Ocean City media specialist has worked over 70 fights, has tales to tell
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Ocean City’s Ed Keenan knows the top boxers and has great stories to tell about what goes on outside the ring as well as inside. The media specialist has been helping promote fights for decades, including 71 fights just a few barrier islands over.
In honor of his work, Keenan will be inducted this weekend into the Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame in a class that also includes boxing greats Roy Jones Jr. and Felix “Tito” Trinidad, among others.
When he found out in the late fall that he was going to be inducted, he was shocked. Now, on the verge of his induction, he still can’t quite believe it.
“When the guy called me I wasn’t even expecting it. He told me and I was, ‘Wow. That’s the culmination of many years’ work and it’s almost like the pinnacle.’ It’s wild. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Laughing, he said it’s like when athletes say “When my career is over I’ll look back on it and say that’s pretty cool,’ but it’s like it’s a huge honor. It’s humbling. It doesn’t really sink in, especially when I see Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins (being inducted). Hopkins got in last year but said he’ll see me there. Kelly Pavlik, Tito Trinidad. I had a lot of good times with those guys. It’s just incredible. Those guy were the best fighters in the world for years.”
One of Keenan’s stories is how he ended up on the bad side of Hopkins, one tough hombre from Philadelphia, nicknamed “The Executioner,” for 15 years, before becoming friends with the champion again.
“We had a conflict right after 9/11,” Keenan said about Hopkins. “He wouldn’t talk to me for like 15 years. We both had friends in Philly. We’d be in a suite at an Eagles game and he would see me and turn away.”
The dispute stemmed from Keenan having to apply all kinds of pressure to get Hopkins to do an interview to promote a middleweight fight. After a press conference, Keenan told Hopkins ESPN had rented a studio in south Philadelphia for an interview. (Setting up and conducting interviews is among Keenan’s specialities.)
“He said, ‘No, I’m not doing it. It’s not on the schedule.’ He had a new posse with him and I could tell they didn’t know what they were doing. They got in their car and I got in my car and chased them. I catch them at a red light and said, ‘You’ve got to do this interview. ESPN is going to kill me. They spent $4,000 renting this studio.’ He was in the back and wouldn’t look at me.
So he called Don King’s office and got the boss of the fighters on the phone.
“I said you’ve got to get Bernard to do this interview or we’re all dead. She said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ I go to the studio and I’m sitting there and all of a sudden Bernard comes storming through the doors. He did the interview, but from that point on, he didn’t talk to me.”
Keenan took it in stride. “When he was fighting, he hated everybody, whoever was promoting him he’d end up leaving. I was like, he hates me, but he hates everybody, so I don’t have a problem with it.”
Years late, as Hopkins’ career was winding down, he had a fight scheduled with Sergey Kovalev at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City and Keenan had to do an interview with him.
“His publicist said I could go back to his dressing room. I said, ‘I’m not going in the dressing room with him. There’s no way I’m going in there.’ She said it’s all right. I go in and he’s holding court and David Weinberg is in there and Bernard is telling everybody how he hated me for 15 years, but now we’re friends.”
“That’s a little crazy. Now we see each other all the time and we’re hugging each other. It’s hilarious,” he said.
Keenan said Atlantic City is a good location for boxing because it was central.
“People will come from New York, Philly, Baltimore and even D.C. If you have guys on your card from those cities you know they’ll travel there because it’s Atlantic City and it has the beach, the boardwalk and casinos. It’s not just like you’re going to a fight. There are other things to do,” Keenan said.
To illustrate how people travel to Atlantic City, Keenan talked about Kelly Pavlik – a former middleweight champion – fighting in Memphis, Tenn., early in his career.
“Nobody even knew who he was and the guy was calling him out at the weigh in – ‘I’m going to knock you out’ – and they got in the ring and Kelly pummeled him. His next fight was in Atlantic City and nobody had any Idea, but like 4,000 people drove from Youngstown, Ohio to the fight,” Keenan said. Pavlik is from Youngstown.
“When you could see all the people in the casinos, you could almost tell they were from Youngstown. They all looked like Kelly Pavlik,” Keenan said. Each time Pavlik fought in Atlantic City, the crowd traveled from Ohio to watch.
Keenan has been working fights in Atlantic City since 1991. That includes 56 at Boardwalk Hall and 15 at the Mark Etess Arena at the former Taj Mahal. He worked fights at Boardwalk Hall from 1991 to 2014 – the last one was Kovalev-Hopkins – and from 1996 to 2005 at the Taj.
“From that Holyfield-Foreman fight in 1991 there were probably five or six fights I did not work.
I have working relationships with all the promoters so when they came to town they would give me a call,” Keenan said.
He said there have been 80 fights at Boardwalk Hall.
“They were the biggest fights,” he said. “Trump was doing a bunch of fights at the Taj (Mahal) in the late ’90s, early 2000s. There were like 20 of them in the Etess Arena. And there were scores of fights in the ballrooms at Caesars and Bally’s. They were having fights all the time.”
He loves Boardwalk Hall as a venue, both before its renovation and after.
“It’s like almost all your seats are your living room. It’s one of those perfect venues to have an event like that. … It’s a beautiful place to watch.”
Keenan said some of the best fights at Boardwalk Hall were the Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward trilogy – two that HOB ranked as top 10 Fights of the Decade during the 2000s.
He said the place so so sold out that they were running around trying to find a place to squeeze in a few extra chairs.
“It was so sold out no one has a ticket to give to anybody,” he said.
One of Keenan’s other stories revolved around when Floyd Mayweather Jr. challenged Gatti to fight.
“I was like, how crazy is this? Floyd Mayweather calling out Arturo Gatti because he wants to fight him.” That was more than 15 years ago. “Then it happens and Gatti didn’t show up to the press conference to announce the fight and everyone is going crazy. (Promoter) Bob Arum is sitting there saying, ‘This is what we’re going to do. We’re gonna say Gatti hates Mayweather so much he won’t even show up to the press conference with him.’ They kept them separate the whole promotion. That was crazy,” Keenan said.
On fight week in New York, Keenan was out getting stuff in his car at 2 a.m. because a big press conference was taking place later that morning.
“ I come back into the lobby and the elevator doors opens and the guys look familiar. And then Floyd walks out. I’m like, ‘Floyd, what are you doing? Go get some sleep.’ He goes, ‘You tell Gatti to get some sleep.” He was always a night owl.
“Looking back, that might have been one of the craziest things ever.”
Gatti was a world champion. Mayweather not only beat him, but won every fight since for a 50-0 record.
Keenan and his wife, Jessica, have two adult children, Eddie and Megan. Keenan is a former lifeguard on the Ocean City Beach Patrol. This isn’t Keenan’s first honor in the boxing world; in 2020, he was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.
He said he is looking forward to this weekend in Atlantic City.
“I’ve been trying to think all the things I want to say,” he said. “I love seeing all those guys. It’s so much fun. Whenever I see Roy (Jones Jr.), at a fight – he trains guys – we sit down and talk.
“I was counting all these fights a couple of years ago and sent Roy Jones a text and said, ‘You know, I’ve worked 28 of your fights.’”