Education of a Boy Promoter

From the start, sad-eyed Bill Rosensohn had seemed woefully outmatched by the knee-and-gouge plug-uglies, opportunists and gamblers who feast on big-time boxing. Struggling to promote June's heavyweight championship bout between Floyd Patterson and Challenger Ingemar Johansson, Rosensohn was cast as a beleaguered crusader, a gallant in a button-down shirt who did not smoke and did not chew, and did not play with boys who do.

When the rakish Swede unexpectedly knocked out Patterson in the third round, Bill Rosensohn appeared to chronically ingenuous sportswriters as the white knight that boxing had been looking for. He was his own boss, or so it seemed, and the champ with the big punch was his boy, or so it seemed. But last week, as the tangled tale of the boy wonder's troubles emerged, headline by headline, the fight game smelled just as gamy as ever.

Dividing the Pie. Bachelor Bill Rosensohn, 39, stumbled into the boxing business. A hot-shot debater at Williams College ('41), Rosensohn had shown a remarkable talent for making money out of wildly assorted promotions (real estate, mobile grocery stores, a fruit-juice bar) before becoming vice president of TelePromTer, Inc., a company that handles theater TV for big fights. Last year, when Floyd Patterson's fight against Texan Roy Harris was about to fall through, Rosensohn stepped in as promoter, thereby saved a job for TelePrompTer. Under the name Rosensohn Enterprises, Inc.. Rosensohn ostensibly promoted the Patterson-Johansson fight alone, drew sympathy from the nation's press for his apparent struggles with Cus D'Amato, Patterson's sly and acquisitive manager, who obviously itched to get his hands on the whole show.

Not until six weeks after the fight was it disclosed that Bill Rosensohn did not even control Bill Rosensohn. Writing in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, Rosensohn said that before the fight he had given one-third control of his company to a lackey of D'Amato's named Charley Black, and another third to Vincent J. Velella, an owl-eyed Harlem lawyer with a trade that includes racketeers. Rosensohn lamely explained that he had cut in Black to make D'Amato happy and preserve the fight, and had brought in Velella to get his financial backing. Last month Velella called a stockholders' meeting, voted in Irving B. Kahn, president of TelePrompTer and Rosensohn's old boss, as a board member. Rosensohn resigned from the board.

Friendly Tiger. The action grew apace. Sure that something was wrong, but unable to tell who was doing what to whom, the New York State Athletic Commission suspended the licenses of Rosensohn and Rosensohn Enterprises, and denied a license to Velella.

Undismayed, Velella and Kahn got help from an unexpected source: Old Champ Jack Dempsey, now a hearty 64. Dempsey declared that Velella and Kahn were honorable men, signed on as their nonsalaried "promotions director." Shrugged Restaurateur Dempsey: "Business has been lousy this summer anyway." With Velella and Kahn in tow, Dempsey flew to Sweden, found Johansson to be a most agreeable tiger, and last week signed him for a return match with Patterson some time after March 1. Probable site: Los Angeles.

Cold Calculation. But Rosensohn was proving even more embarrassing in his explanation than in his promotion. Testifying before District Attorney Frank Hogan's grand jury ("I have nothing to hide''), he finally admitted that the real power behind the Patterson-Johansson fight was Harlem's Anthony ("Tony Fat") Salerno, 48, according to Hogan "a known gambler, bookmaker and policy operator," and a friend of Frankie Carbo, leading light in boxing's dim underworld. Rosensohn said that Velella was only a front man for Tony Fat (who had found it convenient to disappear), later went on the air in New York City to state blithely that he had willingly sought out Salerno for his bankroll and "influence."

"I knew there was something unsavory about the promotion," said Bill Rosensohn last week, seemingly as ingenuous as ever. Then the educated boy promoter frankly tacked on a thought that glittered revealingly with cold calculation: "But I never thought these things would be made public."

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