Boxing community mourns the loss of Hall of Fame promoter Don Chargin

Mark Ortega

Boxing community mourns the loss of Hall of Fame promoter Don Chargin image

In the history of boxing, promoters of the sport have come and gone. Some have stuck with it a couple of years. Some didn't even survive their first show before thinking better of it.

Then there's Don Chargin, who died Friday at the age of 90-years-old, who promoted for more than two-thirds of his life. The Hall of Fame matchmaker and promoter passed away Friday afternoon.

Nicknamed "War a Week," Chargin was the matchmaker for the infamous fights that took place in Los Angeles at the Olympic Auditorium from 1964 to 1984. During that time, he worked with his wife, Lorraine, and promoter, Aileen Eaton, for the shows, which had solid turnouts including celebrities such as Jack Lemmon, Lucille Ball, and Clint Eastwood.

Chargin held on just long enough to see his 90th birthday and the posthumous induction of his wife Lorraine into the International Boxing Hall of Fame this past June. Chargin was slated to appear at the West Coast Boxing Hall of Fame gathering this Sunday.

"Don is my dear friend for 50-plus years and I will miss him forever," longtime boxing publicist Bill Caplan told Sporting News on Friday. "He so looked forward to [Golden Boy president] Eric [Gomez]'s induction into the Hall of Fame this Sunday and his promotion October 6 at Cache Creek and I looked forward to attending with him."

The kind of matchmaking Chargin did during the golden era of boxing is a lost art these days. More often than not, promoters are protecting their interests by building fighters into contenders without risking their perfect records in evenly-matched fights. That's not how Chargin operated.

"Fight managers would line up outside my office every Monday morning like a barber shop. If somebody turned down a fight, I'd say, 'Next! I'll see you next month,'" Chargin told the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. "Aileen Eaton didn't sign the fighters into promotional contracts. She said if she did that we'd have to work too hard to protect them and the fights won't be as good. My boss, she said, were the fans."

Chargin met his evenly-matched partner in 1957 in Lorraine. It was then that Chargin staged fighter workouts inside an upscale Oakland restaurant that Lorraine happened to be the banquet manager for. When Don invited her out to the fight, she told him she could pay her own way in. The two later married in 1960.

Though Chargin tried his hand at a number of things, including putting on car and motorcycle races, Harlem Globetrotters games, and other specialty events, it was the Olympic Auditorium gig that was his big break. His wife Lorraine was also employed as the building manager, a perfect understudy to Eaton, who became the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. It was poetic that Lorraine became the second this past June.

Chargin later joined Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions early in the company's history. It was written into his deal that Lorraine would accompany him on trips on the company's dime. In his later years, Chargin promoted fights across northern California. Often, they were co-promotions with Golden Boy Promotions for their SoloBoxeo series on Telefutura.

It was during this time Chargin took on an understudy, Rafael Paco Damian, and the two co-promoted fights since that Golden Boy TV deal expired. Chargin and Damian even have a card on the books for Oct. 6 at Cache Creek Casino in Brooks, Calif. The card will undoubtedly be in tribute to the late promoter. Chargin was brought back into the fold with Golden Boy this past July.

The promotional company released a statement Friday evening. It read: "For decades, 'War a Week' Don Chargin was universally known as a titan of promoting and matchmaking. His events at the Olympic Auditorium were not to be missed, and along with his wife, Lorraine, he was the linchpin of boxing in California and beyond. But to those of us at Golden Boy Promotions, he was so much more. He was a partner. He was a mentor. And he was a friend. To say Don will be missed doesn't come close to explaining the sadness we all feel today."

Don was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2001. Lorraine passed away April 6, 2010 of cancer at 79 years of age. Eight years later, she joined Don in the Hall of Fame, just soon enough that her adoring husband got to accept on her behalf, before passing away Friday.

Chargin was one of the few in boxing I ever encountered where nobody had a bad word to say about him. That's a rarity in any field, but particularly in boxing, a sport filled with some of the seediest characters. More than any of his many wars a week, that's how most will remember Don Chargin — willing to sit with anyone and recount his infinite stories from the past.

The boxing community mourned the devastating loss Friday across social media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Ortega