Another Boxing Hall Of Fame Induction Ends With Everyone Punching Each Other

CANASTOTA, NY—Though it started as a typical celebration of such boxing icons as Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez, last Sunday’s International Boxing Hall of Fame induction ceremony once again devolved into a 200-person melee of hooks, jabs, and uppercuts, the event concluding in the same fashion it has throughout its 22-year existence. “There’s a lot of testosterone in that room to begin with, but then one person says the wrong thing to somebody else and the whole thing goes off pretty much on cue—people at the podium are punching each other, people in attendance are punching each other, and the whole room is basically one big boxing match,” Hall of Fame director Ed Brophy told reporters, adding that before he was decked by Tyson, he got in a couple of pretty good shots on 68-year-old inductee Ignacio Beristain. “Sure, we broke some tables, stained some of the carpet with blood, and that one guy died on the way to the hospital, but it’s the Boxing Hall of Fame. That’s what happens here.” Sylvester Stallone, also a 2011 inductee, was reportedly knocked out with one punch six seconds into the fight.