Stanley Weston

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. Weston subsequently sold all of his publications, to include The Ring, to Kappa Publishing in 1993. Weston was also an author who penned 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.

In the 1972, Weston started a new magazine, Sports Review Wrestling, that featured "bloody covers and outlandish stories". Initially, competing with other Weston publications, the magazine sold poorly. In 1973, Weston showed Apter a set of photos taken by Los Angeles based boxing photographer Theo Ehret. 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 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 refereed 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.

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.