[2] The tournament was ultimately cancelled because a duo composed of New York City writer Malcolm "Flash" Gordon and television sportscaster Alex Wallau discovered that there were many fraudulent concerns around it, including falsified boxer records and fighter rankings.
Don King, the promoter from Cleveland, Ohio, decided to capitalize on that patriotism as well as on the success of five Americans in amateur boxing at the 1976 Summer Olympics (Sugar Ray Leonard, Leon and Michael Spinks, Howard Davis and Leo Randolph, each of whom had won gold medals) so he created the tournament.
LeDoux fought Johnny Boudreaux, an American of African descent, on February 13, 1977, at the Halsey Field House in Annapolis, Maryland.
Edwin Viruet, a Puerto Rican boxer, also fought as part of the tournament in the lightweight division on that program, knocking out Tommy Rose in four rounds.
Two more bouts that were part of the U.S. championships took place on that program: one was a Middleweight contest, Leo Saenz vs. Casey Gacic, and the other one was a featherweight one between Richard Rozelle and Davey Vazquez.
[5] A melee ensued after the decision was announced for the Boudreaux–LeDoux bout, where LeDoux punched Boudreaux on camera and television broadcaster Howard Cosell's hairpiece fell off.
Another prominent boxer who participated at the tournament was Floyd Mayweather Sr.[13] Future WBC world Super-Lightweight (Junior Welterweight) champion Saoul Mamby also participated;[14] on April 2 (the same day of Ruben Castillo's semi-finals fight), he beat Mike Everett in a semi-final of the series' Super-Lightweight tournament at San Antonio, Texas by a ten-rounds unanimous decision, with Mamby allowed to compete despite being one pound over that division's weight limit of 140 pounds.
The scandal would lead to the eventual resignation of New York State Boxing Commissioner James A. Farley Jr., who had lent his name to the championship tournament's fights.
Wallau moved into management under Bob Iger in 1993 and was named president of ABC in 2000, with oversight of 11 divisions, including Entertainment, News, Sports, Finance & Sales.