Favourite lines of boxing journalism

[Counter-puncher]

inspired by Glyn Leach by way of datsue, Lloyd - Barrera 'like watching a toddler walking into a threshing machine'

a couple more come to mind from the great Hugh McIlvanney:

on Jack Bodell 'it looked like he learned his footwork at a school for deepsea divers'

on the scoring of Leonard - hearns 1, 'comparing the damage done by Hearns in the early rounds he won with that done by Leonard in rounds 6 and 7 is akin to comparing a light spring shower with a Luftwaffe air-raid'

who's got some good lines to add here?

[Datsue]

Nice.

I can't actually think of any more, off the top of my bonce.

Apart from that one by Joyce Carol Oates, which is a tremendous sentence but I don't actually think it's factually correct: "Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost."

EDIT: I can't quote it verbatim but A.J. Liebling's description of how & why to shout out advice when you're at a boxing match makes me piss myself with glee every time I read it. I'd quote it but I couldn't do it justice.

It starts: "Watching a fight on television has always seemed to me a poor substitute for being there." Or something like...

[orbtastic]

Can't remember which fight but someone in either BM or BN described Zaragoza's claret covered face as an Aztec War Mask.

Someone in BN, think it might have been Claude, used both "head bobbing about like a cork in a maelstrom" and "like a sailor clinging to a mast" at different times, both stuck with me.

I don't know who the first person to coin - on him like a cheap suit was, but it's fantastic.

[IRLangmaid25]

Two good lines from McIlvanney on Boxing

On Barry McGuigan's body punching. "Makes his opponents wish that their rib cage was constructed by Harland and Wolf"
On Johnny Owen's death. The last line still sticks

"Quite a few of us who have been involved with it most of our lives share the doubts. But our reactions are bound to be complicated by the knowledge that it was boxing that gave Johnny Owen his one positive means of self-expression. Outside the ring he was an inaudible and almost invisible personality. Inside, he became astonishingly positive and self-assured. He seemed to be more at home there than anywhere else. It is his tragedy that he found himself articulate in such a dangerous language".

[IRLangmaid25]

Two good lines from McIlvanney on Boxing

On Barry McGuigan's body punching. "Makes his opponents wish that their rib cage was constructed by Harland and Wolf"
On Johnny Owen's death. The last line still sticks

"Quite a few of us who have been involved with it most of our lives share the doubts. But our reactions are bound to be complicated by the knowledge that it was boxing that gave Johnny Owen his one positive means of self-expression. Outside the ring he was an inaudible and almost invisible personality. Inside, he became astonishingly positive and self-assured. He seemed to be more at home there than anywhere else. It is his tragedy that he found himself articulate in such a dangerous language". But the rest of the article entitled "When Johnny Owen's courage let him down is a terrific read http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/sja- ... -him-down/

[Counter-puncher]

McIlvanney was tremendous and his writing on Jonny Owen particularly so.

[Datsue]

Terrible admission: I've not read enough McIlvanney. Dreadful oversight? Can anyone recommend me a sort of omnium-gatherum across-the-years collection, please?

[Matt W]

Terrible admission: I've not read enough McIlvanney. Dreadful oversight? Can anyone recommend me a sort of omnium-gatherum across-the-years collection, please?

'McIlvanney On Boxing', highly recommended.

[Recycle]

Here's a great line I told my friends after watching Ali Frazier 1 "that smokin Joe got one hell of a left hook"

[orbtastic]

Terrible admission: I've not read enough McIlvanney. Dreadful oversight? Can anyone recommend me a sort of omnium-gatherum across-the-years collection, please?

'McIlvanney On Boxing', highly recommended.

Dark Trade also worth a read.

[Bricks]

" he's trying to fight his way into a new attitude but he's had the worst night of his life ".....(harry Carpenter about Honeyghan during the 8th round v starling when Honeyghan started dancing abandoning the reckless slugging)

[Datsue]

"Harding opened the rematch as if somewhere in the intervening months, he had been taught to box, & was determined to dazzle Andries with science."

-- McIlvanney. Class.

[Counter-puncher]

toldja