The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
We are the champions
Hublot has met its match in Neil Leifer, the photographer behind some of boxing’s most legendary images, says Tracey Llewellyn
Sitting in the glitzy banqueting hall of the Encore, Las Vegas, it’s a thrill to see the likes of Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Oscar De La Hoya take to the stage for the Hublot/ World Boxing Council ( WBC) Night of Champions. But it is genuinely moving when a little later, these giants take to their feet, one by one, to cheer a less-recognised septuagenarian as he steps up to the microphone.
The man is Neil Leifer and, although his name and face may not be known to many outside of the room, his work is familiar to sports and photography fans the world over.
With a career spanning six decades, Leifer has photographed presidents, celebrities and sports stars and is responsible for some of the most enduring boxing images of all time. On this occasion, he is being presented with the Hublot/ WBC Lifetime Achievement in Sports award. Among his legion of admirers is this band of fighters – at least two-thirds of whom he has photographed both in the ring and in studio shoots. No mean feat for a boy who grew up in the low-income housing projects of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“Everyone was poor down there,” Leifer shrugs. “I started working at 13, delivering sandwiches for the Stage Deli. There were these settlement houses where kids could go to play basketball and other sports – the idea was to keep us off the street. This is how Muhammad Ali got into boxing in Kentucky. I chose to take a photography class even though my father referred to it as a ‘rich man’s hobby’. Sports were where my father and I really bonded – particularly over the televised Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Fridaynight fights.”
After becoming the staff photographer for his high school newspaper, Leifer started to combine his love of sport and photography. Volunteering to help disabled fans to their seats in stadiums gained him entry to events and he began sending images to magazines including Sports Illustrated, basking in the glory when occasionally his pictures were published. By 18, his work was appearing regularly in print and his career path was set.
Today, whenever a list of most memorable sporting moments is compiled, Leifer’s work is sure to appear, particularly his two knockout images of Ali vs Sonny Liston (1965) and Cleveland Williams (1966).
Leifer modestly attributes his phenomenal success to a solid support system, dogged determination and a whole lot of luck (“You’ve got to be in the right seat”), rather than raw talent. “Little by little, I got better,” he says. “Some, like my colleagues Jim Drake and Walter Iooss, have a God-given gift. I make up for my shortfall here with hard work and preparation.”
Since he photographed his first fight in 1959, Leifer has contributed to books including Taschen’s seminal Ali anthology GOAT, where he shares picture credits with the legendary Howard Bingham. Despite withdrawing from photography in recent years to concentrate on films, he has continued to shoot the biggest fights and is working on the tome that he says will be his legacy, featuring 60 years’ worth of his images and accompanying text by Gay Talese.
The WBC award, in
‘I’m not really a fan of logos everywhere, but anything that supports boxing is good with me. And Hublot’s support is amazing and real’
recognition of Leifer’s outstanding contribution to boxing, was presented by two of his great friends: WBC president Mauricio Sulaimán and the boxing commentator behind the immortal phrase “Let’s get ready to rumble”, Michael Buffer, while a testimonial was read out by George Foreman. “I know no-one will be offended or surprised by me saying that Ali is my favourite subject of all time,” says Leifer. “But joint second would be Mike Tyson and George Foreman. To have George talk about me was the biggest thrill. I was blown away.
“People often ask why boxing’s my favourite sport and the answer is simple: I’m generalising, but on the whole, boxers are the nicest people in sport. A lot come from disadvantaged backgrounds, but they are gentlemen. Ali, Foreman, Tyson – all fantastic guys and great fun characters as well.”
On the Night of Champions, these gentlemen are there to support their fellow fighters, perhaps less successful or lucky than themselves. The Hublot-backed WBC José Sulaimán Boxers Fund is the brainchild of José’s son, Mauricio, who Leifer admires for his dedication to the sport in good times and bad. “He just loves boxing,” says Leifer.
This is a passion he also sees in Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe. “He is genuine in spirit when he talks about the Boxers Fund,” he notes. “A charity and a cause stand out as special when the people behind them love the reason they are raising money. Mauricio makes his living from boxing, but his passion goes way beyond money. I think this is what drew Ricardo to align with him. I know that Hublot is involved with other sports, but the interest in boxing stems from a personal passion – with both Mauricio and Ricardo, the talk is never about money, only about the fight.”
Seeing the watch brand as an intrinsic part of the sport he adores, Leifer would love to retire the “lucky” (as he calls it) Rolex GMT he bought for $250 in 1968 and replace it with a Hublot Big Bang Unico WBC Green Ceramic. “My introduction to Hublot was through Floyd Mayweather,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was when I saw the logo on his shorts, but then I saw Canelo [Alvarez] wearing it, and then Triple G [Gennady Golovkin]. I’m not really a fan of logos everywhere, but anything that supports boxing is good with me. Hublot’s support is amazing and real. The sport loves the brand and the Night of Champions is proof of that. My friendship with Ricardo and his team is just beginning.” Hublot Big Bang Unico Chronograph WBC Green Ceramic, from £17,300; hublot.com