Boxing Fits This Old Boy Like A Glove

Now it is 4 p.m., time for Kanter's daily pilgrimage to Don King 's. As usual, King 's other advisers are there—"my family," he calls them—Paddy Flood, who looks like the wrong guy to jostle in the street, veteran manager Al Braver-man, a hulking, vaguely handsome man who seems to have a toothpick built into his front teeth. And now Pierre Cardin has arrived. King is wearing a tan leisure suit with a brightly flowered shirt and a gold medallion, and he, Braverman and Flood gaze at Kanter—like a trout at a bird, one might say—while Kanter tells a joke, an old boxing wheeze.

The joke flops. Kanter shrugs and says, "My mother had a saying: 'It's better to hear that than to be deaf.' "

On the way home George Kanter is happy about the way his life is going. He does not need Madison Square Garden anymore. He has Europe and he has fighters in both tournaments, King 's and Schwartz-Elbaum's. He enjoys the respect of many boxing people, who agree about practically nothing else. And boxing, his first love, is making a comeback in the U.S. Kanter says, "It's like the '50s again: the Friday night fights; 'Look sharp, be sharp'; 'What'll you have, Pabst Blue Ribbon '; Don Dunphy...."

Until recently, Kanter had been selling gloves part time, but he has left the business forever, he hopes. "Gloves are strictly a cold-weather item now," he says. "They're not worn for fashion anymore, and you only need protective gloves for three or four months, but I have to make a living all year."

That he is doing. Boxing gloves seem to be back in.