Worth a Visit: The International Boxing Hall of Fame

We had been on the road too long when Keryn spotted the billboard from the New York State Thruway. Her finger shot toward the right shoulder.

“The International Boxing Hall of Fame. Sounds fun. Maybe we should stop on the way back.”

Fifteen minutes before, we passed signs for Cooperstown and part of me wanted to suggest we stop. But a challenging week lay ahead, and a museum to a sport she finds boring (except from the stands) would probably not make the grade. Truth was that I would not want to stop there any more than she. By Thursday, when we would pass Cooperstown on our return drive from Central New York, a familiar bed would sit highest on our individual lists. Two hours of admiring busts and plaques? Not so much.

But boxing had promise. Last weekend we watched When We Were Kings, the feature-length documentary about the Ali-Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle,” and loved it.

Once settled into our Syracuse hotel, we found the Boxing Hall of Fame website. Admittedly, I lost some enthusiasm on finding that the site does not enumerate the museum’s operating hours (suggesting potential visitors call instead) and that more than half of the pages do not work.

Fortunately, Google returned an article from The Washington Post that described the HOF’s exhibits in some detail. Bronze casts of champions’ fists sounded particularly unusual, even as I contemplated the possibility (later proven true) that my own fists would produce casts smaller than Christy Martin, former female boxing champion…

Besides, when I typed the address into our trusty GPS, I learned that it was so close to the highway that we could not afford to skip it. Add that to your trusty bundle of travel rules: if a potential destination is less than half a mile off your path, that should erase most or all hesitation… (Exceptions to be made for exorbitant entry fees – at $7 per person, the IBHOF was more than reasonable).


To say that the International Boxing Hall of Fame is unassuming is to make a gross understatement. Without the signage, one might guess it little more than a modest two bedroom house with cedar clapboards. In fact, if the museum underwent a residential conversion, it would barely accommodate two bedrooms. The IBHOF is not spacious.

Yet its simplicity is majestic in a way that echoes the crude potency of the sport. We were the only two visitors for the hour we spent there, about which I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was wonderful to tour at our own speed, never needing to hurry along or jockey for position with pushy strangers. We moved freely, watched the video displays as long as we wished, lingered to read the single paragraph biographies beneath the small photographs of each of the IBHOF’s 300+ inductees. But the museum merits more visitors, and I would have gladly sacrificed some of my personal space for the museum to be more widely seen.


I’m sure the most frequently asked question at the International Boxing Hall of Fame is “Why Canastota?” I already knew the answer, but the greeter took two minutes to explain nonetheless. As the website notes: “In 1982, residents of Canastota, N.Y., decided to honor former welterweight and middleweight champion of the late-1950s, Carmen Basilio, and his nephew, Billy Backus, who won the world welterweight title in 1970.” This nothing hamlet twenty minutes outside Syracuse had produced two world boxing champions; why not launch the hall of fame there. Halls of fame belong off the beaten path, or so it seems. Baseball in Cooperstown, Basketball in Springfield, Football in Canton…Boxing in Canastota.

Robes, gloves, and boots from assorted champions were fun to see, but what astonished me throughout the exhibit were the photographs. I read somewhere that few sports lend themselves to photography as well as boxing. How true. Only in a still photograph can you really see the awesome power of what one man’s fist can do to another man’s face. The sweat sprays, the flesh buckles, the eyes can tell no lies. At real-speed, a boxer can seem unharmed and can use this seeming to his advantage. Look, your punches don’t hurt. But in the moment of impact the truth stands unblemished by artifice. We stared at pictures a long time.

Cinderella Man (James Braddock) in the flesh, his grainy visage echoing Russell Crowe more than we realized, helping Joe Louis, the man who would take his title not long thereafter, cut his birthday cake. Mike Tyson on his way down against Buster Douglas. Muhammad Ali on the canvas, silenced by Joe Frazier…

If you’re a fan of boxing and you drive through Central New York without stopping at the IBHOF, shame on you. We give it our Unqualified Recommendation.