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THE 70 BEST BOXING BOOKS (THAT I HAVE READ):
1. IN THE CORNER by Dave Anderson
Anderson put together this 1991 book about boxing trainers because he felt that they alone could best explain the art of crafting great fighters. Contains richly detailed first person accounts from Goody Petronelli, Angelo Dundee, George Benton, Jackie McCoy, Ray Arcel, Bill Slayton, Lou Duva, Manny Steward, Gil Clancy, Eddie Futch, Kevin Rooney and Ritchie Giachetti. Read and marvel at how the likes of Hagler, Tyson and Ali were transformed from little boys into hulking, frightful wrecking machines.
2. PUNCH LINES by Phil Berger
Berger had a marvelous fluid style of writing, with a wide vocabulary and witty turn-of-phrase. Punch Lines is a 1993 anthology of long-form boxing pieces he wrote for various publications. Here are 40 timeless portraits of assorted pugs including John Mugabi, James Scott, Tony Ayala, Akeem Anifowashe, Leon Spinks, Holyfield, Tyson, Bonecrusher, Berbick, Douglas, Foreman and Hagler. With a gift for getting inside his subjects’ heads, Berger’s reading of the fight figures makes his pieces the primary reference material on them.
3. BLOOD SEASON by Phil Berger
Berger again. His book Blood Season is ostensibly a Tyson biography but really an epic history of the heavyweight division from Leon Spinks’s win over Ali through to Iron Mike’s demolition of his brother Michael in the Megafight 10 years later. Weaving together the lives of Leon, Gerry Cooney and Tyson, Berger chronicles an unforgettable era of larger than life characters vying for control of the heavyweight title, with Don King and Donald Trump looming massively over everything. No one told Tyson’s bizarre tale in such captivating, punchy prose as did Berger. Buy the updated ‘95 edition, which includes Tokyo and the Indiana Youth Centre. Berger died too early—a terrible loss to writing.
4. BOXING’S BEST SHORT STORIES
I’m concerned you don’t read enough fiction. So like a dad concealing vegetables in his children’s food, here is a teasury of writings from literary heavyweights like Jack London, Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon, PG Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and many others—all of them short, and all of them about boxing. I hope you are enjoying my patting you on the head, smiling at you condescendingly. You’ve earned yourself a sweetie. (Btw, conspicuous by its absence is Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Fifty Grand’, but if you can find that elsewhere it’s well worth a go.)
5. ONLY THE RING WAS SQUARE by Teddy Brenner
Brenner was the longtime Madison Square Garden matchmaker who cared not for protecting fighters but rather pairing them in the most explosive combinations imaginable. In Only the Ring Was Square he expounds his views on the art of appraising boxers, and relates the comic and often shocking stories behind all of the internecine bouts he put together, navigating as he was a perilous minefield of puglilists, managers, trainers and mobsters. Cigar smoke swirls from the paragraphs, as he recounts his career in that salty old New York fight lingo that is so vivifying to read now, in this sterile age of P.R. and platitudes. Page for page probably the richest assemblage of anecdotes of any autobiography in sport!
6. FACING ALI by Stephen Brunt
When this book was published in 2002 I had serious Ali fatigue, and feeling there was nothing left to be written about the man I approached it with a mixture of reluctance and dread. Turns out there was still some juice to be squeezed from the Greatest. Brunt is a skilful writer, and he creates here vivid and beautiful portraits of 15 men who fought Ali. His personality must be as pleasing as his writing, because the fighters eschew the stock responses and instead open up and offer him fresh, infinitely more thoughtful material than has been heard before. The book spawned the film of the same name, which is great but not a patch on this thing of beauty.
7. A FIGHTER’S LIFE by George Chuvalo
For a man famed for his ability to withstand a punch, and who had 93 pro bouts and a brutal life post-boxing, George Chuvalo is remarkably intact, and gives in this 2013 autobiography a clear and unflinching account of his highs and many lows. Its strength is its detail: finally, a fighter who can recount each of his fights! Its weakness is also partly its charm: like all boxers, George never truly lost a fight; it was always some fluke or chicanery. Overall a dark and absorbing read, and a very welcome latecomer to the canon of classic boxing autobiogs. Sadly, George has since taken a turn for the worse, so his story was captured just in time.
8. BOXING BABYLON by Nigel Collins
Collins was an editor of The Ring in the 80s, when it was still worth reading. This sombre volume from 1990 puts the spotlight on some of boxing’s most tragic figures, with chapters on Stanley Ketchel, Harry Greb, Battling Siki, Randy Turpin, Sonny Liston, Carlos Monzon, Tyrone Everett and, in a standout, the oddly entwined lives of rivals Zora Folley and Eddie Machen. Collins’s research is prodigious and his book while haunting is a delight to read, with scenes that linger in your mind for years.
9. CELTIC WARRIOR by Steve Collins
There are only two types of boxing autobiography. There is one of high literary quality, and one of no literary quality. There is no in-between. Of the two, the latter is by far the more common, and easy to spot. It’s written in large, widely spaced font, printed on what feels like toilet paper and wrapped in a lurid cover with a tacky title and the obligatory ‘hard man’ type quote emblazoned across it (“I LOVE KNOCKING PEOPLE OUT. NOW I’M GOING TO KNOCK YOU OUT WITH MY STORY.” (not a real example)). Steve Collins’s Celtic Warrior should have been one such work. It was rushed into shops so quickly after his upset of Chris Eubank that the shamrocks shaven into his hair for that fight couldn’t have had time to grow out. Miraculously, it turned out to be a book of the highest calibre, and in fact one of the best of the 1990s. I think this must be down to the fact that Collins is probably more intelligent and perceptive than most fighters, and his ghostwriter, Paul Howard, is obviously a superior scribbler, and one who had traveled all over the world covering his bouts for Irish papers, thus giving him a wealth of material in advance. Between them they tell a story that can be enjoyed even by people who are indifferent to Collins, because it’s not so much an account of his career but a disturbing portrait of the life of a boxer, trying to make his fortune in the short time he has in a racket infested with parasites, crooks and backstabbers. It’s a black and horribly honest work, and one that lands its author in the unlikely position of having a book that scores higher in the ranks of boxing literature than he himself does in the ranks of great boxers.
10. MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Henry Cooper
Same as with Celtic Warrior, a book better than it should be. Published in ‘72, when Cooper had only recently retired, he tells his story in a frank, no nonsense manner. It’s a glimpse into a boxing world that no longer exists, rife with East End geezers, sparring in gyms over boozers and fights in smoky rooms. It’s also a reminder of the attitude heavyweights used to have: in Cooper’s day they still fret over the scales, watching their figures and worrying they’re unfit if they’re so much as half a pound over what they feel is their ideal weight. On the other hand, he makes no bones about ducking Sonny Liston. So some things haven’t changed. Overall a solid, gritty account of a long and gory career.
11. THE KNOCKOUT ARTIST by Harry Crews
Probably the oddest book in the oeuvre of Harry Crews. Eugene Talmadge Biggs is a boxer who has the ability to knock himself out with one punch. Thus he ekes out a living as a sort of one man traveling freak show, touring his great talent around the country. It’s very funny, but like most of Crews work extremely rare and long out-of-print. If you see it in a second-hand bookshop, you are probably hallucinating. But if not, buy it.
12. DEMPSEY by Jack Dempsey
Here a first-hand account of an authentic savage. A vagrant, angry Dempsey rides the rods, destroys barroom brawlers for money, bums about and eventually begins boxing professionally. Having left a trail of carnage in the ring, he beats the gigantic Jess Willard half to death and begins a reign that seems to epitomise the Roaring 20s. Old Jack tells the story of his amazing, violent life in a tone so dispassionate it borders on the psychopathic. Highly recommended.
13. MY BLEEDING BUSINESS by Terry Downes
All-action chronicle of a charismatic, one of a kind British boxing figure. Straight to the point and full of hilarious anecdotes, it rollicks along like an old time 15-rounder. “Sugar Ray said my punches never hurt him. So why was he on the floor?”
14. BOXIANA by Pierce Egan
Boxiana is to boxing what the Bible is to Christianity. Poetic and lyrical descriptions of pre-Queensbury bareknuckle contests of staggering brutality, quoted almost constantly in the classic works of AJ Liebling. It was Egan who coined the immortal term ‘The Sweet Science’, and his reportage did much to elevate and legitimize prizefighting in the eyes of the prudish Victorians. If you want to buy all four volumes you will need to remortgage your house. If that doesn’t appeal then the Folio Society did at least re-publish the first volume, complete with splendid illustrations (I know you like pictures). A work of colossal stature on the boxing landscape.
15. WHEN DEMPSEY FOUGHT TUNNEY by Bruce J. Evensen
An academic but hugely entertaining study of the Roaring 20s, and Dempsey’s rise from hobo to icon via the synchronicity of early radio, celebrity sportswriters, an ingenious manager and, crucially, a tamed citizenry who saw in Dempsey some thrilling remembrance of their wild, pioneering spirit of yore. When Gene Tunney strolls onto the scene, learned and cosmopolitan, the press magnifies their contrasting personas and builds their bouts into epochal battles between olde and new America. Magnificent read that transports you back in time.
16. BY GEORGE by George Foreman
Not the preachy bible-thumper you would expect, but rather a Cromwelian warts-and-all portrait of a man whose life has been a true picaresque adventure. Surprisingly dark and introspective, but punctuated by many hilarious comic scenes, what makes Foreman’s story even more remarkable is that his 10 years away from boxing produce a narrative every bit as eventful as his two fighting careers. Add that odyssey to colourful accounts of his days as a violent hoodlum in Houston’s Fifth Ward, his getting thrashed by a boy half his size the first time he stepped in the ring, the hurtful backlash from his patriotic flag-waving at the Olympics, the black period in which he transmogrified into the new Sonny Liston, the Hollywood scene that embraced him after Frazier, the humiliation he felt when they shunned him after the Jungle, and the incredible comeback where he recaptures the title at 45, and you have a book that leaves you in the sort of state Foreman left Gerry Cooney in. Read it with a nice glass of funny tasting water.
17. SMOKIN’ JOE by Joe Frazier
Like a literary Muhammad Ali, ghostwriter Phil Berger brings out the best in Frazier. Olympic gold medalist, heavyweight champion, winner of the Fight of the Century, he lived a full life and Berger artfully extracts all of the important details from the often glib and offhand Smokin’ One. His theories on fighting, such as his conviction that stamina problems are not fitness-related but proof of character weakness, do much to explain why he was such a formidable opponent. He’s also got plenty to say about his ailing rival Muhammad Ali, whom he still calls Clay, and subjects to a ceaseless discharge of verbal hooks, in what reads in parts like a prose version of Ali/Frazier IV. One of the most entertaining boxing books ever.
18. CORNER MEN by Donald Fried
Published around the same time as In the Corner, Fried’s book on trainers acts as a sort of companion to Anderson’s, as this time the corner men expound on how they became the best corner men. Thus Angelo Dundee skips the crusty Ali-Leonard yarns and instead takes us back in time to his days as a young bucket carrier in the 1940s, learning the fight business while the fights were actually in progress. Eddie Futch and Al Silvani are the only other contemporaneous trainers, with the remaining bulk of the book comprising chapters on antique, septia-tinted fight figures Ray Arcel, Jackie Blackburn, Charley Goldman, Whitey Bimstein, Mannie Seamon and Freddie Brown, and one on the almost mythical Stillman’s Gym. Another compendium of tales of a type of boxing character long since extinct.
19. FAT CITY by Leonard Gardner
While a work of fiction, Fat City is probably the most realistic portrait of the fate that awaits most prizefighters. A shot, delusional pug in need of money makes a comeback, and in doing so crosses paths with a young contender. A haunting story of relentless darkness, written in a beautifully spare, minimalist style. John Huston’s adaptation is one of the very few good films about boxing, which speaks of the quality of the source material. By the way—after a brief 50-year break, the octogenarian Gardner is apparently now writing his second novel!
20. HANDS OF STONE by Christian Giudice
Hands of Stone was written with the cooperation of Duran, who later distanced himself from it. I can only think this was because Giudice subjected the story to journalistic, objective, sane analysis, rather than simply report as fact the tall tales of Duran and his zany horde of yahoos. Nevertheless, Giudice is a wonderful writer and he does an admirable job of setting apart life and legend in this realistic but still very affectionate biography of Manos de Piedre. Yes mas!
21. SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME by Rocky Graziano
Certain questions have puzzled man for eons. What is the meaning of life? Does God exist? And why is Somebody Up There Likes Me by Rocky Graziano still out-of-print? A New York gutter child, sworn enemy of the human race, fights everyone and everything, on the street and in jail, until he applies himself to boxing and at last finds a legal outlet for his destructive urges. It’s a thrilling journey to the top, related in that gloriously rough, lyrical, inner-city argot of the old time fighter. Widely hailed as the greatest boxing autobiography ever, it's impossible to praise too highly. It's also impossible to find a copy. Sorry.
22. THE BLACK LIGHTS by Thomas Hauser
Important book that uses the unimportant subject of a Billy Costello title fight to delineate the complete daily operation of modern professional boxing. TV, promoters, managers, trainers, matchmakers, fighters, camps, contracts, percentages, politics—you name it, every aspect of the business and the logistics thereof are covered in full. One of the more informative books in the annals of Fistiana!
23. MUHAMMAD ALI: HIS LIFE AND TIMES by Thomas Hauser
Written with the participation of Ali and over 200 people who played a part in his story, Hauser’s book is the definitive one on the man who transcended the sport, and I think the only work that does justice to the epic nature of his life. Perfectly written and surprisingly free of hyperbole, Hauser in spite of writing the authorized biography still subjects Ali to rational appraisement, crediting him where credit is due and criticizing him when his conduct was less than exemplary. The huge cast of characters that provide commentary (including at least one U.S. President!) gives each episode of his journey from Louisville to legend a panoramic level of detail. When it comes to his fighting career, not only do Ali and Dundee provide their insider opinions, but so do the opponents—making for a book that is both an enjoyable read and an essential point of reference. Ali books of this calibre are as rare as an Ali body punch.
24. THE PROFESSIONAL by WC Heinz
The classic 1958 novel about a middleweight contender’s quest for the title. It made Hemingway sick with envy and inspired Elmore Leonard to write, which should give you an idea of how good it is. Useless information to round out the paragraph: Heinz later co-wrote the book MASH that spawned the famous film and TV series!
25. TOP OF HIS GAME by WC Heinz
Not strictly a boxing book, but this anthology does contain a number of classic long-form profiles of some famous fight figures, including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale, Billy Graham, Floyd Patterson, Willie Pep, Sugar Ray Robinson and an immortal piece on Al Bummy Davis. One that should sit on the bedside table and be dipped into again and again.
26. IN THIS CORNER by Peter Heller
In 1970 Peter Heller traveled around the country interviewing retired boxers. He transcribed their words and arranged them as 40 monologues that comprise what must be the purest book on fighting talk ever produced. There’s Gunboat Smith recounting ancient rumbles with Jack Johnson, Sam Langford and Jack Dempsey; Mickey Walker cheerily reminiscing on his fights with Harry Greb and Tiger Flowers, and his many dangerous forays into the heavyweights. There’s Jack Sharkey, Henry Armstrong, Ike Williams, Willie Pep—great boxers who lack great biographies, but each have their own classic mini-autobiography here, thanks to Heller. Of all of them Billy Conn is perhaps the most entertaining, a droll street tough who couldn’t be bothered with the rat race and decided that a life of prizefighting had to be more fun than going to work every day. The contrast with today’s boxers, who speak only in clichés, is stark. The men here, all of whom grew up in grinding poverty, and never went to school, express themselves in language so thoughtful, energetic and original it’s no wonder that Sylvester Stallone used this book when writing Rocky. Or that it was required reading for all aspiring fighters in the house of Cus D’Amato. If you only read one book on this list, I think it should be In This Corner.
27. BAD INTENTIONS by Peter Heller
More Heller. While Blood Season is the undisputed champion of Mike Tyson books, his life was so entertaining it merits more than one reading. Step forward, Bad Intentions. Heller, while full of respect for Tyson’s boxing skills, does not paint a flattering portrait of the man. An ABC producer with full access to all of the game’s movers and shakers, his investigations produce a colourful but at times disturbing story. Like Berger’s book, Bad Intentions was written in Tyson’s pomp and thus ends with him still champion. Also like Berger’s book, it was updated and re-released to include Tokyo, Ruddock and Desiree Washington. This later edition is probably of most use to Tyson readers. A very good book that, as one review said at the time, at least holds Blood Season to a draw.
28. AGAINST THE ODDS by Larry Holmes
Phil Berger works his magic again, this time with the Easton Assassin. While the gold medals of Ali, Frazier and Foreman earned them instant stardom, Larry Holmes was destroyed by Duane Bobick and suffered a long and arduous journey to the top. Don King, whom Holmes naturally casts as the villain, is on rare form here. Half benefactor, half malefactor, he acts as a sort of ghetto Mephistopheles, always seeming to appear wherever Larry goes, smiling as he tries to coax him into some dark and satanic contract or deed that will secure him his soul. King of course steals the show, but he isn’t Larry’s only antagonist. Against the Odds is teeming with animus—for Ali, Richie Giachetti, Eddie Futch, Howard Cossell, Ferdie Pacheco, the Spinks brothers and George Foreman, to name but a few. He even nurses a grudge against Ronald Reagan. Some important scraps are skimmed (‘In March 1985 I beat David Bey. I then…’ Wait. Can you please go into a bit more detail there, champ?), but overall it’s a comprehensive account of an amazing, eventful and very bitter career, with Berger managing to add some much-needed humility to Holmes’s gargantuan hubris. As a side note, it was this book that spawned the legends of Jeff Merritt and Roy ‘Tiger’ Williams, two bizarre and crazy men whose capers here sparked a resurgence of interest in their careers among a new generation of online fans.
29. JOHN L. SULLIVAN AND HIS AMERICA by Michael T. Isenberg
Suitable for boxing fans who are also history buffs, Isenberg’s scholarly portrait of nineteenth century America, and Sullivan’s starring role in it, is a joy to read. The Boston Strongboy was a violent drunkard, bully and all-round intransigent who, like Liston and Tyson later on, embodied the absolute worst stereotypes of his race. Still he became one of America’s earliest sporting heroes, accepted by a public who were not exactly enamored with the great waves of rowdy Irish Catholics pouring into New York. Grand and sweeping in scope, Isenberg captures the colour and mood of a country in the throes of massive social and economic change. Best read in the pub with a pint of Guinness—remember to offer to lick any man in the house.
30. JACK JOHNSON IS A DANDY by Jack Johnson
Also known as In the Ring and Out and My Life In the Ring and Out, Jack Johnson is a Dandy is remarkable in that its author is one of only two boxers to pen their memoirs without the aid of a ghostwriter (the other one crops up later in this list). Evidently, the Galveston Giant was a bright and articulate man, and he writes his story with great flair and humour, if not honesty. The classic unreliable narrator, many episodes in this adventure were later discredited in the professorial work by Randy Roberts, but that doesn’t make Johnson’s self-portrait any less entertaining. The first black heavyweight champ was an impossibly vain and arrogant soul, and it is only natural that he would use his book to hyperbolize himself, and indulge in maximum self-aggrandizement. Old Jack is a lovable rogue, and he toys with the truth the way he would a challenger in the ring. Good news: Dover recently re-released this long out-of-print classic as a handsome paperback. Treat it as an amusing companion to a more serious history of the man.
31. MY LIFE AND BATTLES by Jack Johnson
Written in France while Johnson was in exile, My Life and Battles is a series of biographical pieces for French papers that were later collected in this 1913 book originally called Mes Combats. Its value is that the author is at this time still champion of the world, in his prime and with events unfolding as he writes, whereas Jack Johnson is a Dandy was written when he was in his 50s, mellowed and with a selective memory, and a more pressing need to self-mythologize. But anyone who enjoys the later book, and wants to spend some more time in Jack Johnson’s amusing company, should invest in this interesting little curio.
32. FOUR KINGS by George Kimball
So much has been written about Four Kings that it seems pointless me saying anything about it. For those that don’t know, Kimball had a ringside seat for the great clashes between the Big Four—Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran—and wrote this splendid book about them. Great time capsule about the last Golden Age of boxing.
33. THE HURT BUSINESS assembled by George Kimball
A one-volume fistic syllabus compiled by Kimball and featuring a century’s worth of stories on the greatest fighters, by the greatest writers. The contents page alone is sufficient to daze the reader. Jack London, Heywood Broun, Leonard Gardner, AJ Liebling, George Plimpton, Budd Schulberg, Norman Mailer, David Remnick… Fans of course love to argue over who would win fantasy fights. The Hurt Business brings us a different kind of dream matchup. Who knew that HL Mencken, the god of letters, had covered boxing at all, let alone Dempsey/Carpentier? Or that Sherwood Anderson had profiled Joe Louis? That James Baldwin, with his aversion for violence, had been sent to the Liston/Patterson massacre? At 500 pages it’s one you can return to again and again, and remember how magisterial boxing reportage once was, written about with such richness and drama.
34. GHOSTS OF MANILA by Mark Kram
Mark Kram has a reputation as something of an Ali-basher, which is a bit unfair given that he ranks him as his greatest heavyweight ever. What he disliked was the Ali Industry, and the hysterical overpraising of his political declarations, perceiving the Greatest to be little more than a puppet manipulated by those around him into actions he did not understand. You do not have to agree with Kram to enjoy his writing. I cannot think of a boxing scribe who could muster the same poetic sort of phrasing as him, or who possessed such colossal powers of description and analysis. This 2002 book is not just about Manila, which he covered in an iconic Sports Illustrated piece (included in The Hurt Business), but the ruins it left each man in, mentally and physically, the roles they subsequently played in public life, and the author’s pilgrimage to meet the titular ghosts—Ali in his mansion, whispering and necrotic, Frazier half-blind and crippled in the poky rooms over his gym. He does much to bring Smokin’ Joe back into the spotlight, but ultimately it’s his own brooding, apocalyptic writing that makes the biggest impression.
PS. If you want more of Kram, his son compiled an anthology of his writing, on various subjects, called Great Men Die Twice.
PPS. Kram Jnr has his own book about Joe Frazier coming out in 2019!
35. RAGING BULL by Jake LaMotta
There’s not much new that can be said about Raging Bull, other than that it is not the operatic work Scorsese and Deniro made it into. A grisly, pulverizing chronicle of simian brutality that easily ranks among the all-time top 10 of boxing books. Picking a winner between this and Somebody Up There Likes Me is as difficult as picking a winner between LaMotta and Graziano.
36. THE LAST GREAT FIGHT by Joe Layden
A sort of literary biography of Buster Douglas, built around Tokyo and populated by a vast cast of contributors, from Mike Tyson to Octavio Meyran, the HBO team and any number of others involved in that incredible upset. Buster’s win marked the end of Tyson’s domination of the division and broke Don King’s death grip on the title, ending one epoch and ushering in a new one ruled by Holyfield, Bowe and Lewis. I put off reading The Last Great Fight for years because I misunderstood what it was about. The title and subject made it seem like a book for casuals, and the fact I had never heard of Layden and knew only that he hadn’t been there in Tokyo told me all I needed to know about the worth of this volume. I was wrong of course. He writes with considerable style, and with so much input from the key players, this is an integral history of a pivotal moment that birthed the modern era of big guys.
37. THE BIG FIGHT by Sugar Ray Leonard
Another one I put off reading for years because I thought it would be another dull exercise in PR by the brand-savvy Sugar Ray. Could not have been more wrong. Leonard holds nothing back, and some of the revelations here truly are shocking. Behind the boyish good looks is a hard man with a disturbing past. And again, Leonard is brighter than your average boxer, and able to expand on the experience of fighting with a depth and profundity I would assume is beyond, say, Hearns or Duran. Leonard wins here without the Vegas judges.
38. THE SWEET SCIENCE by AJ Liebling
AJ Liebling! Disciple of Egan, lover of food, horses and, above all, fighting. He composed a series of essays on boxing for the New Yorker in the 1940s and 50s so beautiful and enchanting they read like cantos in a classical epic. From Louis to Robinson, Marciano to Moore, Liebling, unlike other journalists, loves the fighters and clearly holds them in the highest estimation, and no matter how obdurate the pug or madcap the trainer, he always maintains his sunny, genial humour and speaks of them affectionately. You will never see a more elegant writer than Liebling apply his gift to boxing. A book that stands at the very zenith of boxing literature, and actually is often ranked highly in the lists of the great nonfiction.
39. A NEUTRAL CORNER by AJ Liebling
Liebling’s name is so entwined with the era of Louis and Marciano that it surprises some to learn that he was still alive in the 1960s, writing about the likes of Sonny Liston and a young Cassius Clay. This inexplicably overlooked sequel to The Sweet Science sees Liebling exploring a brand new generation of fighters, his passion and zeal for the manly art undimmed by old age. His impressions of Clay’s pro debut are worth the price of admission alone, although the whole thing is a masterpiece. Why someone doesn’t publish this unloved and long out-of-print gem in tandem with The Sweet Science is a mystery to me.
40. MY LIFE by Joe Louis
There’s some dispute over how many of his marbles Louis had left in ‘78 when this alleged autobiography was published. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve read some of his stuff from the 50s and 60s and have to say that the author of this book sounds to me like the real Joe Louis. Either way, My Life is an engrossing tale of a brilliant career, told with an economy of words that evokes the spare, blunt, pitiless style the Brown Bomber employed in the ring. Some of the most fascinating passages are about Jack Johnson, who constantly plotted to sabotage the career of the second black heavyweight champ, and whose ghost still seems to be a malignant presence in the aged Louis’s mind. Overall a riveting account of a gloriously uncomplicated era in Fistiana, when there was but one heavyweight champion and everybody on earth knew his name.
41. KING OF THE HILL by Norman Mailer
Long, long essay on Ali/Frazier I that, being written by Norman Mailer, naturally mutates into a mind-bending study on ego, class, machismo and metaphysics, written in the immense, cosmic language Norm was adept at. The Fight of the Century was so seismic an event I’m surprised there's such a paucity of works on it, and that Mailer’s weird little volume is the best of them. Budd Schulberg published a book on the subject at the same time as Mailer, similarly small, called Loser and Still Champion, but, perversely, he chose to write only about the fight. Such restraint was beyond Mailer, and while many see this as a weakness in his art, the finished product is undeniable; few writers have the facility to cram such a svelte book with so many vivid, memorable quotables. One such specimen: ‘George Chuvalo, Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio have faces which would give a Marine sergeant pause in a bar fight. They look like they could take you out with the knob of bone they have left for a nose.’
42. THE FIGHT by Norman Mailer
Not so much a book about the Rumble in the Jungle—where would the fun in that be?—but a book about Norman Mailer at the Rumble in the Jungle. It’s everything King of the Hill is, but expanded to 300 pages and transported to the more exotic climes of Africa. And it’s not just philosophy that he’s sparring with this time, but also Ali, Foreman and King, to whom he has almost unparalleled access. The dispatch from Ali’s gloomy dressing room before the bout is an immortal scene. “What’s everyone looking so sad for?” said Muhammad. “It’s just another crazy day in the life of Muhammad Ali!”
43. MCILVANNEY ON BOXING by Hugh McIlvanney
McIlvanney provides the gold standard by which modern ring-goers are measured, and this treasury of his writing surpasses any collection to come out of the UK probably since Boxiana. The shimmering quality of the prose belies the fact that these are mere newspaper stories, and when reading them you can’t help but wonder why writers of this stature don’t work the boxing beat anymore. From Cooper decking Clay through to Holyfield’s mauling of Tyson, McIlvanney was there to report the action with words that were every bit as entertaining as the fight. His talent is so great I’m seriously considering reading his books on football and horseracing. (I have no interest in football and horseracing.)
44. CHAMPION: JOE LOUIS by Chris Mead
Exhilarating 80’s literary biography that complements My Life. Mead is a Yale lawyer and sports writer who recreates the America of Louis’s day in vivid colour. The exhaustive research presented here undermines the accepted image of the Brown Bomber as the People’s Champion, and reveals the difficult time he had with a powerful and hostile press who controlled public opinion. His lively accounts of the fights transforms the flat, choppy, black and white spectre of the film reels into a fleshed out, three-dimensional figure. In recent times Randy Roberts has written his own biography of Joe Louis, but it’s difficult to imagine what he could do to topple this. Mead’s definitive work on boxing’s champion of champions seems as unbeatable as Louis was in his prime.
45. TWO TON by Joseph Monninger
A 2006 book about a 70-year-old fight that lasted four rounds may seem like scraping the bottom of the barrel, but Two Ton exceeds expectations just as its protagonist Tony Galento did, the night he challenged Joe Louis. Monninger, with the artistry of a novelist, brings alive the tough, bustling America of the 1930s, and these two hugely contrasting personalities whose paths crossed impossibly in the ring. Galento is the ultimate man’s man. A beer swilling, cigar chomping barkeep who, with his almighty left, has amassed a huge winning record. The campaign of terror he wages against Louis in the buildup to their fight, hilarious and frightening, anticipates the antics of Clay in the lead up to the Liston fight. It’s a filmic work that flies by, with the author’s turn-of-phrase stunning you like Louis in the third. If you’re looking for something different, Two Ton may be the book for you. Moida da bum!
46. ANY BOY CAN by Archie Moore
One of the most eccentric figures ever to lace on the gloves, the Ole Mongoose told his story in this forgotten but hugely interesting 1960 book. Scoring 132 KOs in 186 wins, in one of the deepest talent pools in boxing history, Moore knows a thing or two about fighting, and he shares it all in this heart-warming tale of triumph over adversity. Because the first half of the book is dedicated to his Any Boy Can programme, the action doesn’t really start until late in the story, but that seems perfectly apt for a book about the career of Archie Moore.
47. ONLY IN AMERICA by Jack Newfield
Newfield was an extremely tiresome social justice warrior but, credit where credit is due, he wrote a stupendous book on Don King. Not dissimilar in style to Berger and Heller, Newfield is an active and opinionated participant in his narrative, perhaps excessively so, as he never gives the reader the chance to make his own mind up. Written almost tabloid-style, it’s a lurid, garish expose of King’s lifetime of breaking heads and diddling rubes. With such a subject you can’t fail to write a good story, and what it lacks in balance it makes up for in research. Contains the celebrated chapter ‘Tim Witherspoon and the Lost Generation of Heavyweights,’ although every chapter is a standalone classic. A book as subtle as a Las Vegas Superfight, and every bit as exciting.
48. GOING THE DISTANCE by Ken Norton
Norton’s middle class upbringing doesn’t quite provide the stimulating read the hardscrabble starts of Frazier, Foreman and Holmes did, but from a boxing fan’s perspective the coverage of his career is far more comprehensive and satisfying than in any of those rival autobiographies. These excessively descriptive passages did come in for criticism in some quarters, but with the Jawbreaker being involved in so many disputed decisions—Ali thrice, Holmes, Young, others—you can’t really blame him for wanting to set the record straight. As an added bonus, there are sizeable contributions from Ali, Frazier, Eddie Futch, Norton Jnr and, in a show of considerable magnanimity, Holmes, Cobb, Ledoux and even Cooney! An imperfect effort, elevated by Norton’s wry humour and charismatic personality.
49. ON BOXING by Joyce Carol Oates
Three very long, jazzy, borderline phantasmagorical essays on boxing, brimming with abstract allusions, Freudian hogwash and lots of factual inaccuracies. But who cares if Oates doesn’t know much about boxing? She does seem to know about everything else, and its rare that you will see so many grand ideas woven into a narrative about prizefighting. Her search for the meaning of boxing is like a miniature version of man’s equally hopeless search for the meaning of life. Sky’s Anna Woolhouse should read Joyce Carol Oates, and then ask Johnny Nelson some real questions for once, like whether the fight they just watched was akin to hearing Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, and did he think the winner’s defensive moves echoed some inchoate dream-remnant of Spinoza’s instinct to preserve the Self?
50. VICTORY OVER MYSELF by Floyd Patterson
Tyson may have taken Patterson’s record of youngest ever heavyweight champion, but even he could not take the latter’s title of Most Self-Loathing Fighter. Patterson is a haunted man, and this bleak book is like no other in the fistic canon. Typically boxing autobiographies, like all sporting autobiographies, are self-serving works written by egomaniacs, eager to gloss over their many failings. Floyd on the other hand prefers to dwell on his. From inadequacy, to anxiety, to trauma—he seems most at home in his nightmares. Hyper self-critical, at one point he chides himself for not being adequately prepared for a fight because he had ‘only’ boxed nine times that year! Ultimately though, each time he belittles himself there is a proportionate increase in his value as a fighter; it is amazing he could win at all, handicapped by such terrible baggage. Never has a title been more apt than Victory Over Myself. Published in 1960, after he had snatched the title back from Ingo, it predates the Liston and Ali bouts by some years, but that doesn’t make it any less fascinating.
51. SHADOW BOX by George Plimpton
Charming book by the eccentric founder of the Paris Review. Both a history of boxing and a study into why men do it, with some surprising walk-on parts—most notably, Ernest Hemingway himself—the book is most famous for the episode in which the author trains for and participates in an actual fight, in Stillman’s Gym, with Archie Moore. Plimpton’s arsenal of words is as wide and varied as the Mongoose’s arsenal of punches, and there are few boxing books more pleasing to read than Shadow Box.
52. KING OF THE WORLD by David Remnick
Venerated by critics and so famous there doesn’t seem much point in me writing anything about it. But just to quickly disabuse you of the notion that this is yet another Ali book, King of the World is actually a sort of tripartite biography of Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Ali, and the fights they had between them, outlined by an America in massive turmoil. It’s a work of considerable beauty, and Remnick’s skill is such that when the book finishes, after Ali’s win over Patterson in ‘65, you feel a twinge of sadness that he didn’t just continue on and cover the rest of Ali’s career in his glistering prose.
PS. If you need some more Remnick, he also wrote a couple of very interesting tomes on Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Can we forgive him his gushing hagiography of Obama? Yes we can.
53. PAPA JACK by Randy Roberts
Classic study that subjects Johnson and his world to the sort of sober, objective analysis that is missing from the Galveston Giant’s own writings. The depth of the research is staggering, with Roberts unearthing sufficient details to draw realistic pictures of people and places you would have thought forever lost to the obscurity—including Johnson’s parents and his father’s role in the Civil War! The book’s only defect is that the author, unfeasibly, cannot seem to distinguish between a quote that is direct from Johnson’s erudite mouth and one that has obviously been mangled by impish journalists—thus on one page Johnson expresses himself like Shakespeare, on another he says “Ooh, dat Missah Jeffries done gone and got hisself into a dilly of a pickle dis time!” Could Roberts not spot the incongruity? (I can only imagine that his training or ethics forbade him from altering the source material, but it’s odd that he made no observation about it either way.) Ultimately though this is only a minor flaw in what is a wonderful and enlightening read.
54. THE MANASSA MAULER by Randy Roberts
Roberts now turns his attention to Jack Dempsey, and creates what is likely his magnum opus. Once again his copious research throws light on his subject’s heretofore murky past, and treating each title fight to its own chapter gives him the room to paint the definitive portrait of each encounter. This is an America basking in the afterglow of its victory in the First World War, a thrilling time of Coolidge prosperity and talking Hollywood pictures. Of the boxing ring being encircled by literary royalty like Ring Lardner, Heywood Broun, HL Mencken and Nat Fleischer—all of whom enrich these pages with their witty, rhapsodic reports. It’s a magical and more innocent era, and Roberts succeeds in conveying the Manassa Mauler’s importance in it. A work so distinguished it belongs in discussions about the great nonfiction.
55. SUGAR RAY by Ray Robinson
You will do well to find a sweeter pairing than Dave Anderson and Ray Robinson. Together they tell a sadly familiar tale of rags to riches to rags, but in a glitzy and exciting world of fast women, flashy cars, high living and deadly mobsters. Robinson blew it all but nevertheless he happily relives his voyage from flyweight to light heavy with the grace and pizzazz that defined his boxing style. This 1970 book, rightly considered a classic, was updated by Da Capo in '95, with a new afterword from Anderson that described Ray’s tragic end. It’s a book that easily matches the brilliance of Ray in his prime, which given that he 130-2 at that point says a lot.
56. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Max Schmeling
Serious man whose strategic eye and German genius for sizing up weaknesses and exploiting them enabled him to blitzkrieg Joe Louis in a performance for the ages. The scenes of 30s Berlin read like an Isherwood novel, with der Black Uhlan, an icon of the Third Reich, rubbing elbows with all manner of Ubermensch, including none other than Adolf Hitler! A rewarding read for boxing fans and World War Two buffs alike, Schmeling’s momentous autobiography is one where the history unfolding isn’t just a dramatic backdrop, but a central part of the plot. Award it an Iron Cross, first class.
57. THE HARDER THEY FALL by Budd Schulberg
When it was published in the 1940s, Gene Tunney called The Harder They Fall “the most accurate book ever written about boxing.” Schulberg’s squalid, pulpy novel is about Toro Molina, a freakish Man-Mountain who can make money but not fight. Maneuvered up the rankings by conspiring managers and officials, when the towering man-child has served his purpose he is cruelly thrown to the wolves. The archetypal Everybum, Molina was based on the tragic Primo Carnera, but the sleaze, corruption and exploitation Schulberg describes is recognizable in boxing to this day. A classic novel that was adapted into a film I haven’t watched.
PS. Schulberg also wrote a novelisation of his celebrated film script ‘On the Waterfront,’ which expanded on the characters and themes of that story in a way that cinema could not accommodate. An interesting companion to The Harder They Fall, if you're into this sort of thing.
58. SPARRING WITH HEMINGWAY by Budd Schulberg
Worlds collide in this 1996 anthology of essays and ringside reports, featuring the fights of Ray Robinson, Benny Leonard and Rocky Marciano, through to those of Tyson, Holyfield and the second coming of Foreman. While it’s impressive that a writer of Schulberg’s vintage was still around to report on Holyfield/Tyson, it’s worth noting that the old boy has a subsequent anthology, called Ringside, where he’s covering fighters as recent as Roy Jones, Oscar de la Hoya and even Floyd Mayweather! Would you ever have thought it possible for a writer who was ringside for Benny Leonard to also be assigned a Floyd Mayweather fight, without first using the dinosaur lab in Jurassic Park? In spite of the incredulity that later collection inspires, I’ve favoured Sparring with Hemingway here because of its unforgettable title piece, where Schulberg and Papa almost come to blows over a discussion about boxing (predating online forum fights by several decades), and its pulsating dispatches on fights that are of greater historical importance, including Leonard/Hearns, Hagler/Hearns, and Holyfield/Foreman.
59. WELCOME TO THE BIG TIME by Earnie Shavers
You would think that any man who Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Jimmy Young, Jimmy Ellis, Joe Bugner, Ron Lyle, Tex Cobb and Quick Tillis all agree is the Hardest Puncher Ever must be pretty special. You would be wrong of course, because that same man once lost a decision to Bob Stallings, and that one fight proves that he was nothing special at all. You see, one bad night overshadows all of the praise and the plaudits bestowed on him by some of the best boxers ever, and demonstrates the absolute limit of his abilities. That’s the opinion that many of the bright sparks that inhabit the internet have about Earnie Shavers, anyway. But normal people can make their own mind up by reading his 2002 autobiography, out-of-print for many years but recently re-released in paperback. The Acorn, who so nearly dethroned Ali and Holmes, at least beats them in the storytelling stakes. Welcome to the Big Time is one of the funniest boxing books I’ve ever read, and many of the passages had me laughing out loud. The only fighter that the coldhearted Don King ever liked, this book will win you over too. I’m still disappointed it wasn’t called Shavers Only.
60. ROCKY MARCIANO by Everett Skehan
70’s biography of the Rock that sits atop the mountain of Marciano writings. The book has its positives and negatives. The author relates the facts in a neutral tone and leaves the reader to form his own opinions, an approach that I value probably above all others in a biographer. However, the sources of many key conversations quoted here are unclear, which has made some readers suspicious of Skehan. In fairness, Marciano was a paranoid and intensely private man who took most of his secrets to the grave, and no book about him is ever going to be totally reliable. Skehan relates the episodes of his life, from his difficult birth through to his impoverished youth, army stint and fighting career in filmic scenes that make for gripping reading. The training he puts himself through is unbelievable, and he might well have been the best-conditioned heavyweight champion ever. Certainly his ability to still look fresh in the 15th round having thrown so many punches is tribute to his freakish fitness. The period after boxing is more interesting than in most books of this genre, as the millionaire ex-champ dedicates his life to sponging off every poor soul who comes into contact with him. Fittingly, he died taking the cheapest flight he could find. Like its subject, this great book is still undefeated.
61. THINKIN BIG by Quick Tillis
Obscure comedy classic from the Fightin Cowboy, who had plenty of Ws and Ls in his career but refuses to use any Gs (or apostrophes) in his writin. Penned while in prison, Tillis recounts the crazy story of his boxing days, which saw him fight seven heavyweight champs and, most famously, break Mike Tyson’s knockout streak while losing a controversial decision. It was in this book that he wrote his famous passage about what was going on in his scrambled brains when Earnie Shavers floored him, painting a picture that Salvador Dali would be proud of. Journeymen of the world, unite!
62. A MAN MUST FIGHT by Gene Tunney
Gene Tunney is only the second and, to my knowledge, last boxer to write his memoirs without any assistance. It’s an impressive accomplishment in a life that was full of them. He coveted the heavyweight title and went on to win it from Dempsey. A fervid social climber, he pursued the elite and ended up marrying a socialite. He dreamed of being a literary artist as skilful as he was a fighter, and pulled off this lavish, ritzy autobiography that reads almost like a boxing novel from the pen of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was, as Randy Roberts said, “a dreamer whose dreams came true.” And if you dream hard enough, and have some of Gene Tunney’s luck, you might win the pools and actually be able to afford a copy of this long out-of-print antique. Decent copies currently retail at £700.
63. THE DEVIL AND SONNY LISTON by Nick Tosches
I don’t think any fighter other than Ali has more bad books written about him than Sonny Liston. Like a black Jack the Ripper, it seems every other year some crackpot or charlatan publishes a Liston book that claims to have at last solved the mystery. Nick Tosches’ 2000 enquiry into the life of the Big Ugly Bear bucked the trend in that it is a serious literary effort, from the journalist who wrote some heavyweight biographies of Jerry Lee Lewis and Dean Martin. His tough, brawling prose offended the sensibilities of the British press, and Night Train (as it was titled over here) was critically mauled at the time of its release. I think they were wrong about his writing—like overstrong whisky, those of a certain constitution will overcome the initial kick and begin to warm to Nick Tosches, and gradually become intoxicated by his inspired use of language—to me the main issue is that the author is not a boxing fan and, in spite of his exhaustive research, doesn’t fully understand his subject. For example, he believes that both Ali fights were fixed. A reasonable position as far as the rematch goes, but the first fight? It boggles my brain to think that anyone could watch that contest and conclude it was fake, as Tosches does. If Liston was trying to lose, why was he also trying to decapitate Clay? To make matters worse, the author even buys into the BS of some old hoodlum who tells him Moore threw his fight versus Marciano—one of the most viscerally brutal heavyweight title beatings ever! So what exactly does The Devil and Sonny Liston have going for it? For one there’s the acquired taste of Nick Tosches, who I’m a fan of. And then there’s the fact it was written in the 90s, when plenty of those who had been in Liston’s circle were still in the land of the living, and the author tracks them all down. And it also includes a valuable history of mob infiltration in boxing, with Blinky Palermo, James Norris and the IBC brought back to life with terrifying force. Perhaps treat Sonny's section in King of the World as the best available biography, and if you want more of the Champ Nobody Wanted try Tosches and see what you can take from this dense and exhilarating work of art.
64. PRIZE FIGHTER by Dale Webb
Fitzsimmons was the Englishman who conquered America’s old Wild West, a brutal puncher who was world champion in three divisions and boxed until he was 50. An eccentric and extremely intimidating character, the Fighting Blacksmith embarks on an adventure into the savage wilderness of the expanding States, boxing anyone (and anything), and finds himself quite at home among the rugged and lawless men who populate the dangerous frontier. The gods of the fistic pantheon are out in force, with John L. Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett, Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson all figuring in Ruby Rob’s amazing exploits—at one point, Wyatt Earp referees him! Webb is a solid writer who outlines 1800’s Americana commendably, and, in spite of his publisher’s oddly forgetting to include any apostrophes or quotation marks, his book is a highly entertaining read.
65. UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS by Geoffrey C. Ward
Famous 2004 biography of Johnson that eclipsed Randy Roberts’s earlier effort, a critics' darling that continues to this day to take centre stage in the boxing sections of outlets as lowly as WH Smith and Waterstones, long after superior books about the sport have been allowed to go out-of-print—perhaps because Unforgivable Blackness sustains the villain-victim script that apparently serves as the holy text of our progressive elite… Look, it’s just a theory. But nevertheless, this is a very good book. Ward has lots of newly discovered material to mine, including an unpublished prison memoir, and he produces a biography reminiscent of what biographies used to be like—obese tomes overstuffed with research, detail, footnotes, and even footnotes about footnotes. A quite magical read that will leave you fully informed about a fighter who was for a time the world’s most hated man. Those interested in Johnson but not requiring an itinerary of his every day on earth will probably be better served by Roberts’s Papa Jack.
66. 100 YEARS OF BOXING by Bert Sugar
Bert Sugar was an anachronism who would have been quite at home in the age of Runyon, Mencken and Lardner. A writer of immense charisma and comic talent, The Ring and Boxing Illustrated were at their best when he was running the show. His coffee-table book 100 Years of Boxing (which he considered the cornerstone of his career), published in the 1980s, is the single greatest history of the fight game you will ever read. Beginning with Sullivan’s winning of the world heavyweight title, each epoch is given its own substantial chapter, complete with massive pictures displaying the action. This is boxing the way it was meant to be written about, by a historian and raconteur who is every bit as captivating as the fights he is describing. There’s even a handy A-Z of every world champion ever, which you can cunningly employ as a reference tool during online debates about the great fighters, enabling you to easily hold your own (just try to steer the debate away from anything that happened after 1982).
67. BOXING: THE 20TH CENTURY by the Editors of The Ring
A Nigel Collins era 1992 coffee-table book from The Ring, presenting the action-packed twentieth century of boxing in a helpful year-by-year review. The shorter, bite-size paragraphs allow the editors to include hundreds more fights and fighters than in Sugar’s history, but of course without Sugar there is none of the colourful storytelling. Still a useful and very handsome textbook, you just need to supply your own fedora and cigar.
68. LENNOX
A chic 2002 coffee-table book about Lennox Lewis, with hundreds of black-and-white pictures and some short, whimsical interviews and cerebrations with the big man. As for being the subject of a picture book, Lennox is not the beautiful specimen Cassius Clay is (although, horrifyingly, my mum does fancy him), but if you enjoy artsy fashion photography, or like me you just miss the days when Lewis was king, this interesting trifle may appeal to you... Alright I admit it, I also enjoy artsy fashion photography.
69. ALI: THE GLORY YEARS
Attractive 2002 coffee-table book that is a photographic history of Ali’s incredible life and career. It’s from the publisher of Maxim, so you can probably imagine what level of writing is contained here (then again maybe you can’t), but the purpose of this book is more to gaze with wonder at the beautifull imagery. Indispensable item for butterfly collectors everywhere.
70. THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME
Not so much a coffee-table book as it is a dinner-table book. Mammoth-sized work by Benedikt Taschen, purveyor of specialist art books so large they would look big in Nikolay Valuev’s hands. Gentlemen, this is the motherlode. A breathtaking visual biography of the Greatest, with over a thousand pictures of boxing’s most photogenic figure, augmented by substantial writings and interviews old and new from heavyweights such as Hauser, Remnick, Torres, Mailer, Foreman, Frazier, Liebling, Schulberg, Kram, Tom Wolfe, Andy Warhol and numerous others. There’s even comments from Ali’s old Olympic opponents! It’s the book that has literally everything an Ali fan could ever ask for, although my favourite part is on Sonny Liston. The ginormous full colour coverage of the 1964 fight is something to behold, especially the shocking mess Clay’s accuracy could make of a man’s face. This is a luxury item, and priced as such—depending on your finances, The Glory Years may have to provide your Ali fix. But personally I think this monumental work is worth forking out for. Careful if you’re reading it on your lap—it weighs the same as Buster Mathis.
AND SOME OF THE WORST:
THE UNDISPUTED TRUTH by Mike Tyson: 600+ rambling pages about drugs and hookers, occasionally interrupted by a short throwaway paragraph about one of those boxing matches he vaguely recalls participating in. Still the bratty child Cus raised, Tyson’s blames everyone else for his disasters. He can spend $25m within three months of being paid it, but it’s all Bill Cayton’s and Don King’s fault he’s broke you see. Tyson’s pigeons have bigger brains than him.
DARK TRADE by Donald McRae: one of the most overrated boxing books ever. Spawned a new genre of works where journalists used the interesting subject of the fighters to surreptitiously write about their own uninteresting ‘struggles with their conscience' following the fighters, complete with the obligatory scenes of melodramatic soul searching, and great windy monologues of ostentatious pain-feeling. Hey mate, if you’re too squeamish to go see that De la Hoya/Trinidad fight, I’ll take that free ringside seat of yours. Sound like a deal?
MAMA’S BOY by Gavin Evans: embarrassing hagiography of Lennox Lewis that reads like it was written by the president of his fan club. Evans thinks no fighter in history, no matter how great, could beat Lewis, even though Lewis in the real world was twice KOd by mediocrities. He spends so much time belittling Lewis’s opponents you wonder why he thinks Lewis is so incredible, given that everyone he beats is so rubbish. No matter what Lewis does, how ever cruel, he is always blameless. Even when he sacks his own brother, Lennox somehow emerges as the hero. Evans is so uncritical of Lewis he could literally kill one of his opponents, spit on his corpse and then kill all of his family at ringside, and Evans would paint him as a saint. Someone get Terry O’Connor to wave off this stupid man’s writing career.
ANYTHING BY DOMINIC CALDER-SMITH: Dom never seems to write anything positive about the boxers he covers, and instead always looks to depict them in the most tragic light (even when they are doing well). This really began to grate on me after reading two of his books. Any fighter who gives him his time, no matter how kind or selfless, is later subjected to the slings and arrows of Dom’s keyboard. Tony Tubbs welcomes him into his family home—and Dom shows his gratitude by sneering at his taste in décor! He seems almost to revel in mocking their hopes and dreams, and grows positively tumescent when seeing them fail. This obsession with losers is obviously Freudian. If it’s tragedy in the world of boxing he wants to write about, he should consider an autobiography.
THE BENN & EUBANK BOOKS: what could have been serious, interesting autobiographies were instead produced as trashy, throwaway airplane type reads. Eubank is delusional to the point of it being laughable (‘The only reason I didn’t fight Roy Jones was because he was never my mandatory. If I had fought him, he would have been hurt.’) and will devote pages to his shoplifting career but when it comes to a big fight, like the Collins rematch, he begins his recollections in round seven and wraps up his account in the next sentence. The Benn book, as was said the other day on Boxrec, reads like it was written by Danny Dyer. Easily two of the worst boxing books ever. The WBO ranks both of them in their top 10.
CHRISTMAS WISH LIST:
Serious autobiographies from Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns. A Blood Season/Bad Intentions type book on Riddick Bowe’s career. Geoffrey C. Ward to apply his exhaustive research to the subject of Sonny Liston. Someone like Remnick or Hauser to write a book on Holyfield. Graham Houston to write a book about his life attending the fights, or at least to anthologize all those great BM reports. Oh, and all four volumes of Boxiana to be back in print.
Well anyway, your old pal Jimmy is throwing in the towel here gents. I hope I’ve piqued your interest with at least a few of the books. Those of you who didn’t just look at the pictures. Is there a favourite of yours that’s not on the list? Or is there a book you don’t think belongs here?
