Ring Magazine
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Ring Magazine is a boxing magazine that was first published in 1922.
Ring Magazine, first edited by hall of famer Nat Fleischer, has opened boxing scandals, helped make unknown fighters famous worldwide and covered boxing's biggest events of all time.
In 1977, three international versions of the magazine came out. One, the Spanish version, was named The Ring En Espanol and was published from Venezuela and distributed around all Spanish speaking countries and the United States until 1985. There was also a Japanese version published in Tokyo and a French version published in Paris.
Also in 1977, boxer Cathy Cat Davis became the first and only female ever so far on a cover of Ring Magazine.
The magazine was taken over by flamboyant publisher Bert Randolph Sugar in 1979, who hired Randy Gordon — who would go on later that decade to become New York's boxing commissioner — as his editor-in-chief. Together, over the next five years, they put together what is still regarded by many readers as the finest Ring Magazines the sporting world has yet to see. By 1985, both Sugar and Gordon had moved on, then watched from the sidelines as The Ring nearly went bankrupt in 1989, causing the magazine to be taken off-stands. It rebounded in 1992 and has been on a healthy run to supermarket stands and magazine establishments around the world ever since.
It can be said that Ring Magazine is as classic a magazine as such others like Time Magazine, People, Sports Illustrated, Tiger Beat and Popular Mechanics.
Among other boxers, some of the boxers featured on the magazine covers have included Jack Dempsey, Max Schmeling, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali, Alexis Arguello, Wilfredo Benitez, Wilfredo Gomez, Roberto Duran, Larry Holmes, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Julio Cesar Chavez, Félix Trinidad, and Oscar De La Hoya.
Ring magazine is published by London Publications, which also publishes sister magazines KO Magazine and World Boxing, once stubborn Ring Magazine competitors themselves.
In 2002, The Ring attempted to clear up the confusion regarding world champions by creating a championship policy. It echoes many critics' arguments that the sanctioning bodies that control the championships in boxing had undermined the sport because of undeserving contenders fighting undeserving champions, and forcing the boxing public to see mismatches for a "so-called" championship. It attempts to be more authoritative and open than the sanctioning bodies's rankings, with a page devoted to full explanations for ranking changes. While this has pleased some, critics claim that Ring championships are just opinions, and that a journalistic institution shouldn't be "making the news" of who is champion.
Thus far, the wider press has made little note of the Ring's policy.