Whatever Happened to Ex-Champ Billy Costello? The Later Years
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Very few former boxing veterans, contenders and champions seroconvert into ringside officials, judges and referees. From Barney Ross to Carlos DeLeon to Randy Neumann, some do. Some try it, however overall it is a rare switch. The late former World Junior Welterweight champion Billy Costello Jr. of Kingston, New York, is one of the new fighters to have successfully transitioned from inside the ring to ringside as a judge.
Among this reporter’s dealings, this reporter once knew a ringside announcer who was also a pro boxer in the lower weights, and switched back and forth from the microphone to the boxer and back to the microphone during some of his events! He was a better announcer than fighter, though, and ultimately stuff with the microphone career. A former world champion is obviously a solid commodity to make the switch to a ringside official. Still another switch is boxing judge to a commentator, as my friend, the late Harold Lederman, did as an announcer for HBO Sports. His daughter became a boxing judge in his footsteps.
Billy Costello Jr. (1956-2011), was a high school baseball third baseball and boy scout who dreamed on a career in the major leagues. After he and four friends robbed a convenience store, one of whom had a gun, his father made him tun himself into the police. Costello was sentenced to probation, the condition of which was Costello join a Police Athletic League program. Costello’s boxing career thus began.
In 1978, Costello won the 135 pound New York Open Golden Gloves championship. Training through the Police Athletic League in Kingston, and the Castle Hill Athletic Club in the Bronx, Costello and his brother Vinnie “Mario” Costello rose up under manager Mike Jones, whom Costello met at ringside in the amateur tournaments. The Costello brothers would also be trained by the late Victor Valle, who trained heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney, also promoted by Jones.
This reporter interacted with the Costello brothers and Cooney while working college summers at The Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, New York, which Valle used as a training camp. While Costello went on to become a world champion, his brother Vinnie, a 21-2-1 lightweight between 1981 and 1990, did not, though he often fought on the same undercards as his brother. Vinnie is best known for losing a majority ten round decision to former world featherweight champion Juan LaPorte in 1986. Billy Costello won a ten round split decision over LaPorte in 1999, the final bout for both combatants.
Billy, 40-2 with 23 knockouts, fought between 1979 and 1999. He peaked when won the WBC World Super Lightweight title by 12 round decision over Bruce Curry in 1984. Billy defended his WBC title against Ronnie Shields, Saoul Mamby, and Leroy Haley before getting dropped five times by Lonnie Smith and losing his title in the eighth round in Madison Square Garden in 1985. A fourth-round stoppage by Alexis Arguello sent Billy into retirement for six years. Between 1992 and 1999, Costello won all nine of his comeback bouts, retiring at middleweight after not getting another world championship opportunity. Costello retired after decisioning LaPorte in June 1999.
Between 1988 and 2011, while Costello was still a boxer and then afterwards, Costello became a boxing judge for 209 bouts. He began judging in May 1988, with his first judged bout in Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn being a four-round 3-1 scorecard for 0-3 super bantamweight Alfred Taylor, who lost the split four-round decision to 1-1 Michael Carbonell, as the other two judges overruled Costello. Billy got it wrong, but it was his first judged event. He judged three more bouts on the card, then returned to judge future world featherweight champion Kevin Kelley at the Felt Forum in Brooklyn six months later.
Title bouts judged by Costello included a number of New York State titles (two in his final two bouts judged in fact), NABF, WBO NABO, WBA and WBC Regional bouts, as well as an IBA World, IBC World, WIBC World and three World Boxing Council world title bouts. The best-known bouts judged by Costello were: the 1991 12 round decision won by Terry Norris over Ray Leonard to retain the World Boxing Council World Super Welterweight title; and Donavan Ruddock’s fourth-round stoppage of Michael Dokes in Madison Square Garden for the WBA Inter-Continental Heavyweight title in April 1990.
There was a four-year judging gap between March 1992 and February 1996, at which point Costello’s judging career picked up again. Other names judged by Costello in his time include Greg Page, Iran Barkley, Andy Lee, Andre Berto, Samuel Peter, Alex Stewart, Buddy McGirt, Aaron Davis, James “Bonecrusher” Smith, Mike Weaver, Renaldo Snipes, Tracey Harris Patterson (son of Floyd Patterson), Joel Casamayor, Carlos Quintana, Wayne Braithwaite, Christy Martin, John Duddy, Raymond Joval, James McGirt, Roman Karazin, Jameel McCline, Tommy Rainone, Nydia Feliciano, and Lennox Allen. A home contractor, Billy Costello Jr., who never smoked, died at age 55 of lung cancer in June 2011. Between the amateurs, pros, and judging, the career of Billy Costello spanned five decades.
Only three of Costello’s pro bouts were in casinos. However, it must be understood anti-smoking laws were not yet in effect in public venues during much of Costello’s career and lifetime, meaning Costello probably fell victim to secondhand cigarette smoke, an occupational hazard. There are too many victims of secondhand cigarette smoke, including pro boxers, to pinpoint the precise point where accumulated exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke proved fatal in Costello’s case. Olympic Lightweight Gold Medalist Howard Davis Jr. died of lung cancer in 2016 at age 59, and British middleweight boxer and trainer Errol Christie died of lung cancer in 2017 at age 53 with over 100 tumors, both from secondhand cigarette smoke.
Unlike football brain injuries and concussions, there has never been any comprehensive research to document the effect of secondhand cigarette smoke on amateur and professional boxers and athletes. In terms of boxing and contact sports, it’s like Dementia Pugilistica. People want to enjoy the sport, and don’t want to hear or learn about the dark side. Football gas dealt with this issue more directly in recent years. Boxing only deals with a tragedy if a boxing match results in a fatality or permanent injury, elsewise boxing’s dark side gets swept under the rug. What’s interesting about Costello’s case is Costello’s passing is not directly linked to the boxing itself, but rather to the venues where boxers compete. To the extent those venues could be held liable when smoking was or still is legal is a matter for legal, moral and ethical interpretation.
According to Centers of Disease Control (CDC) public information and research data now available online, as of March 31, 2021 in the United States of America, currently 27 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands, plus hundreds of cities and counties have enacted comprehensive smoke-free laws, covering workplaces, restaurants, and bars. Only 20 American states currently have laws banning smoking in public areas in casinos. In the United States, exposure to secondhand smoke causes more than 41,000 deaths among nonsmoking adults and an estimated $5.6 billion in lost productivity each year. Like marijuana, hookah, and vaping, cigarette, cigar and pipe smoking remain a controversial area of regulation and interpretation in towns, cities, and states. There’s no denying, however, that before any such laws were in effect is many American states, people were allowed to smoke whenever they wanted, and athletes and spectators were exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke because it was legal. Nobody thought anything about it. Certainly, those that smoked and got lung cancer had to deal with it, but nobody thought those around them could be harmed health wise let alone killed by secondhand cigarette smoke. It was so common at one point nobody gave it a second thought back then. Only later did the issue of secondhand cigarette smoke arise.
According to the United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, no amount of exposure to secondhand smoke is safe. Millions of nonsmokers remain exposed to secondhand smoke in the United States. Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces is the only way to fully protect nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. Smoke-free policies are the most effective way to provide protection from exposure to secondhand smoke.
In a study conducted by the National Academy of Medicine, on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Committee on Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Acute Coronary Events reported that smoke-free policies are effective at reducing the health risks to nonsmokers associated with exposure to secondhand smoke.
Scientific evidence has demonstrated that statewide smoke-free policies are also effective, high-impact strategies for helping individuals quit smoking, as well as reducing tobacco consumption by those who smoke. It has been shown that communities that enact comprehensive smoke-free laws see up to a 17% reduction in hospital heart attack admissions. Smoke-free laws and policies have a high level of public support and compliance, and studies have shown they do not negatively affect sales or employment in the hospitality industry.
Today only 61.1% of the total United States population is covered by one hundred percent smoke-free indoor air policies in bars, restaurants, and worksites, leaving a significant portion of the American general population still susceptible to secondhand cigarette smoke in public indoor and outdoor venues. With the countries of the world dominated by the Coronavirus pandemic for the moment, other life-threatening conditions such as heart disease, asthma, diabetes, secondhand cigarette smoke, HIV/AIDS and alcoholism have been put aside in the United States and the world due to the COVID-19 situation. Billy Costello Jr. (at age 55 in 2011) and Dana Reeve (in 2006 at age 44, wife of the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve) were among the better known victims of secondhand cigarette smoke.
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