Black Eyes, Black Ties on Wall Street

Tommy Gallagher brought his own singular brand of “black-tie boxing” to New York in 2002.Gallagher, 65, is an old-school boxing guy, who lives in Howard Beach, Queens, and knows the sweet science from the gutter up. Television viewers know him as a familiar face from the reality series “The Contender.”He won the New York City Golden Gloves welterweight championship in 1959. Two years later, he was a member of the All-Army Boxing team. “When I was 17 years old,” he said last week, “my picture was on the back page of the Daily News for winning the Gloves. Tell me that isn’t a thrill.”Gallagher had a 66–2 amateur record. One of the fights he lost was by decision. The other? “You could say I got knocked out,” he remembers. “I got hit with a great left hook and went down, got up, and knocked the other guy down. Then he nailed me with five punches in a row right on the chin. I was out on my feet. I mean, I was out cold, dead against the ropes, when the referee stopped it.”From 1967 through 1974, Gallagher trained amateurs in a YMCA boxing program in Queens. Then he opened Gallagher’s Gym of Champions, also in Queens (which closed this year) and began training professional fighters.Gallagher is now the driving force behind Thomas Gallagher Promotions. His wife, Maureen, is president of TGP. The first blacktie boxing show they promoted was on March 15, 2002, and has a special place in boxing lore.The site was Cipriani 42nd Street. Six bouts, including several televised on ESPN2, were contested as an army of white-jacketed waiters served lobster salad, risotto, lamb, tiramisu, and petit fours. Sexual energy infused the room, due in part to the presence of a number of elegantly dressed women from the VIP Club — a local adult establishment. At one point, a prosperous-looking man in his sixties was nuzzling a sensuously-styled young lady who was seated next to him. The man’s cell phone rang. He answered it, turned ashen, and after a brief conversation, closed up the phone. Then he reported to those sitting around him, “That was my wife. She just saw me on television, and she is very unhappy.”Five months later, Gallagher returned to Cipriani 42nd Street with another black-tie boxing show. This one was notable because three future world champions (Paulie Malignaggi, Luis Collazo, and Brian Viloria) were on the card.Then, in October 2002, he decided to promote a Sunday afternoon card. It was a bad idea. The show ran into the NFL television buzz saw and lost a bundle.Fast-forward to 2007. Gallagher is promoting black-tie boxing again, this time at three-month intervals at Cipriani Wall Street. The Grand Ballroom (where the fights are held) is fashioned from Italian marble with Corinthian columns that rise seventy feet to a gilded domed ceiling featuring the largest Wedgwood panels in the world.Gallagher’s next night of blacktie boxing is slated for September 5. Seven bouts are planned with Michael Grant and James McGirt Jr. in the co-features.Grant (41–3, 31 KOs) was stopped in the second round of a challenge against heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis in 2000. McGirt (16-0, 9 KOs), the son of former world champion James “Buddy” McGirt, fights in the super-middleweight division and is a young fighter on the rise.“This will be a special night,” Gallagher says. “We’re planning things on an uppity scale. If someone shows up wearing a nice suit and tie, we’ll let him in. But we prefer black tie, and the women who come should dress elegant, too. The dinner will be special, a five-course gourmet Cipriani dinner. And the round-card girls will wear formal gowns. I’m talking class.”The cost is $300 per person ($3,000 for a table for ten), which includes the fights and dinner.“And we’re experimenting with something totally different,” Gallagher adds. “There will be one table for ten priced at $100,000. That table will have unlimited caviar and champagne and its own chef. There will be special benefits like a masseuse from a top spa giving anyone at that table who wants it a massage. And the people at that table should tell us in advance which world champion they’d like to sit with: Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes, whoever. We’ll do our best to make a deal with that champion to bring him in for the night and have him sit with them.”The stock market has had a rough summer, which might augur ill for the sale of Gallagher’s $100,000 table. But hope springs eternal.Meanwhile, tickets are available by calling 212-624-9363. Cocktails will be served at 6 p.m. with dinner at 7. The first bout is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.“This is as elegant as it gets,” Gallagher says. “I promise you, anyone who comes will have a night to remember.”thauser@rcn.com

Black Eyes, Black Ties on Wall Street

Black Eyes, Black Ties on Wall Street

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