{{short description|Polish-born British boxer, matchmaker, and promoter}} {{Distinguish|Mickey Duffy}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox boxer | image = MickeyDuff.jpeg | caption = | name = Mickey Duff | nationality = British | realname = Monek Prager | nickname = Mickey Duff<br />Adopted as legal name | weight = lightweight | height = | reach = | birth_date = {{birth date|1929|06|07|mf=y}} | birth_place = Tarnów, Poland | death_date = {{death date and age|2014|03|22|1929|06|07|mf=y}} | death_place = South London | style = Orthodox | total = 45 | wins = 33 | KO = 4 | losses = 8 | draws = 4 | no contests = }}
'''Mickey Duff''' (7 June 1929 – 22 March 2014), was a Polish-born British boxer, matchmaker, manager and promoter.<ref>{{cite web|title=Punch Drunk|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200001240050|publisher=New Statesman|date=24 January 2000}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Press Association |url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/22/boxing-promoter-mickey-duff-dies-84|title=Boxing world pays tribute to promoter Mickey Duff who has died aged 84 | Sport | The Observer |newspaper=The Observer |date=22 March 2014 |publisher=Theguardian.com|accessdate=22 March 2014}}</ref><ref name="BoxRec">{{cite web|title=Mickey Duff BoxRec Record|url=http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/202784|publisher=BoxRec|accessdate=7 March 2018}}</ref><ref name="BoxRec Bio">{{cite web|title=Mickey Duff BoxRec Bio|url=http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Mickey_Duff|publisher=BoxRec|accessdate=7 March 2018}}</ref>
==Early life== Duff was born '''Monek Prager''' to a Jewish family in Tarnów, Poland on 7 June 1929.<ref>{{cite book |last=Duff |first=Mickey |date=2019 |title=Twenty and Out: A Life in Boxing |url=https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Out-Boxing-Mickey-Duff-ebook/dp/B07QSRFMMW |access-date=November 4, 2019}}</ref> His father, a rabbi, helped the family flee the Nazis and emigrate to England in the late 1930s.<ref name="Mickey Duff, IMDB">{{cite web|title=Mickey Duff IMDB Biography|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1389186/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm|publisher=IMDB|accessdate=7 March 2018}}</ref>
==Career in boxing== ===Four-year career as boxer=== Duff became a professional boxer aged fifteen, and boxed for four years. According to Mickey, he chose the name Duff from the character, "Jackie-Boy Duffy" from the movie ''Cash and Carry'', though the character actually came from the 1941 boxing movie, ''Ringside Maisie''. The ring name hid his boxing career from his disapproving father, with whom he would have a strained relationship for life, though for other reasons.<ref name="Alan Hubbard">{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/interview-mickey-duff-missing-link-in-a-haul-of-fame-1101353.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220514/https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/interview-mickey-duff-missing-link-in-a-haul-of-fame-1101353.html |archive-date=14 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Interview: Mickey Duff - Missing link in a haul of fame|author=Alan Hubbard|date=20 June 1999|location=London, UK|work=The Independent}}</ref><ref>Got his name from a boxing movie in "Square Ring Turns Full Circle", ''The Observer'', London, England, pg. 53, 8 December 1996</ref> Starting his career after WWII, from September, 1945, to May, 1946, Duff fought fourteen bouts in the greater London area, winning twelve, with only one loss and one draw. He eventually achieved a 75% winning boxing record in a career that included around fifty fights, but lost his last professional bout on December 7, 1948, against Scottish boxer Neil McCearn, in West Ham, in an eight round points decision. BoxRec, the online boxing record site, lists 46 of his better-publicized bouts.<ref name="BoxRec"/>
===Achievements as boxing promoter, match-maker, and manager=== After briefly working selling sewing machines, Duff returned to boxing to make matches across the UK. In the late 1950s Jack Solomons was England's greatest boxing promoter. As Solomons' ironclad control of British boxing waned, a new team began to form with Duff as match maker, Jarvis Astaire as manager, and friend and mentor Harry Levene, as promoter.<ref name="BoxRec Bio"/> He also had as partners Terry Lawless, Mike Barrett, and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).<ref name="The Observer pg. 53, 8">"Square Ring Turns Full Circle", ''The Observer'', London, England, pg. 53, 8 December 1996</ref> One publication described Duff and his partners's ascendancy in the boxing world, as "an efficient cartel which broke one monopoly and established another."<ref name="Alan Hubbard"/> Duff became vastly more famous as a manager, matchmaker, and promoter than he was as a London area boxer. His participation and strong position in the sport as a promoter and matchmaker would extend over four decades from 1953 through 1997.<ref name="BoxRec Promoter">{{cite web|title=Mickey Duff BoxRec Promoter record|url=http://boxrec.com/en/promoter/202784?offset=0|publisher=BoxRec|accessdate=7 March 2018}}</ref>
====Top boxers in his stable==== During his strong position as a promoter and manager, he was involved with at least 16 world champions and many leading British fighters, including: {{Div col}} * Terry Downes (1961) * Frank Bruno<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/duff-still-boxing-clever-into-retirement-741663.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220514/https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/duff-still-boxing-clever-into-retirement-741663.html |archive-date=14 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Duff still boxing clever into retirement|author=Brian Viner|date=1 December 1999|location=London, UK|work=The Independent}}</ref> * Joe Calzaghe * Howard Winstone (1968) * John Conteh (1974) * Barry McGuigan (1984) * Lloyd Honeyghan (1986) * Maurice Hope * Charlie Magri * Alan Minter * John H Stracey * Jim Watt * John "The Beast" Mugabi * Cornelius Boza Edwards. {{Div col end}} The clout and connections that Duff could bring to bear from his media contacts, wealth, and professional associations could fast channel a competitors rise to a championship bout. Duff's participation and then dominant place in British boxing lasted through the sixty's, seventies, and most of the eighties.
====Widely credited media roles==== Duff became widely known in the media, particularly for the awards he received for his work on ''HBO Boxing'' (1973), ''ESPN Top Rank Boxing'' (1980), and as a consultant with the movie ''Triumph of the Spirit'' (1990). ESPN and HBO, however, would not remain the exclusive, or dominant line to the world and British boxing market.
===Frank Warren's rise and Duff's fall from prominence=== By the 1990s, Duff's primary competitor, promoter Frank Warren, had seventy-five boxers in his stable, and could be described accurately by London's ''Observer'' as "the only show in town". Equally significant was Warren's 50,000,000 pound deal with Britain's largest pay tv network, Sky TV, British commercial television network, ITV and his direct line to the American TV market through promoter Don King. Duff, who was once the major player in London, saw three of his top fighters, Frank Bruno, Joe Calzaghe, and Henry Akinwande leave him for more profitable deals with Warren, sapping both Duff's financial position and market share.<ref name="The Observer pg. 53, 8"/> Eventually giving in to diminishing health, loss of his boxing stable, and Frank Warren's dominance through his partnership with ITV and Sky TV, Duff retired.
upright=.8|right|thumb|International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee
==Life outside boxing and death in 2014== He had one child with wife Marie, with whom he remained on good terms after they separated.<ref name="Mickey Duff, IMDB"/>
He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1999. After suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Duff died at a nursing home in South London on 22 March 2014 from natural causes at the age of 84.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/former-boxing-promoter-mickey-duff-dies-aged-84-9210298.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220514/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/former-boxing-promoter-mickey-duff-dies-aged-84-9210298.html |archive-date=14 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Former boxing promoter Mickey Duff dies, aged 84|date=22 March 2014|work=The Independent}}</ref><ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/26700744 Notice of death of Mickey Duff], bbc.co.uk; accessed 22 March 2014.</ref><ref>"Sports Shorts", ''Arizona Daily Star'', Tucson, Arizona, pg. B010, 24 March 2014</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist|30em}}
==References== * [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1999/11/13/somott13.html The Daily Telegraph]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} <!--Do not remove this dead link as it is the source--> *{{cite book|title=Twenty & Out: a life in boxing|author=Mickey Duff with Bob Mee|year=1999 |publisher=Collins Willow|isbn=0-00-218926-7}} *{{cite book|author1=James B. Roberts |author2=Alexander Skutt |author3=James B. Roberts |title=The Boxing Register: International Boxing Hall of Fame Official Record Book|page=709|publisher=Collins|year=2006}} *{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/interview-mickey-duff--missing-link-in-a-haul-of-fame-1101353.html|title=Interview: Mickey Duff - Missing link in a haul of fame|author=Alan Hubbard|date=20 June 1999|location=London|work=The Independent}} * {{boxrec|id=202784}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|1389186}} *{{BoxRec|202784}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duff, Mickey}} Category:1929 births Category:2014 deaths Category:British boxing promoters Category:British Jews Category:British male boxers Category:British people of Polish-Jewish descent Category:Jewish boxers Category:Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Polish male boxers Category:Sportspeople from Tarnów Category:Martial artists from Lesser Poland Voivodeship Category:Lightweight boxers Category:20th-century Polish sportsmen