THE ENCYCLOPEDIA
WHEN you are goaded into a debate by Don Majeski it is advisable that you put your ego aside, because by the time the 67-year-old resident of Queens, New York gets done stating his case you come away realising just how little you know about boxing history compared to him.
As Philadelphia promoter Russell Peltz once jokingly said, “Majeski knows what toothpaste John L. Sullivan used.”
There are boxing historians and then there is Majeski who has the answers to questions few would even think to ask. As one who speaks with him on the phone more than I do anyone else in the business, the conversations can easily range from who founded the Pelican club in England in the 1880s to who was the premier promoter in Japan in the 1920s.
Although Majeski’s legacy might predominantly be that of a boxing historian, it has been as an international agent working in various capacities over the last 50 years where he has left his mark.
Born on Halloween day of 1952, in Elmhurst, Queens, Don never met his dad Richard Majeski who passed away from a rare disease a month before he was born. Raised by his mother Joan, Don’s goal at a young age was to be a zoologist, but that started to change when he saw a newspaper report detailing the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston rematch in 1965. The following year Majeski attended his first live event,
