Remembering Dan Goossen, a True Legend in the Boxing Business

The boxing community was shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden passing of legendary promoter and matchmaker Dan Goossen on Monday, but the boisterous figure left behind a huge legacy that will be tough to match.

Goossen, 64, succumbed to liver cancer just weeks after learning that he had the disease, with few people even knowing he was sick until he was gone.

The loss quickly reverberated throughout the boxing community, and while Goossen may have done much of his work without the fanfare or notoriety of promotional giants Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, he was a giant of the industry.

Goossen was a tireless advocate for the sport of boxing. He was loud and outgoing, one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, but also a fierce defender of the sport he loved.

He could disarm you with a joke and his quick wit, but if you wanted to talk boxing, you’d better be prepared.

And he was always willing to talk shop with fighters, writers and fans.

Here was a man who literally came from nothing and competed with the big boys of his era, managing big fighters into big fights.

Goossen formed Ten Goose Boxing with his nine siblings (the other nine geese), and he cut his teeth promoting shows in Resada, California, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

Veteran Los Angeles Times boxing writer Steve Springer communicated to Yahoo Sports Kevin Iole just how humble Goossen’s beginnings were:

This was a guy who started literally from nothing. They had a part of the property in the back where they used to play whiffle ball. He put up four ropes around a canvas to make a makeshift ring out of it. He started with nothing; really, started with nothing. You think of guys like [Bob] Arum and [Don] King and all of the resources they had and here was a guy in the San Fernando Valley, North Hollywood, with a backyard gym. It was not even a gym, it was a ring, and he became a major promoter. That was all Dan. His focus was always on moving ahead.

Goossen made a lot of headway as the guy from Southern California with a makeshift ring and a ton of hope.

Many fans who came to the sport more recently—again, in the era of two major promotional companies and many smaller side outfits—might underestimate the impact Goossen, who once worked with Bob Arum, had on the sport.

He found both Gabriel and Rafael Ruelas, a pair of all-action Mexican warriors. 

The Ruelas brothers, both world champions during their careers, competed with some of the biggest names in the sport, including Oscar De La Hoya, Azumah Nelson and Arturo Gatti.

Gabriel’s 1997 knockout loss to Gatti, named by The Ring Magazine as fight of the year, was a brutal slugfest, with both men hurt numerous times and the stoppage coming with both men trading bombs at close quarters.

Those were the type of fights that Dan loved, and he was good at matching fighters that would make them.

Goossen is also credited with steering Michael “Second To” Nunn and “Terrible” Terry Norris to world-championship opportunities which they didn’t let slip away.

He was tireless in his advocacy for his fighters, turning a pair of heavyweights with big punches but limited overall skill sets—David Tua and more recently Chris Arreola—into legitimate challengers for the biggest prize in boxing.

And he did it by thinking outside of the box, tapping into unique elements of each man's personality and refusing to quit.

In his decades-long career, Goossen also worked with a slew of legends including James Toney—whom he helped resurrect after falling on tough times—Mike Tyson and Bernard Hopkins.

He even promoted two of pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather’s fights, taking the lead for his contests with Sharmba Mitchell and Carlos Baldomir after the then-Pretty Boy split from Top Rank and Arum.

Goossen will probably best be known—at least by the current generation of fight fans—for his relationship, recently rocky, with super middleweight champion Andre Ward.

Ward and Goossen had recently been involved in some highly charged and unsavory litigation regarding the fighter’s contract and issues over payouts from fights.

Seeking to break his contract, Ward was twice rejected by the California State Athletic Commission and more recently by the Los Angeles courts, and he's seen his promising career stall from inactivity as a result.

But, however things turned out in the end, Ward has much to be thankful for. 

Ward was magnanimous in a statement released upon learning of Goossen's death:

I was deeply saddened to learn the news of Dan Goossen’s passing early this morning. My thoughts and prayers have been with Dan and his family since I received the news of his illness last week. While Dan and I recently had our professional struggles, he was a great man, father and husband. He will be greatly missed by the boxing community. I will continue to keep the Goossen family in my prayers.

Goossen signed Ward in 2004, shortly after the American won gold at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, and managed him to the top of his division in short order. 

Under his guidance, Ward captured Showtime’s Super 6 tournament to determine a 168-pound champion and had all of his fights on his doorstep in Oakland.

The litigation, which unfortunately dominated much of the last few years of his life, always seemed to bother Goossen, because it distracted him from his passion in life.

Boxing.

It was a passion that helped him enrich many lives.

From fighters to fans, to just about anyone who had the pleasure of encountering him.

Dan Goossen was truly one of a kind, and his loss will be felt for some time to come.