I just thought, they’re not all psychos. There are some wonderful, wonderful people in boxing.