Enthusiastic to the end with boxing, Newton Campos dies at 96

In the hallway of his apartment on Alameda Barão de Limeira, in downtown São Paulo, Newton Campos had hung several paintings. Only one had no reference to boxing. It was a face of Carlos Gardel sculpted with the excerpt from the tango “Adios Muchachos” (goodbye boys, in Spanish).

“It’s up to me today to undertake the retreat. I must get away from my good guys, in free translation).

The singer born in France and disputed by Argentines and Uruguayans was one of Campos’ passions. Not the biggest. He lost outright to the sport to which he dedicated himself until the end of his life. Journalist, TV commentator and president of the São Paulo Boxing Federation for 32 years, Campos died this Monday, aged 96. He suffered a heart attack at home.

“I’m really enthusiastic. Without enthusiasm, you get nowhere”, he defined for the leaf in 2020.

Until the last few weeks, Campos updated the Federation’s social networks and took care of the organization of Forja dos Champions, the most traditional amateur boxing tournament in the country. He took over everything. From the draw of the fights, scoring, disclosure of the table and awards. On nights when the event took place, he was the first to arrive and the last to leave.

He continued to contact coaches and fighters for news. She called journalist friends to get information and charged them when they didn’t go to the boarding or disembarkation of athletes who would make international fights and for title disputes.

In 2019, when Patrick Teixeira won the world super middleweight belt from the World Boxing Organization, he stayed by the phone at dawn. He was waiting for information about the fight not broadcast by Brazilian broadcasters.

Newton Campos remembered everything. Without consulting papers or researching the Internet, he cited data on wrestlers and matches he watched in the 1940s. He liked to recount his trips around the planet to follow the sport. He told in detail the performance he saw Eder Jofre, at the age of seven, do at the Pacaembu Gym.

He was the protagonist of one of the most incredible stories in Brazilian sports journalism and was pleased to remember it.

He was the only journalist from the country present at the historic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), on October 30, 1974. Because of the favorable time zone, the delay in the start of the event and luck the flight left on time, he managed to arrive in Brazil in time to publish his account of the fight, with photos, in the next day’s edition of the newspaper “A Gazeta Esportiva”.
Campos considered Joe Louis the greatest boxer of all time.

When asked about an athlete and wanted to provide accurate statistics, he would go looking. His small bedroom used as an office was dominated by the rustling of papers until he found what he wanted. This happened even if it was something apart from boxing. Like the word he was missing when quoting the lyrics of “O Ébrio”, by Vicente Celestino, the singer he liked to imitate as a child, although his father preferred Gardel.

President of honor of the CMB (World Boxing Council), Mr Newton, as he was called by everyone, became known to the general public in the 1980s and 1990s at Rede Bandeirantes. He was the commentator on the fights of Adilson Maguila Rodrigues, who came close to fighting for the heavyweight world title against Mike Tyson.

After Tyson defeated Frank Bruno (then number 1 in the world, the first challenger for the belt), in 1989, Campos believed that Maguila, the second in the ranking, would be his next opponent. The CMB decided not to. The chosen one was Evander Holyfield. The commentator tore up his membership card of the Council live, at Bandeirantes.

To decide the matter, a fight was scheduled between Maguila and Holyfield. Whoever won would face Tyson. The Brazilian was knocked out in the second round.

“Maguila won the first round. He hit and left, hit and left. [Angelo} Dundee [técnico] ordered to go up to Holyfield. If Maguila kept hitting and leaving, maybe he would win the fight. Going on the attack, he was knocked out”, recalled Campos, who never forgave Dundee, Ali’s former coach, for that.

Until the end of his life, the leader and journalist believed that boxing would return to TV and that it would have the same visibility as in the past. He bet that would happen if Robson Conceição won a world title. In an interview with CNN Brasil, he expressed his unshakable faith in this two weeks ago.

It was a variation on the enthusiasm of someone who spent hours talking about the sport he loved, leaning back in his chair in the center of the capital. He was pointing to the pictures that were on the wall. One of them, that of his idol and friend Eder Jofre.

Ingrid Campos’ widower, Newton leaves two children, Marcel and Carlos, and four grandchildren. His body will be buried in São Carlos, in the interior of São Paulo, his hometown.