Fred Levin of Square Ring, Manager of Roy Jones Jr., Dies of Coronavirus at 83
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Florida attorney and philanthropist Fred Levin, who founded Square Ring and co-managed and advised Roy Jones Jr. for much of his amateur and professional career with his late brother Stanley in Florida, died January 12, 2021 in his native Pensacola, Florida, of COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus at age 83.
Part of a law firm that successfully sued the tobacco industry over smoking related illnesses, Levin came into boxing indirectly through his brother Stanley, who was on the Board of Directors of the Pensacola Boys Club where Las Vegas middleweight fighter Roy Jones Sr. (Roy’s father) taught youngsters to box. Roy Jr was in the program. When the Boys Club decided to eliminate its boxing program for financial reasons, Levin provided money to save the boxing program, and met young 13-year-old Roy Jones Jr. there.
Roy subsequently lived in Stanley Levin’s house for a year as his boxing career blossomed. When Jones turned professional after the 1988 Seoul Olympics in South Korea, Levin brothers agreed to manage him. Jones won a silver medal in Seoul, outpunching his South Korean opponent Park Si-Hun 86-32, who took two standing eight counts and two warnings. Despite this Jones got robbed of the gold medal by a 3-2 split decision. The three judges who voted for Park were suspended for six months by the International Boxing Association. Evidence emerged later Korean boxing authorities had bribed judges at the Olympics, which extended into the AIBA executive ranks. Roy’s Olympic performance was never reversed, and the resulting controversy helped to jump start his pro boxing career.
Fred and his brother Stanley were voted the boxing managers of the year in 1995. They formed a corporation, Square Ring, to manage Jones and free him from long term contractual entanglements with unscrupulous and often times dishonest boxing promoters. They also negotiated the most lucrative light heavyweight contract ever in boxing for Jones with Home Box office, who showcased boxing-and Jones-for many years, though Jones later broke with the Levins. Jones was featured at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on November 28, 2020, in an eight rounds exhibition against Mike Tyson, the culmination of Jones’ six decades amateur and professional boxing career. Roy’s father, Roy Jones Sr., was a pro boxer who fought and lost to future World Middleweight champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1977.
Levin also became boxing manager to fellow Pensacola native Roy Jones Jr. in 1989, leading up to the prizefighter’s heavyweight championship in 2003.
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