Fred Berns moved to Indianapolis in 1966 from Chicago. Being a boxing fan and having attended the weekly fights in Chicago
regularly, Fred sought out boxing events near Indianapolis. He discovered that the nearest shows to Indianapolis were,,,,,
you guessed it, Chicago. There hadn't been any area pro boxing for many years.
Fred and a friend,
the late Howard Ladin, knowing absolutely nothing about the boxing business decided they would promote shows in Indianapolis.
After much discussion, the soon to be promoters decided to start big and the place to do it was the Fairgrounds Coliseum where
several world champions had appeared in years gone by. And the night to do it would be the night before the 1968 Indianapolis
500 Race when more than 300,000 race fans would be looking for something to do.
We brought in some of the best boxing
talent available. Alan Thomas world ranked lt. heavy weight contender, Manny Quinny the KO artist from Buffalo, giant
heavyweight contender Al "Blue" Lewis who later fought Ali for the title and Doyle Baird of Akron who later destroyed
world champion Nino Benvenuti in a non title fight. Thinking that all this boxing talent should draw a healthy share
of those 300,000 "bored" racing fans, we proceded on with the promotion. In the process, we learned two valuable
lessons. #1, don't expect to find hotel rooms for the fighters at race time and valuable lesson #2, was that those 300,000
people were in town for a car race, not a boxing show.
The 300 fans spread out over 12,000 empty seats looked
more like the clean up crew than fight fans. A good time was had by all (except the promoters). We took our licks and
here, 40 years later, Fred Berns is still trying to get even.
