Middleweight Boxer Wilford Scypion Dies at 55, Fought Marvin Hagler For Title, Knockout Victory Over Willie Classen Changed The Boxing Rules in New York State
By Robert Brizel, Head RCM Boxing Correspondent
Former top rated middleweight contender Wilford Scypion, who knocked out Willie Classenin the tenth round at the Felt Forum in 1979, and Classen died, who beat Frank Fletcher for the USBA Middleweight title in 1983 but then lost his lone title bout to Marvelous Marvin Hagler three months later, has died of pneumonia in his native Houston, Texas, at age 55.
This reporter had the privilege of watching Scypion fight Dwight Davidson from a ringside seat at the Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, New York, on August 8, 1981. Scypion came off the canvas for a nine count in the first round to come back and go the distance, though he lost the ten rounder. The referee that night was Tony Perez.
Scypion fought professionally between 1978 and 1991, compiling a career record of 32 wins, nine losses, with 24 knockouts, fighting between 156 and 176 pounds. He opened his career with 13 consecutive knockouts in Texas and New York. Scypion will forever remain noteworthy because of the aftermath of his knockout victory over Classen, which forever changed the boxing regulations regarding athletes of all kinds and upholding new and advanced safety requirements in New York State by the New York State Athletic Commission.
After Classen was knocked out at the Felt Forum in New York City on November 23, 1979, it was quickly determined Classen was in serious medical trouble. A call was put out for an ambulance and medical personnel. There was a delay, because back in 1979 in New York State, it was not required to have an ambulance present onsite nearby during a boxing card, amateur or professional. After about a half hour, an AAU boxing official present at the card flagged down a passing ambulance on Eighth Avenue. The fighter was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, the closest hospital equipped for emergency brain neurosurgery procedures.
Within two hours of losing to Scypion, Classen underwent surgery for two and a half hours to remove a blood clot in his brain. Classen never regained consciousness, and five days later, at 7:42 PM on Wednesday, November 28, 1979, Willie Classen was pronounced dead from a subdural hematoma. It was said Scypion (like Sugar Ray Robinson, Ray Mancini, Emile Griffith. and so many other boxers in a similar situation before him) was never the same fighter following Classen’s death. Griffith knocked out Benny Kid Paret in a world welterweight title bout at Madison Square Garden on March 24 1962, and Paret died after the bout on April 3, 1962, at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.
Right after Classen’s death, stricter rules and regulations were enacted, so another boxing tragedy would not happen. On July 17, 1981, the late New York State Governor Hugh Carey signed a bill making it mandatory for boxing promoters to have an ambulance onsite and two emergency responders present during a fight card. A requirement was enacted to compel the State Athletic Commission Medical Advisory Board to develop medical education programs for all fightpersonnel, as well as conducting ongoing review of the credentials and performance of all current commission physicians. A rule stating a fighter must make it out of his own corner unaided, of his own volition, the Willie ‘Classen Rule’, was also added to the professional boxing rulebook in New York State.
The late Gil Clancy was the matchmaker for the ill-fated Scypion versus Classen ten round bout. 1981 lawsuits filed by Willie’s wife Marilyn for $500 million against Madison Square Garden, referee Lew Eskin, and the four ringside doctors present, as well as a $250,000 suit against the City of New York and its medical examiner for bungling Classen’s autopsy and causing her excess suffering, was finally settled in 1987 for a six figure amount. On June 26, 2001, in a fight held aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid in New York City in June 1981, George Khalid Jones knocked out Betthaeven Scottland in the tenth round of a light heavyweight bout 22 years after the Scypion bout. Scottland went into a coma, and died from his injuries six days later.
Although Scypion later got a world middleweight title shot at Marvin Hagler, Scypion never escaped the sadness, guilt, emotional pain and burden of what he did to Classen. The death of Classen drove Scypion to drink and drugs. Classen was 29 years old when he died, and left behind a wife and four children. In the last years of his life, even while in declining health and suffering from dementia and Parkinson’s Disease while being cared for by his younger sister Mary in Port Arthur, Texas, Wilford Scypion still discussed the night Classen died three or four times a week with subconscious regret. “I killed Classen. The referee should have stopped the fight (sooner),” Scypion always repeated from the subconscious. Scypion wanted to win, but he didn’t intend for Willie Classen to get hurt or die, and he was the never the same fighter or the same person after that, apparently, till the day Scypion died.
After the Scypion versus Classen bout, Jack Prenderville, then the Commissioner of the New York State Athletic Commission, opposed a new rule requiring an ambulance be present on site for every bout during a New York State Assembly hearing to discuss improve New York’s boxing rules and regulations. Thankfully, thanks to the astute insight of the New York State Legislature into boxing safety precautions, ambulances are now required by law at all professional boxing events in New York State, and there have been no more fatalities.
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