boxing HOF chooses five champions for class of 2022

CANASTOTA — The International Boxing Hall of Fame and Museum’s Class of 2022 includes champions Miguel Cotto, Roy Jones Jr., James Toney, Regina Halmich and Holly Holm.

Cotto, Jones and Toney are in the men’s Modern category; Halmich and Holm are in the women’s Modern category. Publicist Bill Caplan is in the Non-Participant category and journalist Ron Borges and historian-producer Bob Yalen in the Observer category.

Posthumous inductees are junior lightweight champion “The Seattle Flash” Tod Morgan in the Old Timer category and ring announcer Chuck Hullin the Non-Participant category. Inductees were voted in by members of the Boxing Writers Association and a panel of international boxing historians.

“We’re extremely excited about the Class of 2022 and are very much looking forward to honoring the newest class of inductees to earn boxing’s highest honor,” said Executive Director Edward Brophy.

Due to the cancellation of the two previous Induction Weekends, the Classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 will be honored at a Hall of Fame Weekend Induction

Trilogy scheduled for June 9-12.

“With today’s announcement, we are thrilled to have the final piece of the Induction Trilogy in place,” said Brophy.

Members of the Class of 2020 are Bernard Hopkins, Juan Manuel Marquez, Shane Mosley, Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker, Barbara Buttrick, Frank Erne, Paddy Ryan, Lou DiBella, Kathy Duva, Dan Goossen, Bernard Fernandez and Thomas Hauser.

Members of the Class of 2021 are Wladimir Klitschko, Floyd Mayweather, Andre Ward, Laila Ali, Ann Wolfe, Marian Trimiar, Jackie Tonawanda, Davey Moore, Freddie Brown, Dr. Margaret Goodman, Jackie McCoy, George Kimball and Jay Larkin.

The Induction Trilogy will feature many events throughout the four-day celebration, including a 5K Race-Fun Run, boxing autograph card show, Parade of Champions and the induction ceremony on the Hall of Fame museum grounds. The evening events include Friday night’s Fight Night at Turning Stone and Saturday’s Banquet of Champions, both at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona.

“After many years in boxing, I’m so proud of what we have done in the sport,” said Cotto of being chosen. “Above all I was the head of my family and what made me proud as a father was to provide for my family and thanks to boxing I did it in the best way possible. It is amazing, but you have to be humble and carry yourself in the best way possible and work hard every day to reach your goals in life. I look forward to being in Canastota next June.”

Jones said: “This is an absolutely marvelous feeling. I’m so honored that I get this opportunity and I can’t wait to go to Canastota to see it come to fruition.”

Toney’s reaction was an enthusiastic “Yeah baby! I made it. This is so great. I’ve been waiting for this call and I’m so happy. I can’t believe it. I’m almost tearing up. It’s a blessing and I’m looking forward to coming to Canastota as an inductee.”

“Wow! What an honor. I’m very, very happy,” said Halmich. “My biggest wish was to one day be in the International Boxing Hall of Fame and this is really the biggest honor for me.”

Caplan said he was overwhelmed at the news. “I’m absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. I’m truly honored.”

“Wow. This is really exciting.

I can’t believe it,” said Borges. “Usually I’m not at a loss for words but I am now. It really means everything to me. Boxing has been my favorite sport since I was six watching the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports and I was honored to have spent nearly 50 years writing about the great fighters, trainers and promoters of the sport and to now be on the Hall of Fame Wall is such a great honor that I can’t even tell you how much it means to me.”

“I was extremely honored just to be on the ballot, but to receive this news is unbelievable; it is joyful, humbling, and exciting all at once,” said Yalen. “I am so honored and thrilled to be able to take my place among those whom I have admired and looked up to for so long...it might be a cliché, but dreams really do come true.”