Former IFL CEO Larkin, 59, dies of brain cancer
Jay Larkin, once one of the most powerful people in the boxing industry as head of the franchise for Showtime,…
Jay Larkin, once one of the most powerful people in the boxing industry as head of the franchise for Showtime, died Monday after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 59.
Larkin spent 22 years with the network, rising from junior publicist to senior vice president and executive producer until he was fired in November 2005.
He ran the boxing department for more than a decade until losing his job during cutbacks by parent company Viacom.
Larkin was involved with boxing at Showtime since it first began televising the sport in March 1986, when it aired Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s middleweight title defense against John Mugabi.
He was the driving force in deciding which fights Showtime would buy and was the chief negotiator in those deals.
During Larkin’s run, Showtime emerged as a challenger to HBO’s boxing dominance by televising some of boxing’s biggest events, including numerous fights involving Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Julio Cesar Chavez.
Larkin came into boxing by accident. A mild fan who had attended a handful of fights, Larkin was trained with a background in theater. But he loved to tell the story of how he wound up with his high-profile job running the boxing department for the network.
Before the Hagler-Mugabi fight, Showtime executive Fred Schneier asked Larkin if he knew who the old man standing near them was when they were on site. Larkin got it right. It was former light heavyweight champion Billy Conn and, on the spot, Larkin was made head of boxing for the network.
The punch line was that Larkin hadn’t really known who it was. Somebody had told him earlier that it was Conn.
“I wouldn’t have known Billy Conn if he had punched me in the face,” Larkin once said. “I didn’t know the IBF from the FBI. I guess I had pretty good timing didn’t I?”
After leaving Showtime, Larkin worked as president for the now-defunct mixed martial arts promotion International Fight League.
Larkin is survived by his wife, Lisa, and their teenage sons, Ryan and Gabriel. A funeral service is scheduled for Wednesday in Elmont, N.Y.
