Stanley Weston

Military service Weston was a World War II and Korean War veteran who enlisted in the United States Army in 1941 and was promoted to second lieutenant in 1943. He remained on active duty until 1946 when he transitioned into the reserves. Weston returned to active duty for service in the Korean War and then once again transitioned back to the reserves after the war. He retired from Air Force Reserves in 1966 at the rank of major.

Weston's work in the publishing industry was interrupted by World War II when served in the United States Army from 1941 until 1946.

In 1970, Weston ensured access to wrestling's most important celebrities by hiring 25 year old wrestling enthusiast Bill Apter who cultivated friendships with the biggest stars in the business.

Despite the success of Weston's publishing empire, competition with Vincent J. McMahon's WWE during the late 1980s and early 1990s resulted in a loss of sales as McMahon curtailed outside journalists from reporting on his events. McMahon also began the process of breaking kayfabe, jeopardizing Weston's core competency: creating outrageous stories about wrestlers. Weston subsequently sold all of his publications, to include The Ring, to Kappa Publishing in 1993.

Weston also authored several of the definitive books on boxing history, including History of the Heavyweights, The Heavyweight Champions, The Best of The Ring, The Chronicle of Boxing and, with Steve Farhood, The Ring: Boxing the 20th Century.

Kayfabe Central to the success of Weston's wrestling magazines was adhering to kayfabe: the portrayal of staged events as real. While the wrestling matches featured in Weston’s magazines did occur, typically the post-match interviews and quotes from the wrestlers were fictitious. “I specifically remember that the first time I was asked to do a wrestling article, they gave me a bunch of photos, they told me what was going on, and I said, ‘Okay, do you have the phone numbers of the wrestlers so I can get some quotes?’ And that was met with a lot of laughs, of course, because I didn’t know that you made up the quotes.” -- Steve Farhood, who covered boxing and wrestling for Weston. Apter was surprised that the photo set showed young, bikini-clad women in posed wrestling moves. Weston referred to the wrestling sessions as "Apartment House Wrestling" and told Apter that they would constitute a new feature in Sports Review Wrestling. Weston's Sports Review Wrestling, featuring bloody covers and women fighting in bikinis, created a stir on the wrestling industry and caused some professional wrestlers to stop cooperating with G.C London Publishing.

By the end of the decade, knowing that adolescents represented a large share of his sales audience and in response to parental concerns, Weston had removed both Apartment House stories as well as bloody photos from the magazine's covers.

Apartment House Wrestling Juxtaposing photographs of girls in bikinis fighting each other alongside photos of legitimate wrestlers such as Chief Jay Strongbow infuriated people in the wrestling industry, including Strongbow who asked Apter "What is this crap doing in a wrestling magazine? Why is my picture next to them?" Professional wrestler Gorilla Monsoon threw a copy of the magazine at Apter and said "Tell Weston this doesn't fly!"

Pro Wrestling Illustrated Pro Wrestling Illustrated, first published in 1979, was Weston's most successful wrestling magazine. Weston began publishing Pro Wrestling Illustrated in 1979 and assigned Bill Apter as the magazine's senior editor and photographer. The magazine became famous for treating wrestling storylines (kayfabe) as real, as well as announcing their annual awards to the best male and female wrestlers. The awards had previously been a feature of Sports Review Wrestling but moved to PWI when Sports Review Wrestling ceased publication in 1995. Apter remained senior editor of the magazine when Weston sold PWI to the Kappa Publishing Group in 1993 and, along with other staff members, moved from the New York area to the Philadelphia suburbs where Kappa was located. During his tenure with PWI, Apter became well known to millions of wrestling fans and became so identified with PWI that many in the wrestling community referred to PWI as the "Apter mag". After more than 28 years as the senior editor, Apter resigned in 1999 and began employment as editor-in-chief at World of Wrestling (WOW), a magazine published by H&S Media Inc. As of 2023, PWI was still being published by Kappa.

Personal life Weston was married to Hope Patrick (died 1980) for 38 years. A veteran of two wars, Weston remained in the Air Force Reserves, retiring at the rank of Major in 1966.

He died on April 11, 2002, from pancreatic cancer. He was survived by two daughters, Toby Weston Cone and Barbara Harris, along with four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Throughout his seven decades long career in boxing, he amassed one of the largest collections of boxing memorabilia in the world.

Legacy and awards "He loved the history of boxing and everything about boxing, but boxing didn't make the money that wrestling did. He was very attracted to Ringling Brothers ... the whole freak show aspect of it... and that ties into wrestling because of freaks like André the Giant. They were sideshows. He was an amazing storyteller, whether he was talking about a cruise he took or writing in a publication." - Toby Weston Crone, daughter. "There was, in fact, very little about Stanley Weston that could be considered traditional. He was a writer who never read a book. He was a millionaire who drove a Ford Tempo. He was a former military officer who rarely barked orders. He was at the same time a man who watched every penny and the most generous soul I have ever met." - Stu Saks, publisher, Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee - Observer (2006) Pro Wrestling Illustrated PWI Stanley Weston Award (1992)