Thursday, March 28, 2024  |

News

Mike Tyson offers reward for stolen championship belts

Fighters Network
23
Feb
ATLANTIC CITY - JANUARY 22,1988: Mike Tyson walks to his corner after knocking out Larry Holmes in Atlantic City to retain his IBF, WBA and WBC titles. Photo by THE RING Magazine/Getty Images.

Mike Tyson walks to his corner after dropping Larry Holmes. Photo: THE RING Magazine/Getty Images.

Mike Tyson has always had a soft spot for the old-timers that came before him. That kinship was on display on Monday when Tyson’s camp posted a message on his official Facebook page offering a reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of the championship belts belonging to Tony Zale and Carmen Basilio that were stolen from the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Village of Canastota last November.

A total of six belts, five of them from THE RING Magazine, were taken, their display cases shattered in the burglary. Four of the belts belonged to Basilio, a former welterweight and middleweight champion who once beat Sugar Ray Robinson at Yankee Stadium, and two to Zale, who won the titles at middleweight and was known for his brutal trilogy with Rocky Graziano.

Steve Lott, a Tyson confidante who founded the Las Vegas Boxing Hall of Fame, said he and Tyson brainstormed ways to raise awareness of the theft and came up with the idea of offering a reward that includes autographed boxing gloves and a signed copy of Tyson’s autobiography, “Undisputed Truth.”

“I was talking to Mike about it and Mike, he’s very emotional about it, especially because it concerned these fighters,” Lott told RingTV.com in a phone interview on Monday night. “Whenever he gets a chance to see these guys, it’s always special. So we’re kicking it around and trying to come up with ideas to do something and it was his idea to do something. He’s not giving away a million dollars but he’s the first [celebrity] to say, ‘Let’s get them back.'”



Lott said he contacted Canastota Police Chief James Zophy on Monday morning before he posted the message to make sure it wouldn’t interfere with the police and FBI’s investigation, which remain ongoing. “I think part of what Mike is trying to do is to assist with generating more notoriety and trying to get more people to come forward, which is pretty commendable,” said Zophy, who described his investigation into the stolen belts as “stagnant.”

Ironically, Tyson’s mouth guard, which was also on display at the Hall of Fame not far from the stolen items, was not taken in the crime. Basilio’s belts included those from his title fights with Tony DeMarco (1955), Johnny Saxton (1956) and Sugar Ray Robinson (1957). Zale’s middleweight championship in 1941, as well as his title from his 1948 middleweight bout with Graziano, were also taken.

“Reward – I am offering a reward to anyone providing info that leads the authorities to recover the Championship Belts of Tony Zale and Carmen Basilio stolen from the International Boxing Hall of Fame,” the message on Tyson’s Facebook page said. “Get a boxing glove, My ‘Undisputed Truth Book’, and genuine Roots of Fight t-shirt – all AUTOGRAPHED by me. I am asking anyone with information to please call Canastota New York Police at 315-697-2240 or 315-697-8888.”

Tyson’s camp later posted a picture of Tyson, shirtless and posing with the heavyweight strap he won after he knocked out Trevor Berbick in 1986.

“More about the stolen belts of Zale and Basilio,” the message said. “The Championship Belt represents the years of blood, sweat and tears the fighter goes through just to enter the ring. The fight is the easy part. This is the day after I beat Berbick for the title in 1986. I was not going to take it off.”

The International Boxing Hall of Fame’s insurance company reportedly was unable to peg a dollar amount to the belts and considers them “priceless” for their historical worth. But Lott, a boxing memorabilia collector, estimated the titles could each fetch anywhere from “$25,000 to $100,000” at auction. He remains puzzled by the crime. He can’t recall someone ever swiping a championship belt because of the difficulty in finding value on the black market for it.

“They’d have to sell the titles to a belt collector who knew who these fighters were,” Lott said. “It’s not like I can put an ad in the paper saying I have these belts to sell. It would be a tough thing to sell because there’s a limited market for it. It’s one thing to steal art. It’s another thing to steal a title from a fighter from the 40s and 50s. It’s very weird.”

Lott said Tyson always had an affinity for the classic fighters of old. To illustrate this point, he told a story of the time Tyson, Lott and his former managers Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton visited a boxing memorabilia collector in Connecticut in 1987. One of the items they came upon was an old robe worn by Jack Johnson, the first African American to win the heavyweight crown.

“Mike was looking at the robe and did something I had never seen before,” Lott recalled. “He put up his nose to the cloth to smell it. I think deep down he wanted to actually get a feeling for the fighter and the way he was and the way he did it was to say, ‘This is what the guy smelled like.'”

The Hall of Fame was basically founded as a way to honor Basilio, a former onion farmer from Canastota who was inducted in the inaugural class in 1990. Zale was inducted a year later. Zale died in 1997 and Basilio in 2012.

Lott, echoing the Facebook post, said the titles held immense sentimental value to the boxers and were priceless to boxing collectors. Tyson, for one, spent time in front of the mirror after he first won the heavyweight title, admiring the belt around his waist, Lott said.

“More so than the gloves or the trunks or the shoes they owned, the belt signifies the blood, sweat and tears and the amount of time he spent preparing for a fight,” Lott said. “It signifies all the time he wasn’t in the ring, the stuff the public has no idea about. These guys go through hell. It represents what they did prior to getting into the ring. These are priceless to the boxers.”

 

Below are photos of the stolen belts from the IBHOF website:

Basilio vs Graham belt Basilio vs Demarco belt Basilio vs Saxton belt Basilio vs Robinson belt Zale vs Abrams belt Zale vs Graziano

 

 

SIGN UP TO GET RING NEWS ALERTS