This Day in History (February 15, 1922)
By Aaron Tallent February 15th, 2007Today in Boxing History: The Ring magazine publishes first issue
The first issue was 24 pages long and cost 20 cents. On its cover were black and white photographs of Tex Rickard and Lord Lonsdale. At the time, Rickard was the top boxing promoter in the United States and Lonsdale was England’s greatest boxing supporter.
The magazine’s original focus was boxing and wrestling, but as interest in wrestling waned, the coverage shifted solely to boxing.
Nat Fleischer founded the magazine and since his long run as editor, The Ring has only had five other editors-in-chief. While the magazine is often referred to as the “Bible of Boxing,� it has had its share of difficulties, including allegations of falsifying fighter records and ratings in 1977, and financial troubles in the late 1980s.
However, through it all, the magazine has persevered, and after 85 years, it is boxing’s longest-running publication.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Long live “The Ring”. Ironically however I’m actually waning over whether or not to renew my subscription. On the plus side the ring is great for features on new boxers and boxing legends. For example, they did a great piece on the Mosleys where they showed the champ with his family inside his home. That something you can not find anywhere else. They also do some great historical pieces. BUT…they are always out of date when it comes to who is fighting who. The information is far out of date often. Why can’t a publication that has been around this long publish information that is fairly current. It seems it’s often at least one month behind. Does it actually take a month to go to press and distribute? I don’t know…I’ll probably renew it.