Category Archives: Book Reviews

Can Boxing Be Made Less Dangerous? Mike Silver Believes So And Proposes A Formula

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles, , ,

Review:

When In Doubt,

Stop The Bout

A Revolutionary Approach To

Boxing Safety And Reform

By Mike Silver 

Hamilcar Publications

Reviewed By Bobby Franklin, December 2, 2025

It has often been said that unlike other sports, you don’t play boxing. True. Boxing is a unique competition in many ways, but there is one primary aspect of it that makes it truly different from other athletic endeavors; the requirement that in order to be successful, a boxer most become proficient  at inflicting physical damage, even brain injuries, on his opponent. This some times leads to death, and more often, too often, to CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy).

While it is true that participants in other sports, most notably football, also risk severe brain damage from concussive trauma, boxing is the only sport where success is measured by how well a person is able to become in causing physical harm to the person with whom he is competing. There is no getting away from this.

Can boxing be made safe? Not unless it is banned. Can boxing be made less dangerous? That is the question boxing historian Mike Silver tackles in his deep dive into reforming this hazardous sport in When In Doubt, Stop The Bout A Revolutionary Approach To Boxing Safety And Reform.

Mike has done extensive research into the subject of boxing safety. He has  accumulated statistics dealing with the number of boxer deaths over the years as well as what effect the length of a fight has on increasing the risk of one or both of the participants being seriously injured. 

Mike Silver

Early in the book Mike comments on how the lack of regulation plays a role in putting the fighters at risk. He rightly observes that to become a boxing trainer in most locales around the world, all you have to do is walk into a gym, throw a towel over your shoulder and say you are a boxing coach. This is criminal. Young kids with an interest in boxing are put into a situation where when they first walk into a gym they are trusting someone who can get them killed. Where’s the oversight? There is none.

Mike spends time later in the book exposing the corruption higher up the ladder in the boxing world. From the alphabet soup organizations to promoters such as Don King. In 1997 King was inducted into the International Hall Of Fame, an action that speaks to just how low the standards are in boxing.

Reading about the sordidness and corruption in the sport may leave the reader with a terrible stench in his nostrils, but that is just one section of the book. Mike saves his best when offering up ways to mitigate the dangers faced by pugilists. They all have merit even though a few sound counterintuitive.

Take the case of the boxing glove. It has become dogma in the minds of most people that the padded covering for the hands prevents head injuries. Mike makes a strong case, one which I have long believed, that the glove actually makes the sport more dangerous and the blows more lethal. Once you read his argument you will see the boxing glove in a whole new light. Mike even quotes actor James Cagney on the subject. 

His chapter contrasting  MMA fighting with boxing is also an eye opener. Here is a sport that is perceived as more brutal than boxing, but, as the author points out, actually has many more safety measures built into it, and brain injuries are far fewer. Heavily padded boxing gloves are not used by the combatants, a point that bolsters Mike’s argument about the dangers of the boxing glove.

The most controversial, and most likely the change that would do the most good comes down to the author’s proposal to limit the rounds of fights. Many of us remember when title fights were scheduled for fifteen rounds. That was done away with after the death of Duk Koo Kim in a bout versus Ray Mancini in 1982. The fight was seen live on national TV. After that tragedy, title bouts were limited to twelve rounds. 

Mike contends, today even twelve rounds is unsafe for most boxers. In years past fighters would slowly work their way up to longer duration matches by starting out in four rounders, then moving up to six, eight, and finally ten round bouts if they showed they had the ability to handle the distance. This was done over time. It was a sort of an apprenticeship approach.

Now, it is not uncommon to see fighters in their ninth or tenth fight challenging for a world title in a twelve round fight. Mike points out that no matter their physical conditioning, and these fighters are athletes, they have nowhere near the experience to handle going that distance. And the lack of experience is most notable in their lack of defensive skills. Boxing today is mostly about exchanging punches, basically fighters taking turns hitting each other in the head. It is no longer the Manly Art Of Self-Defense. 

There is much more in this treatise on making such a dangerous sport less unsafe. Mike delves into training for referees, the role of the ringside doctors, when a fight be stopped (this is quite interesting), and the case for head guards. 

This is an important book, one that should be read by members of every boxing commission, referees, physicians, and those with influence over the rules of boxing. Will that happen? It is unlikely. 

Boxing has been around a long time, and while there have been some very decent people involved with the sort, it has also been a home to many lowlifes who don’t give a damn about the welfare of the men and women who step into the squared circle. 

The fact that Mike is able to come up with so many reforms for boxing shows just what a mess the sport is and the danger it poses for healthy young athletes. 

My take away from this book, one not intended by Mike, is the conclusion that reforming boxing is a lost cause. Not because his proposals aren’t valid, they certainly are, but rather because the swamp that is boxing will look to bury his work. I do urge people to delve into this highly readable work and draw their own conclusions. In a sane sport, Mike Silver would be garnering praise for his dedication and research into finding a way to fix boxing and protect the athletes. However, boxing is far from a sane sport, and a good man who truly cares for the welfare of it’s participants will most likely be shunned. 

I hope I am wrong, and maybe if enough people read When In Doubt, Stop The Bout, it will lead to a discussion that will lead to lessening the terrible injuries inflicted upon those who step into the ring.

When Boxing Was Up Close And Personal 

Book Reviews, Boxing - all

Review:

Cleveland Arena 

Ohio’s Professional Boxing Mecca

1937-1973

Arcadia Publishing

By Jerry Fitch

Reviewed by Bobby Franklin March 16, 2025

 

Version 1.0.0

It’s hard to believe today in this age of pay-per-view boxing, but there was a time when people would actually go on a regular basis to a local venue to watch live in-person boxing matches. Most cities, and even smaller municipalities had places where fights were held frequently. The 1930s and 1940s were really the heyday for well attended local fight cards.

In the 1950s, with the advent of television and with most homes having a TV set, the smaller fight clubs were being hurt. Not only were fights being broadcast up to four times a night weekly, but there were plenty of other popular televisions programs that had people hooked. This alternative also cut into other entertainment business such as movie theaters and nightclubs, but I would argue boxing was hit the hardest. 

One by one the smaller clubs started to disappear. Not only was the lack of paying customers causing a problem, but the people promoting the televised fights were moving fighters along quickly in order to keep their fight schedules filled. This resulted in many boxers being put in over their heads early in their careers, resulting in their never being able to develop to their full potential.

The lack of local venues also meant less opportunities for those just starting out to find work. Because of this, many boxing gyms disappeared as well. The lack of gyms resulted in their being fewer and fewer boxers able to move up into the professional ranks. This shortage would eventually take its toll on the televised fights. The weekly TV fight cards started to be cut.

Today, boxing is run more as an entertainment industry, or perhaps more in line with something like professional wrestling. It is driven by social media and marketing experts. Fans will pay to watch hyped up fights on pay-per-view, but most don’t follow closely the careers of the participants, especially from their early careers. They are sold on the hype. The sizzle, not the steak.

Reading boxing historian Jerry Fitch’s book Cleveland Arena: Ohio’s Professional Boxing Mecca 1937-1973, brings us back to that time when fight fans could buy a reasonably priced ticket to see highly talented fighters compete. Undercards would often showcase local up and comers while the semi final and main events would consist of solid pros in competitive contests.

The Cleveland Arena with a seating capacity of 14,000 for boxing was one of those places. It was in operation for 36 years, and the rise and decline of boxing is mirrored in it’s history.

Mr. Fitch has compiled a complete listing of every card that took place in this storied location. In this beautiful book he has supplemented his listings and brief commentaries on these cards with an incredible collection of photographs of the fights and fighters who fought there. The photos are from the author’s personal collection as well as from the archive of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Many of these photos will be new to long time fight fans, and are to be treasured.

The list of great and near great fighters who fought at the Arena is endless. There are also some interesting things to note. In particular, Jake LaMotta fought there four times but had only one win, that being in his final fight at the venue.

In the 1930s when the Arena was first in operation, had you been attending shows you would have gotten to see Henry Armstrong make three title defenses. 

Lloyd Marshall

The Cleveland Arena really hit its stride in the first half of the 1940s. From 1940 to 1944, all-time great Jimmy Bivins headlined 23 cards. Others to step into the ring during this period were Tami Mauriello, Lloyd Marshall, Ezzard Charles, Abe Simon, Billy Soose, and Joey Maxim to name just a few. It is staggering to think that if you lived in the Cleveland area at that time you could have purchased a reasonably priced ticket to see this remarkable talent in person. 

Mr. Fitch chronicles this history with precision along with the affection he has for the sport that he has followed since he was very young. Over his lifetime he has met just about every noted boxer as well as becoming close friends with many, most notably Jimmy Bivins.

The book takes us on a thrilling ride, with the excitement of those early years leading to the sadness of seeing the local boxing scene start to fade in the 1960s, with only 11 shows being promoted in that decade.That was quite a drop from the 37 shows held in the 1950s. This decline was not confined to Cleveland. It was happening all over the country. Fight fans attending Cleveland Arena fight cards still got their money’s worth in those final years as they saw cards headlined by the likes of George Chuvalo, Zora Folley, Joey Giardello, and Doyle Baird. 

1973 saw the last of the promotions at the Cleveland Arena. Local boxing was on its last legs by then, and there was no stopping the inevitable. The remaining cards headlined some future contenders and champions such as George Foreman, Ken Norton, along with former champs Floyd Patterson, Emile Griffith, and Ernie Terrell. Boston boxing fans may also remember that one of our own, Mike Pusateri traveled to Cleveland to beat local favorite Doyle Baird. Baird came back to defeat Iron Mike in two rematches. All three were very exciting fights.

Jerry Fitch Flanked By Jimmy Bivins And Sandy Sadler

Jerry Fitch’s history of the Cleveland Arena is a must have for any boxing library. The historical information is invaluable, and the photos are something to be treasured. This is not a volume to remain on the shelf, but one to be left out where it can be perused over and over. While dipping into it you can close your eyes at times and hear the roar of the crowd and smell the cigar smoke that was ever present in those days gone by. It was quite different from sitting on your sofa watching fights on a big screen TV.

While Jerry has worked tirelessly to bring those days back to us, I think I would add a final line to this volume; “You had to be there!”

Copies of the book may be purchased directly from Jerry Fitch. His email is Jerryfitch1946 [at] gmail [dot] com

Book Review: “Damage: The Untold Story Of Brain Trauma In Boxing” By Tris Dixon,

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles,

Boxing’s Human Demolition Derby

By Mike Silver

The wealth of information contained in this remarkable book is more important than 100 medical papers about brain damage in boxing because it is written in layman’s language and exposes the personal stories behind the cold statistics and scientific jargon. Its words should serve as a clarion call for action on behalf of the athletes for whom boxing is not so much a choice as a calling. In bringing attention to this serious topic Tris Dixon does not seek to abolish boxing—although there is a strong case to be made for that both medically and morally—but to try and make a dangerous sport less dangerous by shining a light on a subject that is too often ignored or neglected by the boxing establishment. 

The first chapters reveal a litany of neurological studies that emphatically link boxing to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a medical term for brain damage caused by repetitive concussive and/or sub concussive blows to the head. At least 70 years before Dr. Bennet Omalu famously discovered and published his findings on chronic traumatic encephalopathy in American football players, neurologists in the 1920s and 1930s had already made that same connection as it relates to professional boxers. At that time CTE was known to the general public by a different name—“punch drunk”. The term was used to describe boxers “who were losing their faculties in the form of slurred speech, awkward movement, memory loss, and other degenerative behavioral changes.” Eventually scientists and neurologists stopped using the pejorative “punch drunk” and replaced it with the more elegant sounding “dementia pugilistica”, which is just another name for CTE.

That would mean from the beginning of the last century to the present thousands upon thousands of boxers have been afflicted with varying degrees of brain damage.

Subsequent studies indicated the condition was not confined to any specific population of prizefighter. “It was not just the old fighters who suffered from it”, writes Dixon. “Nor, as the early research showed, was it just novices, sparring partners, and fall guys. Some fighters were burnt out before others, some fought long, hard careers, some were ‘punchy’ after a dozen fights.” Most alarming of all was a consensus by the scientists that approximately 90% of all professional boxers were affected in some way. That would mean from the beginning of the last century to the present thousands upon thousands of boxers have been afflicted with varying degrees of brain damage.

CTE is a progressive condition that slowly but surely gets worse over time. Dixon describes the ongoing research that is attempting to understand why some boxers develop symptoms early and others seem able to function normally until their 50s or early 60s when they suddenly drop off the cliff, so to speak, and quickly descend into a haze of mental confusion and premature senility even though the boxer has retired from the ring and repeated head traumas are at an end.

In addition to explaining the science, Dixon does not shy away from questioning the moral ambiguities of the sport. He quotes Dr. Ernst Jokl, whose book The Medical Aspects of Boxing (1941) is considered a seminal work for its time: “Of all the major sports, boxing occupies a special position since its aim is that of producing injuries, more particularly to the brain…similar injuries occur in sports other than boxing, e.g., in football or wrestling. But here they are accidents rather than sequale of intentional acts. Only in boxing are traumatic injuries unavoidable even if the rules are adhered to.”

Second-impact syndrome, which can result in permanent brain damage, is a common occurrence in many prizefights and sparring sessions…

Dixon notes that in recent years researchers have determined that one of the most dangerous aspects of both boxing and football is second impact-syndrome “when someone suffers a second concussion while still suffering from the first.” Second-impact syndrome, which can result in permanent brain damage, is a common occurrence in many prizefights and sparring sessions yet “is not widely discussed in boxing when it should be a regular part of the conversation…[it] is one of the most serious threats to brain injury, both in the long and short term. In second-impact syndrome, the first hard hit has done more damage than anyone suspects and then the boxer takes a follow-up shot and life can be irreparably changed. A fighter can be hurt in sparring and still not be healed by fight night, when disaster can strike.” The danger is compounded in the presence of an incompetent referee or ringside physician. Dixon laments the fact that boxing does not have the equivalent of the “tap out” in mixed martial arts (MMA) contests. But the “I am willing to be carried out on my shield” mentality is embedded into the culture of this ancient sport and in the minds of its fighters. Even so, modern gloved boxing was never meant to be a human demolition derby or a fight to the death.

His (Ali’s) family did not want to believe or admit that boxing was the cause.

Of course no book on brain injuries in boxing would be complete without mentioning the most famous boxer of them all—Muhammad Ali. Dixon devotes several chapters to Ali, starting when Ali began to show symptoms of CTE while still fighting. By his early 40s (a few years after he retired) Ali’s hand tremors, slowing of his speech and movement noticeably worsened. His family did not want to believe or admit that boxing was the cause. They claimed that he had Parkinson’s disease and his condition had nothing to do with boxing. While it’s possible that in later years he may have developed Parkinson’s disease Dixon quotes several prominent doctors who state unequivocally that boxing was the primary cause of Ali’s infirmity.

Ali actually suffered from Parkinson’s syndrome, which is destruction by trauma to the same parts of the brain that are destroyed by someone who develops Parkinson’s disease. It is not the same as Parkinson’s disease and has a different cause.

Ali actually suffered from Parkinson’s syndrome, which is destruction by trauma to the same parts of the brain that are destroyed by someone who develops Parkinson’s disease. It is not the same as Parkinson’s disease and has a different cause. CTE, which can cause Parkinson’s syndrome, is identified at autopsy by the presence of tau protein in the brain. Tau gradually breaks down brain cells, causing the reduced state fighters find themselves in while they’re still alive. Dr. Robert Cantu, one of the world’s foremost neurosurgeons, and senior advisor to the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee states that “CTE is a highly serious issue itself, but it could also be an accelerant to other neurological illnesses”, something he is almost certain of. “Of the great fighters who died and were diagnosed with dementia, Parkinson’s, ALS, or Alzheimer’s over the years, there is not only a chance that it was just CTE misdiagnosed, but it could have triggered different medical problems. You’ve got dementia, Alzhiemer’s, Parkinson’s but you got it twenty or thirty years earlier. But there are pure cases of CTE, and in those cases they’re probably not an accelerant, just the result.” Dr. Ann McKee, another renowned neuropathologist interviewed by Dixon, “has checked more than twenty-five boxers’ brains and has yet to see one that has not had CTE from fighting.”

“Statistics from CompuBox, which compiled the punch stats from 47 of Ali’s 61 professional fights, revealed he was hit 8,877 times.”

Dixon tells us that in 1981 a CAT scan of Ali’s brain was taken just before his last fight. It showed the type of atrophy that show up in 50 percent of boxers with more than 20 bouts—a percentage far higher than in the general population. This type of abnormality is found four times as frequently in boxers as in non-boxers. In the latter half of his 20 year career Ali absorbed a huge number of punches: “Statistics from CompuBox, which compiled the punch stats from 47 of Ali’s 61 professional fights, revealed he was hit 8,877 times.” That number does not include all the hits he took in countless rounds of sparring. Ali had stayed too long and paid a terrible price. At the time of his death at the age of 74 in 2016 Ali “had been unwell for 3 decades.” His brain damage was severe, and it was all due to boxing—not Parkinson’s disease as has so often erroneously been credited for his condition. Had Ali donated his brain for research the diagnosis of CTE would have been confirmed, as it has with the dozens of deceased boxers (and many more football players) who willed their brains to science. Instead, the most recognizable face on the planet was propped up as an advocate to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. All well and good, but what he should have been was the poster person for brain damage in boxing.

Frankie (Pryor) told Dixon she wished that Ali’s family had publicly acknowledged the reason behind the icon’s demise as that could have helped countless more fighters understand what happened to them.

Frankie Pryor knows about CTE first hand. She is one of several wives of former champions who were interviewed by Dixon. Frankie’s late husband, Aaron “Hawk” Pryor, was one of the greatest fighters of the past 50 years. But, like so many others, he became a boxing casualty. Frankie told Dixon she wished that Ali’s family had publicly acknowledged the reason behind the icon’s demise as that could have helped countless more fighters understand what happened to them. “It was kind of always my one regret because the one fighter who had the notoriety and could have brought a lot of attention to this was Ali”, she said. “And then they went off on this Parkinson’s thing…I don’t think it was done maliciously. Maybe Lonnie [Ali’s wife] didn’t fully understand the impact, but just to say, ‘it wasn’t boxing, it was Parkinson’s.’ No it wasn’t.”

How sad for this tragic sport that there is no Muhammad Ali Center for patients and family members who are dealing with boxing induced brain damage.

There is a research center named for Ali in Phoenix, Arizona—the Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Center. It is described as “a comprehensive resource center for patients and family members dealing with Parkinson’s disease.” That is the legacy the champ’s family prefers. But what does that legacy mean to the legions of damaged boxers who, like Ali, are suffering the debilitating effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy? How sad for this tragic sport that there is no Muhammad Ali Center for patients and family members who are dealing with boxing induced brain damage.

Nevertheless, research into the causes and treatment of CTE continues thanks to the efforts of Dr. Robert Cantu, Dr. Ann McKee, and Dr. Charles Bernick. They are at the forefront of the science seeking to detect and track the earliest and most subtle signs of brain injury in those exposed to head trauma. A remedy to treat, or perhaps even reverse, the damage done by the tau protein is a long way off. Many of the studies will not bear fruit for another 10 or even twenty years. In the meantime what can be done to limit the damage? The answer: Plenty, but only if there is the will to change. Among the changes that Dixon says should be considered are glove size, reducing exposure by limiting the number of rounds and their duration, better education for referees and ringside physicians, and the use of head guards.

Dixon points out “the lack of detailed education with trainers, through commissions or sanctioning bodies. No memos have gone out since CTE was confirmed.

There are many people and organizations in the professional boxing world that are not anxious to accept the findings of the scientists or do anything of significance that might make the sport less dangerous. Dixon points out “the lack of detailed education with trainers, through commissions or sanctioning bodies. No memos have gone out since CTE was confirmed. Nothing changed, yet this—punch–drunk syndrome—was boxing’s problem before it was anyone else’s.” In the words of Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player, WWE wrestler, and founder of an organization called the Concussion Legacy, “Fighters are on their own…If you compare boxing to what’s happening in football or other sports there’s virtually no one looking out for the athletes…Without a centralized organization, there’s nowhere for boxers to get educated, no go to source, no self-help manuals, and no union.” Absent a centralized organization or boxers’ union (don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen) the major promoter/entrepreneurs are in control. Referees and ringside officials are licensed by state boxing commissions but they are paid by the promoter. This is a clear conflict of interest as the promoter has a vested interest in seeing that a promising fighter under contract to him does not lose. Referees and ringside physicians should be completely independent of having anything to do with a promoter or sanctioning organization. Dr. Margaret Goodman, a respected former ringside physician for the Nevada Boxing Commission, explained how a promoter’s influence can determine who officiates: “If you [the ringside physician] stop a fight or recommend a fight should be stopped from a promoter that has big connections with the commission, you’re never going to work another fight again. Same thing for the referees. Same thing for the judges…there are too many outside influences, and the overall health of the sport has not improved as much as it could from those factors as well, which most people don’t take into account.” No one wants to see a boxer seriously injured but with no effective oversight in place the pervasive greed and corruption of promoters and sanctioning organizations takes precedence over any concern for the boxer’s health.

One cannot help but be moved and disturbed by the author’s accounts of his interviews with these damaged gladiators.

The best parts of the book involve Dixon’s description of his personal interaction with the boxers and their families. One cannot help but be moved and disturbed by the author’s accounts of his interviews with these damaged gladiators. Although the boxers were concerned about the long term effects of their punishing careers most said—and it speaks to the pull of this sport and how central it is to their lives—that they would do it again even if it meant winding up with brain damage.

“Fighters must be made to understand the cumulative toll sparring and boxing takes on them and they need to be prepared to walk away when the time comes.”

Dixon concludes with the following words: “The sport might not be able to save every fighter but it must give them the best chance of saving them from themselves. Fighters must be made to understand the cumulative toll sparring and boxing takes on them and they need to be prepared to walk away when the time comes. That is the hardest part for many fighters, and it’s why the sport should do more to help as they start a new chapter….It’s time boxing confronts its own worst problem, stops ignoring it, and steps up to address it at all levels. This is a sport of courage and it will take bravery but it’s happened in football, soccer, and rugby although it should not be up to other sports to take on boxing’s biggest fight.” It is a fight that is long overdue.

Damage: The Untold Story Of Brain Trauma In Boxing 

By Tris Dixon

Hamilcar Publications, 227 Pages, $29.99

Mike Silver’s books include “The Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science” and “Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing-A Photographic History”; His most recent book is “The Night the Referee Hit Back: Memorable Moments From the World of Boxing”.

Book Review: “The King Of Warsaw”

Book Reviews

The King of Warsaw, Szczepan Twardoch. Translated from Polish by Sean Gasper Bye. 379 pages. Amazon Crossing, 2020. 

Reviewed by Len Abram

Movies about boxing and boxers thrive, at least 120 of them since 1931. A Spanish film in 2016, Sangre en la boca (Tiger, Blood in the Mouth), concerns an older boxer, who should retire but returns to the ring. In America, two Creed movies, 2015 and 2018, known by Roman numerals like the Rocky films, are making a saga out of young Adonis “Donnie” Creed’s boxing career. Adonis’s trainer is an aged Rocky Balboa, who fought Adonis’s father into cinematic legend and box office history. A third Creed movie is in the works. 

In every film, the boxer has something to prove to himself and to others. He disciplines his body and his mind for the moment of truth. The expression “the comeback,” the return to the fight, originates from the sport. The public doesn’t follow boxing as it did in boxing’s Golden Age of the last century, but boxing retains its punch as a metaphor for the individual, risking all, to fight for self and principles in the ring of life. 

There are far fewer boxing novels than boxing films, but the theme remains: the boxer has something to prove and the ring is his (or her) moment of truth. Two of the best-known are James Jones’ From Here to Eternity (1951) and Leonard Gardner’s Fat City (1972). In 2020, Polish novelist Szczepan Twardoch’s The King of Warsaw is a welcome addition to the genre. 

Twardoch’s setting is Warsaw of 1937, the height of Polish national power before disaster. The novel anticipates the tragedy of Poland, which by 1939 was conquered and dismembered.

Twardoch’s setting is Warsaw of 1937, the height of Polish national power before disaster. The novel anticipates the tragedy of Poland, which by 1939 was conquered and dismembered. By 1945, six million of its citizens were killed, half of them Jewish. After the war, Russia occupied Poland for decades. The Polish people have fought for their identity and land. Boxing is a theater for that struggle. 

The King of Warsaw is the heavyweight champion of the amateur fighting clubs in the city. The matchup is between the “two Warsaws,” the Warsaw League, who were Gentile boxers, and the Maccabis, Jewish fighters. Maccabis or Maccabees are Jewish sports groups, named for the Maccabees, who won a lopsided victory over Israel’s enemies over two thousand years ago. Although only about ten per cent of the ten million population of 1937, Jews were well represented in Poland’s armed forces and in its professional class; moreover, Jews had lived in Poland for a thousand years. Liberal policies attracted Jews from Germany and Russia. But the anti-Semitism of Hitler’s Germany encouraged local anti-Semites into action. 

The boxing contests in the novel begin with different weight classes, from flyweight until the most prestigious, the heavyweight. The crowds have allegiances to the boxers, whom they cheer or boo. The two boxers in the ring represent those in the audience, who share religion or ethnicity. The match has an added meaning beyond sport. For the Jews, a victory in boxing suggests that they as a people can defend themselves.

To add realism to his fiction, Twardoch mentions an actual featherweight, Teddy or Tadeusz Pietryzkowski, the Warsaw champion in 1937. In the 1940s, the Germans arrested and sent Pietryzkowski to concentration camps at Auschwitz and Neuengamme. There, he fought for the amusement of SS guards and likely saved his life by boxing. 

The heavyweight bout is between Warsaw League’s Andrzej Ziembinski and Maccabi’s Jakub Szapiro. Ziembinski is from a powerful family, whose politics tend toward fascism, whereas Szapiro is a crook and a thug. He runs a loan sharking business, among other criminal enterprises, and he’s a murderer.  To be fair, the boxer has had brutal experiences, in prison and in war. But Szapiro is no hero– except when he steps into the ring. 

As a Jew, he could assimilate. He has money enough to move to a Gentile neighborhood; he doesn’t follow any Jewish dietary rules or attend services; he didn’t marry the mother of his children. Still, he remains loyal. On his right hand are tattooed a sword and the Hebrew letters for death, Mem, Vav. Vav, Tof. In the ring, he knows he represents more than himself, a people battling against increasing anti-Semitism, about to turn deadly.  

Unlike his strong but plodding opponent, even at age 37 Szapiro is described as “beautiful,” a modern King David, the warrior-poet hero of the Jews. Szapiro has transformed his 203-pound body into a kind of fighting machine through his will, where his body “drilled, beaten brutally in training—submitted to him, as though stretched on internal springs….” Twardoch knows how a fighter like Szapiro brings the power of his body to deliver the punch and still protect himself, basic boxing form: 

“Power comes from the legs. The soles of the feet, their inner edges, knees pulled in, everything very springy, the right glove protects the jaw from the right side, the left shoulder, the elbow tucked in, protects it from the left. And when he strikes, his whole body snaps together in a single burst of energy.”

As a criminal, Szapiro has plenty of fights and battles, to which he brings brass knuckles and pistols and a knife, along with his fists and feet, but as a boxer, a competitor, following rules of sportsmanship, becoming King of Warsaw is his final match.   Boxing has been a large part of his life. Like so many ex-boxers, he trains youngsters how to wrap their hands, how to build strength and stamina, how to deliver a punch and how to protect themselves while they attack. Like so many, he wants to pass along a lifetime of skills and experience.  

But his life as a criminal, as well as his vanity in being King of Warsaw, with power and prestige, these keep him in Poland when Jews, like his Zionist younger brother, believe that Poland and Europe are too dangerous. A thousand years of Jewish co-existence with their Polish neighbors are not enough to protect them. Szapiro’s tragedy is that he misses his chance.  

Len Abram is the author of the novels Debris and Medallion. His newest book is Empty Doorways.

Book Review: “My Favorite Fights” By Jerry Fitch

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles

Cleveland’s Mr. Boxing
Looks Back At His Favorite Fights

Book Review
My Favorite Fights
By Jerry Fitch
152 Pages
jerryfitch1946 [at] gmail [dot] com

Reviewed by Bobby Franklin

Every fight fan has his favorite fights. Some are those that were seen live either in person on on television. Others have been viewed on film and usually include classics such as Ali v Frazier I and Louis v Schmeling II. But those would be included on any list of “great” fights.

In Jerry Fitch’s latest book, he does not compile another list of the greatest fights. What he does is to look back at a lifetime, over 50 years of watching fights, and chooses his “favorite” fights. Yes, some of his favorites are also some of the great fights of all time, but there are many included in this collection that became favorites for other reasons. It is that difference that makes this book so enjoyable. In fact, after reading it I started to look back at my own history of watching fights and recalled how many fights I saw on the local level that would rank on my list of favorites.

In 25 chapters, Jerry describes the fights he fondly remembers and gives his reasons for why they stand out in his memory. Living in Cleveland, he had the good fortune to be in a place that had an active boxing scene over the years. He has written a book on the history of Cleveland boxing as well as biographies of two great fighters from that city, Johnny Risko and Jimmy Bivins. Jerry has earned the title “Cleveland’s Mr.Boxing”.

His list does have some of the all time great fights on it. He has chapters on Ali vs Frazier I, the first Leonard/Duran fight, the first Louis/Conn fight, and the fight where Rocky Marciano won the title from Jersey Joe Walcott. His take on these fights is very interesting, and there is no doubting Jerry is an “old school” boxing guy.

While reading his views on experiencing these well known battles is a treat, the book gets really interesting when Jerry writes about some of the lesser known matches between figures that never made to the top. Or fights that would never be considered great, but certainly are interesting. He has a fine eye for picking out the matches.

Doyle Baird

One favorite of mine, for obvious reasons, is the first fight between the exciting Akron, Ohio middleweight Doyle Baird and Boston favorite Iron Mike Pusateri, held in Cleveland in 1971. Baird had established himself as a world class fighter having fought a draw with champion Nino Benvenuti in a non title fight, scoring a win over Don Fullmer, and going ten rounds with Emile Griffith while losing a decsion. As any Boston boxing fan from that era will tell, Iron Mike Pusateri was one tough battler.

Jerry’s descriiption of the fight is terrific, but he also gets into some of the background of the promotion as well as telling a funny story about a fan he was seated next to. It’s all part of the charm of this book.

Another reason for choosing a fight as his favorite has to do with his personal boxing history. Most real fight fans will remember the first pro boxing match they ever attended. In Jerry’s case it was the third fight between Carmen Basilio and Johnny Saxton which was held in Cleveland. This welterweight title fight was the rubber match between the two combatants, and Jerry admit it was anti-climatic, but it was very exciting to have his first live boxing experience be a championship fight.

Some of the other fights discussed in the book are the 2nd bout between local fighters Billy Wagner and John Griffin, Cassius Clay vs Doug Jones, Danny Lopez and Bobby Chacon, Ali vs Wepner, and Palomino vs Muniz I.
There is even a very interesting chapter on a fight card Jerry attended in Palm Springs, CA where the main event had to be delayed because the ring was swarmed by grasshoppers.

Jerry Fitch “Mr.Boxing”

This is Jerry’s fifth book, and he is to be credited with doing much to keep alive the memory of the great history of boxing. In choosing to include a number of local fight cards in this collection he has seen to it that the guys who never made it big are still remembered for the wonderful fights they put on before smaller crowds. Some of these fight cards were more exciting than many of the big pay per view fights that fans laid out big money to see.

After reading Jerry’s book I hope you too will think back on those fights you saw at the local arenas, and come to appreciate how hard those fighters fought for the short money. While Boston boxing fans have never witnessed an infestation of grasshoppers before a main event, I am sure you will have many of your own stories to tell about nights at ringside. Jerry Fitch shows us just how interesting so many of those memories are.

To order a copy of My Favorite Fights, email Jerry Fitch at jerryfitch1946 [at] gmail [dot] com

 

Book Review: The Magnificent Max Baer

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles

MAGNIFICO!

The Magnificent Max Baer

by Colleen Aycock with David W. Wallace

Published by McFarland (McFarlandBooks.com)

A Book Review/Interview by Roger Zotti

“Primo Carnera’s a nice chap, and he’s got lots of heart, a lot more than I thought he had. I pleaded with [referee] Donovan to stop the fight.” 

Max Baer

l

 Colleen Aycock’s latest book conclusively shatters the negative stereotype of Max Baer as he was depicted in Cinderella Man and many of his other movies. Perhaps someday a movie about  the real Baer, the one Colleen so convincingly describes in The Magnificent Max Baer: The Life of the Heavyweight Champion and Film Star, will be made. 

Compellingly written with David W. Wallace and exhaustively researched, Colleen’s latest book is a terrific account of an intriguing and unforgettable prizefighter’s life inside and outside the ring. A must-read for boxing fans, boxing historians, and lovers of biography.

In an interview with Aycock, the first question I asked her was What Made Max Baer, well, Max Baer? “Max was seen as a clown, but he was a clever clown, much smarter than given credit for,” she said. “He tried to make the sport nicer, and the crowds loved his laughter, his stories, and his charisma, not to mention his powerful fist and unpredictable behavior. And he always stood strong for children and the just.”

Next question: Why has Max been  portrayed in  films, such as The Harder They Fall and Cinderella Man, as  “a villain?” “Hollywood is Hollywood,” Aycock replied, “and to make a good film you need a hero and a villain.”

She continued: “Because early in his boxing career Max had killed a man in the ring, Frankie Campbell, the story gave Max a ‘killer’ image and that’s what Hollywood came looking for: a good-looking man (he was beautiful) who could pass a screen test and who had a reputation as a killer, though in reality he was the opposite. Unfortunately, that ‘killer image’ was usually virtually in all of the films he made, or that were made about him, even in western comedies.”

(After Campbell’s death, Aycock writes, Baer “was an emotional wreck. It was a personal battle he would fight for the rest of his life” . . . New York Mirror columnist Dan Parker added, “Had it not been for the tragedy, his killer instinct would have made Baer [the] greatest.”) 

Asked How Baer would do against today’s heavyweights? Colleen said, “In boxing skill, Max was a slugger with a good chin—in the chronological line between Dempsey and Louis. The question is like asking ‘How would Joe Louis fare against the moderns?’ We have to remember that Louis in his prime beat Max.

“In entertainment value, Max would win hands down. I would love to see Max in the ring today—it would be entertaining as hell, and the millions of dollars he would draw would be difficult to predict.”

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Colleen’s book contains eighteen chapters, among them “The Screwball Championship Fight, Galento, 1940” and “Glamour Boy in Hollywood, 1933 to 1958.” In the Baer-Galento chapter I recall seeing highlights of it on “Greatest Fights of the Century,” which aired from 1948 to 1954, with Jim Stevenson as narrator. I knew what to expect.

Before the Galento fight Baer spoke with Lou Nova, a victim of “Two Ton” Tony’s tactics in their 9/15/39 battle. For some reason the referee allowed Galento to repeatedly thumb Nova in the right eye. (Watch it on YouTube. It’s definitely cringe-worthy!)

Baer told Nova, who was stopped in the 14th round and later hospitalized, he had fought Galento incorrectly, that the way to fight  him was, Colleen quotes Baer as saying, “’at long range and go directly to the head . . . [Galento] couldn’t be beaten in a clean fight because he was one of the dirtiest . . .’” 

Before Max left Nova’s hospital room, Lou looked at him and said,   “’You’re the man who can beat Tony Galento.’”

Colleen writes, “It was a fight of head butts, slashes with laces, thumbs, and gouges.” (No surprise, eh!) Also, she quotes reporter Gayle Talbot of the Asbury Park Press as writing: “’The fat old tavern keeper was sitting on his stool, blowing blood like a harpooned whale, when the bell rang to start the eighth round. His handlers wouldn’t let him go out.’ The only thing the fight proved was that ‘there isn’t a heavyweight in the world today worthy of challenging Joe Louis for the championship.’”

While he was still active in the ring, Baer began his acting career. And why not? He had looks and was a natural ham. 

His first film was 1933’s The Prize Fighter and the Lady,” co-starring Myrna Loy, probably best known today as the wife of private detective Nick Charles in those great Thin Man movies of the thirties and forties. Prizefighter was a success and so was Baer. Aycock quotes the movie poster: “Watch your  pulse, Girls! A curly haired man is coming into your life. Resist him if you can. Handsome, strong, and alive! Hollywood calls him the male Mae West with a streamline chassis.”

Appearing in the film was then heavyweight champion Primo Carnera, who played a character named Primo. He and Max’s character, Steve Morgan, do battle. Reality intervened seven months after the movie’s release when Carnera and Max fought, in New York’s Madison Square Garden, for the former’s heavyweight title.

During his long career, Max appeared in mostly corny but enjoyable movie comedies, with such actors as William Bendix, Patsy Kelly, Brian Donlevy, and Walter Brennan, among others. 

In 1945, he teamed with former light-heavyweight champion “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom in a vaudeville revue. “It was said that the boxers gave up clout for corn,” Colleen writes, “but it was very successful corn . . .”

 She quotes reporter Alan Ward of the Oakland Tribune as writing, “. . . unlike other fighters and champions who became broke and bewildered after their ring careers, ‘it is gratifying to realize that here are two who not only are doing well financially but are right up there with chips.’”

 In the last decade of his life, Max appeared as a guest in numerous televisions shows, such as “The Milton Berle Show,” “The Perry Como Show,” and “So This Is Hollywood.”

Baer had an important role in Humphrey Bogart’s last movie, 1956’s The Harder They Fall. Tautly directed by Mark Robson and adapted from Budd Schulberg’s memorable novel, the movie co-starred Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling, and Mike Lane. Lane played a Primo Carnera-like character—he was called Toro Moreno—and Max portrayed heavyweight champion Buddy Brannen, a thinly disguised copy of himself. 

“When the movie opened in 1956,” Aycock writes, “Primo Carnera sued Columbia Pictures and the book’s author  . . . for $1.5 million, charging that both products were an invasion of privacy causing him scorn and ridicule and the loss of respect.”

The Harder They Fall is a movie that digs deeply into the corrupt side of boxing; and its star, Humphrey Bogart, Colleen says, “fearlessly commented on the social impact of the film, saying he realized ‘a lot of fans are as interested as I am in seeing the bad elements in boxing cleaned up.’”

Colleen rightly believes the portrayal of Max, in 2005’s Cinderella Man, directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe as James J. Braddock, was a “character assassination.”  Craig Bierko, a fine actor, plays Max, who’s wrongly portrayed as a big mouth womanizer unremorseful about his tragic fight with Frankie Campbell. 

3

Aycock said The Magnificent Max Baer is her “heart book [because] it represents my connection to boxing through my father, a professional boxer during the Great Depression.” Abandoned as a teenager in South Texas, her father, Ike, “tried continuing his high school education while working in a dairy for room and board . . . There was a time in the 30s when a town’s entertainment was a make-shift boxing ring city center where men could throw pennies and nickels on the canvas to encourage a challenge. My father stepped into the ring as a young man so he could buy a pair of shoes.

“He always told me, ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, the black boxers had it worse.’ Coming from Mississippi, I admired his feelings for the black boxers at a time when society was still drawing the social color line and racial division was at a boiling point. He told me pointedly, ‘Everyone is equal in the ring.’ It was an early, visible lesson for me in equal rights.” 

When Baer advertised for sparring partners in 1934, Colleen writes, “my father took the train to California” to help the big heavyweight prepare for future fights. “He loved Max as many did during that bleak economic times. So I always dreamed of writing a book about Max Baer.”

A regular contributor to the IBRO Journal, Roger Zotti has written two books about boxing, Friday Night World and The Proper Pugilist. Contact him at rogerzotti [at] aol [dot] com for more information about them.

Book Review: “The Tragedy of the Hogue Twins”

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles

 

TRAGIC TWINS

“[When the Hogue twins were 31 years old,] they were still young men, but life had taken its toll on them. Shorty was living in a variety of care facilities, and Big Boy, who spent several years in and out of Atascadero Mental Hospital,  appeared to have no discernible skills outside of the ring other than cheating at cards.” 

 The Tragedy of the Hogue Twins

By Harry Otty

256 pages

Read Corner Publishing 

Reviewed by Roger Zotti

 

One

 Willard Joseph “Big Boy” Hogue and Willis Burton “Shorty” Hogue  are their names, and boxing historian Harry Otty has written a meticulously researched, eminently readable, and informative book about them. Enhanced by many photos of the twins, family members, friends, and opponents, it’s titled The Tragedy of the Hogue Twins (REaD Corner). 

Harry’s intention is that readers take from his book the realization that  “boxing, for all its hype and glamour, is a brutal sport and some of those who fight to entertain the fans don’t make as much money as the Floyd Mayweathers of this world. Most fighters come away with little in the way of tangible rewards and some come out with a lot less than what they went in with— as was the case with Shorty and Big Boy Hogue.”

At first Otty, the author of the acclaimed Charley Burley and the Black Murderers’ Row, had no idea who the Hogues were, but after extensive research, he says, “I ended up in touch with family members, and then [learned more] about [the twins], and thought theirs was a tale worth telling. [The Hogues] are not well-known outside of the hardcore boxing fraternity, and I thought that was a shame. I think Shorty Hogue belongs in the West Coast Hall of Fame – he beat some great fighters and, perhaps if handled better, could have gone a great deal further than he did.”

Obtaining first-hand information from the Hogue family was challenging for Harry: “With the Charley Burley book I wanted people to know a little more about him outside of boxing, so I relied on friends and family for stories and insights . . . Getting the same insight on the twins’ lives as I got with Charley Burley was  difficult, as there were no siblings left to talk about them. There were a couple of nephews, a grandson and a daughter, but the daughter was not willing to communicate. The snippets of information I did get from the family often led to other avenues to explore. It was a slow process.”

Two

Hailing from Jacumba, California, “Big Boy” was a welterweight, Shorty a middleweight. They had outstanding amateur boxing careers and turned professional on March 3, 1939. In their debuts at the San Diego Coliseum, Shorty stopped Al Jimenez in the third round and Big Boy garnered a six-round decision over George Romero.

Big Boy’s first name opponent was veteran Bobby Pacho, who had fought Henry Armstrong, Eddie Booker, Turkey Thompson, Fred Apostoli, and Fritzie Zivic, among others. In their June 22, 1939, bout, Big Boy earned a ten-round decision. 

Shorty’s former sparring partner, a rising middleweight named Archie Moore—yes, the Archie Moore—was his first opponent of merit. They battled on December 29, 1939, at the San Francisco Coliseum. Moore’s 38-3-3 record didn’t faze Shorty, who won a six-round decision over the future light heavyweight champion.

Their rematch took place in 1941, at the San Diego Coliseum, before 4,000 fans. Harry brings the fight to life with his vivid description of the tenth and final round: “The tenth started with Archie staggering Shorty once more, but the determined twin came back yet again to swamp Moore with a constant cascade of leather. The aggression, determination and sheer volume of punches was enough for referee Benny Whitman to cast his vote in favor of Shorty.”

When the decision was announced, Harry writes, “The reaction would have been the same had the call gone the other way. Afterward promoter Benny Ford called the fight the greatest he had ever seen in a San Diego ring.” 

Their third bout took place in 1942, again at the San Diego Coliseum, and Archie had his revenge, stopping Shorty in two rounds.

Shorty, who fought from 1939 to 1943, compiled a 52-11-2 record. Big Boy battled from 1939 to 1943, was inactive from 1944 to 1951, and returned to the wars in 1952, retiring after two TKO losses. His record was  50-19-7.

During their boxing careers the twins didn’t duck anyone.  Big Boy fought the likes of Aaron Wade, Eddie Booker, Jack Chase, and Charley Burley, all members of the feared Black Murderers’ Row, while Shorty battled Booker (four times), Lloyd Marshall (two times), and Burley.  

How good was the Row? Many champions and contenders ducked them, including Sugar Ray Robinson, whom Burley said he’d fight for nothing,  the great Henry Armstrong, Freddie Cochrane, and Rocky Graziano. 

In his book Murderers’ Row, boxing historian Springs Toledo quoted what former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta said about the Row: “When those bombers got the chance against a white kid on the square, they sure tried their best to show what they could do, because they all had a dream that maybe they’d get enough of an audience clamoring for them so that someday some promoter would give them the chance they deserved and they’d get a shot at the real money.”

And how good were the Hogues? Harry quotes Archie Moore who praised them as “’two of the greatest prospects in my time. They had everything needed to be world champions. Well, maybe one thing was missing—patience.’” 

Three

Brace yourself for the book’s last chapters, which chronicle the twins’ horrific downward spiral. Shorty never recovered from his TKO loss, in early 1942, to the mighty Burley. He fought eight more times that year, winning only twice. His six losses were by KO. 

 After his last fight that year he joined the Navy, but his military career was short-lived. His behavior was unstable and “diagnosed by the Naval medical staff [as] ‘traumatic encephalopathy.’” . . . “Come April 9, 1943, Shorty Hogue . . . was now also ex-naval reserve . . . mentally unfit for military service, physically no longer able to continue in his chosen profession, and with no discernible skills, [he] was consigned to the scrap heap at 22.” Shorty  died in his sleep, at Sleepy Valley Rest Home, on November 29, 1971. He was 50 years old.

Big Boy didn’t fare any better. In his final fifteen outings, he was stopped ten times. After retiring in 1952, he lived a trouble-filled life. 

Jumping ahead to 1964 and Big Boy’s arrest: The police decided to hold [him] until he had ‘sobered up,’ Otty writes, “but he never did. Just before midnight, an officer went in to check on the prisoner. He found Big Boy hanging in his cell. He had used his own belt to end his life. He was only 43.  

“It appears that the symptoms of ‘punch drunk syndrome’”—dementia pugilistica—”[had affected] Big Boy as much as Shorty; the difference was that Shorty had received an official diagnosis,” Otty writes, adding that “[reporter Nelson Fisher] in one paragraph summed up [the Hogue twins’] lives and careers almost perfectly: ‘If their boxing careers were crowned by success and popularity, their lives after they put away the gloves were as contrastingly unfortunate, eventually tragic.’”

Four

Over the years many boxing writers and scholars have inspired Harry: “Like most boxing historians. I have read a great deal of books, essays, newspaper reports, and I would say I was most likely influenced by all of them in one way or another.” 

Boxing historians Kevin Smith and Jerry Fitch rank high as authors who persuaded Harry he “could/should do it” himself. Says Harry: “I read a good deal of Jerry’s essays in the 1980s and 90s and really liked his stuff on the Cleveland greats (Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, Joey Maxim, etc.) and Kevin Smith’s work on the great black fighters opened my eyes to just how deep and wide the history of the sport was. Boxing historian and author John Ochs was a fantastic help once I had the book compiled and (almost) ready to publish.”

Harry commends “the many members of the IBRO who have written fantastic histories and biographies on some of the greats from our sport (and some of the not so well-known, too). I think that is what makes the organization so good – the breadth and depth of knowledge is amazing, and more people should join up!”

A contributing writer for the IBRO Journal, Roger Zotti has written two books on boxing, Friday Night World and The Proper Pugilist. He can be reached at rogerzotti [at] aol [dot] com. You’ll make him happy by emailing him and saying nice things about his writing.”

Boxing’s Lessons

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles,

Punching From The Shadows

Memoir Of A Minor League Professional Boxer

Published By McFarland (McFarlandbooks.com) 

265pp

Reviewed by Bobby Franklin

Glen Sharp had a professional boxing career that consisted of three fights of which he lost two. In Punching From The Shadows: Memoir Of A Minor League Professional Boxer he chronicles his time in the ring and the gyms, along with his experiences with the many different and unusual characters that populated the world of boxing in the 1980s. He also discusses why a young man decides to take up such a brutal sport, and the effect it had on his life, both short and long term. 

Sharp has written a fast paced book that gives the reader much insight into what it takes to become a fighter. Unlike other sports from that era, when a young man would first enter a boxing gym it was very likely he would be training alongside seasoned professionals. This was true for the author, who would become friends with and a sparring partner for five time world title challenger Yaqui Lopez. I don’t think many young football players get a chance to workout with Tom Brady, but boxing was a very egalitarian sport. It was one of the things that made it so attractive.

Glen Sharp wasn’t some poor kid from the mean streets who sought out boxing as a means to escape a life of poverty. In fact, he explains how the belief that boxing is a poor man’s sport is overhyped. Dipping into the writings of Jose Ortega y Gasset as well as Homer, he describes boxing as a form of expression, an artistic pursuit. With the advances man has made, many skills that were once required for survival are no longer needed on a daily basis. However, there is still an urge in many a young man to test himself to see if he can pass the test when challenged on his ability to implement those qualities. These include strength, skill, courage, and endurance. Sharp found the best way for doing that was in taking up boxing.

Yaqui Lopez and Glen Sharp

In Punching Through The Shadows, Glen Sharp gives us an honest telling of his life in boxing. His self doubts and second guessing will be familiar to anyone who has taken a shot at practicing the sweet science. Along the way we meet people such as former Middleweight Champion Carl Bobo Olsen who trained Sharp for a period of time. Reading about the relationship between the former champ and the young prospect only strengthened my belief that having been a top ranked fighter does not necessarily mean you will be good at teaching the art of boxing. In fact, I came away from this book believing Glen Sharp gained more insight into what goes into making a boxer on his own than most trainers do. He really understands the “theory of boxing”.

In an interesting chapter entitled Boxing Is Economics Theory Expressed In The Flesh, Sharp, who has an undergraduate degree in economics puts that knowledge to use in explaining things like the cost/benefit calculation when throwing a punch. When a boxer throws a punch he is most vulnerable to being hit with one. How to mitigate that risk is something every fighter thinks of, though maybe not in economic theory terms. It makes for interesting reading.

When I say Sharp understands the “theory of boxing”, this is made very clear when he describes the styles of some of the leading boxers of the time. His analysis of Joe Frazier as not a slugger but as a skillfully aggressive boxer is both insightful and right on the mark. He also makes  great a point when he writes “What a fighter fears most is not physical discomfort…but rather a failure to live up to the image the fighter has of himself.” There are a number of such gems in this book.

Glen Sharp (left) On The Attack

Along with many insights into the world of boxing, Sharp also delivers a compelling personal story. His comparison of boxing with art  serves him well when discussing his own journey. His story is honest and open. He freely discusses his fears, his self doubts, and his disappointment in not being able to become a top boxer. Boxing is a sport of dreams that are rarely fulfilled. Glen Sharp, like just about any kid who ever put on a pair of boxing gloves, dreamed of one day becoming a world champion. As far a long shot as that is in reality, it is still painful to have to accept the fact that it just isn’t going to happen. In boxing, the default mode emotionally is to look upon one’s self as a failure in so many ways, most of all in believing it means you have failed the test of manhood. 

Sharp With Carl Bobo Olsen

It took Sharp some time to work his way through those feelings. After his third pro fight he stepped back from boxing. A while later he decided he wanted to give it another try. He still felt he could do it and the need to prove himself still burned inside of him. After speaking to a trainer and promoter about making a comeback, he was advised not to. It was a tough message to get and it hurt. He again uses the comparison with the arts to describe his feelings and how he dealt with this emotionally. It turns out he proved himself solidly.

When visiting a boxing gym today, the odds are you will see something more akin to a huge aerobics class setting than the boxing gyms from a few years back. Boxing gyms are now a platform for group exercise rather than places to learn the expressive art Sharp so well describes. He was around for the waning days of the old school boxing gyms and trainers who understood what it was all about. Punching Through The Shadows is a terrific chronicle of what boxing was and should be. It is also a great story of a young man’s quest to test himself and to deal with the emotional turmoil that is so much a passage into manhood.

If you spent time in a boxing gym before they became group fitness centers you will find much of what Sharp has written will bring back memories. If you missed out on those days, you will learn much about what it meant to train in an authentic boxing gym at a time when it was very different than today.

Glen Sharp With His wife Punky

I can’t think of another boxing book out there that gives such an inside look at what it was like to pursue the dream of boxing in the way Glen Sharp did. It is a great read on so many levels. Most of all, it is a very human story. I doubt there are many who will not be able to relate to some portions of Sharp’s book. I know I did.

 

The Ros Muc Legend

Book Reviews, Boxing Articles

THE MAN WHO WAS NEVER KNOCKED DOWN: The Life of Boxer Sean Mannion.

By Ronan Mac Con Iomaire.

Rowman & Littlefield, June 2018. 240 pages.

Reviewed by Len Abram

Boxing biographies, like boxers in fiction and film, are usually about champions, those who reached the craggy peak of success, a title. This book is about a contender, who missed being champion, by not that much. In the 1980s, although Sean Mannion was a top contender, with many great fights, he never wore the gaudy belts of the WBA or the WBC, arbiters of the sport. For fellow Irishman Ronan Mac Con Iomaire, his biographer, Mannion deserves a second chance for the public to respect the fighter he was, and honor the man he is. The man who was never knocked down is still standing.

Iomaire has already helped produce a documentary about Mannion. In 2017, his “Rocky Ros Muc” was well received by Irish film critics. Mannion’s story begins in the village of Ros Muc in Connemara, western Ireland. Its most notable inhabitants, including Mannion, had to leave to find fame and success. Ireland’s people, it has been said, is its greatest export. The mother of the current mayor of Boston came from the village.

When Sean Mannion climbed through the ropes for every fight, the label on his trunks read “Rosmuc,” for his village of 500. Mannion was once offered thousands of dollars to change the “Rosmuc” to the name of a business or a product, but he refused. He wouldn’t do it for a million, he said. “Rocky Ros Muc” is a reference to the Rocky of the most popular boxing story on film. That Rocky was a thick tongued, Phillie native, who punches his way to glory against all the odds, from lower class to sports aristocracy. The 20 foot square of the ring has its own truth to tell in the sweat and blood of opponents. Pedigree, privilege, and position don’t count a whit once the bell is rung and the fight is on. At its best, the ring is a meritocracy.

In reality, as Iomaire explains, boxing is a big business, where few are fortunate – Sugar Ray Leonard was the first to make $100 million in the sport – and most of the rest, like Mannion, barely make a living. Managers, those who direct the talent and careers of the boxer, make a major difference, the choice of manager a mix of opportunity and luck. Mannion’s best manager, the legendary Angelo Dundee, appreciated his boxers and called each “my guy.” For Dundee, boxers, their well-being, came first. His job was to enhance their physical and psychological health to make them champions.

Dundee finished his career with 15 champions. He considered Mannion as one of his most talented boxers. Dundee noted how tough Mannion was. It was he who remarked that Sean had never been knocked down, the title of Iomaire’s biography. Mannion could take a punch and distribute its force, roll with it, to lessen its impact. Mannion was a natural fighter, and often sparred out of his weight class. Dundee’s regret is that he didn’t manage Mannion when he was 20, instead of 30, nearing retirement.

Iomaire has a convincing example of the other kind of management, where the boxer’s interests do not come first. In the early 1980s, a fight between the highly ranked Tommy Hearns and the unknown Sean Mannion was proposed. Aside from more money, success or even a good showing in the matchup would have elevated Mannion’s career and prospects. NBC commentator Dr. Ferdie Pacheco vetoed the fight because of Mannion’s manager then, Jimmy Connolly.

In June 1981, Connolly had committed Mannion to fight Davey “Boy” Green in London, but Mannion remained stateside for a wedding. Connolly was on the hook for a fighter against Green. He put in Danny Long after Long, just coming off a hard loss against Alex Ramos, had only 10 days of rest. Against Green, Long was beaten in four rounds, and his face, according to Iomaire, looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to it.

Pacheco was furious. Allowing Long only 10 days of rest was abuse, an example of what’s wrong with boxing. To the newspapers, he complained that’s how boxers got killed. Pacheco wouldn’t  allow any fighter managed by Connolly to be on NBC, not because of the boxers, but their manager. So the bout between Mannion and Hearns didn’t happen.  (Pacheco also told Muhammed Ali to retire when Ali’s reflexes slowed, but the champ ignored the advice.) 

Mannion continued his rise in the ranks until he got his chance to fight for the light middleweight crown. On October 19, 1984, in perhaps the most meaningful contest in his career, he went 15 rounds against one of the best of his class, Mike McCallum, whom Tommy Hearns reportedly feared and avoided fighting. A veteran of over 250 fights, a natural warrior like Mannion, McCallum would be his toughest opponent. Mannion, however, was fearless.

Fortune did not smile on the Irishman. Five weeks before the fight, Mannion’s eye was cut by an errant elbow during sparring. The stitches made it impossible for him to spar. The wound had to heal. Mannion trained, hit the bags and pads, and ran the miles, but he lost the sharpness gained through sparring. In the fight, McCallum’s punches reopened the cut and shut Mannion’s right eye. Although he was lucky to last through the 15th , Mannion lost the decision. McCallum went on to defend his title many times after, but never faced Mannion again, his toughest opponent.

The fight at Madison Square Garden, as Iomaire describes it, explains elements of Mannion’s identity, what made the fighter into who he is. South Station ran extra trains to New York to accommodate all the Boston Irish, on their way to attend the fight. Iomaire estimates that 10,000 of the 20,000 in the arena were Mannion fans.

Like the “Rosmuc” stitched onto his trunks, the Gaelic language of Ireland epitomized Mannion’s roots, and perhaps Ireland’s painful history, the poverty, wars, famines, and oppression. Paddy, Mannion’s brother and cornerman at his fights, used to shout at him in Gaelic to lift Mannion’s spirits and remind him who he was. Mannion feared no man, but he was worried that he would bring shame to Ireland and Ros Muc.

That wasn’t the case. When he returned to Ros Muc after his defeat, he was treated as a hero for representing Ireland in a championship bout. Sean Mannion never became champion in any division. He fought until retiring in 1993 at age 36. He worked construction in Boston to make a living. For a while, he trained boxers, but apparently his gym closed, the interest in boxing waning and the interest in property rising, as poorer sections of Boston gentrified.

Iomaire says little about Mannion’s personal life (we learn late he was divorced, remarried, and has a daughter) or his problem with drinking, perhaps those empty calories one reason he struggled to make his weight class. Readers will be fascinated by the episode when Mannion had to lose nine pounds in a day to make the welterweight requirement, or forfeit the fight. Mannion got through that ordeal, as he did through every challenge in the sport of boxing – except winning the title, champion.

The Monster Speaks: Dr. Jordan Peterson at the Shubert

Book Reviews, Theater Reviews

By
Edmond D. Smith

Tuesday night, May 22 at the Shubert Theater in Boston the monster spoke. Dr. Jordan Peterson the Canadian clinical psychologist, author, professor and newly minted YouTube and media sensation gave a two hour (a one-and-a-half-hour lecture followed by a half hour q&a) presentation expounding on the themes of his internationally bestselling book, 12 Rules For Life, An Antidote To Chaos. Dr. Peterson’s emergence as a public intellectual with a growing following has been met by howls of protest and derision including accusations of his being a Nazi, homophobe, misogynist, anti-Semite and the leader of a cult of neocavemen.

Tuesday night, the monster himself took the stage at the Shubert to a capacity house of, if his critics are to be believed, exclusively male, knuckle-dragging troglodytes. The first shock of the evening came when it turned out that in reality his audience consisted of casually dressed, polite (predominantly but not exclusively) men; but women were certainly there in abundance as well. The evening’s second shock came when Dave Rubin walked onstage to warm up the audience and introduce the monster. Rubin is a former liberal, a Jewish comedian, and host of the increasingly popular podcast The Rubin Report. He is also a happily married gay man. His introduction of Peterson was funny, warm and admiring.

Then came the main event. The monster walked out onto a stage bare but for a stool holding bottles of water. He was thin, of average height, wore a gray suit and tan shoes (loafers?). When he began to speak his voice was mild. His mannerisms were restrained. He presented as the antithesis of the fire-breathing hate monger that much of the press has portrayed. Over the next two hours he covered a wide-ranging territory that included some personal history, (He grew up in a small, rather bleak town in Alberta, Canada. The closest big city was Edmonton, five hundred miles distant.) much discussion of his intellectual heroes Carl Jung and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, his distaste of deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida, and his fascination with both biological and social hierarchies. Apparently, his audience of devolved knuckle-draggers had come out to hear a lecture about ideas.

And he was an explosion of ideas. His manner of speaking was professorial without being didactic.

And he was an explosion of ideas. His manner of speaking was professorial without being didactic. He gave the impression of a man who isn’t just teaching: he paused often as he seemed to be carefully considering what he would say next, checking it in his mind for consistency, veracity and value. Its an unusual style that has the effect of making his audience feel as if they are discovering ideas with him, as if they are part of his process. And he readily admits that he doesn’t have all the answers but is sincerely interested in finding them.

At times he was personal and emotional, choking up a bit in remembering his mother-in-law’s difficult passing. At other times he was amusing as when he talked about the need rats have for physical nurturing. He also addressed some of the criticism he has gotten from the media including his now infamous TV interview with British journalist Cathy Newman, in which prior to the TV cameras coming on she was polite, charming and sympathetic and then completely changed her demeanor when the cameras were  turned on. He also addressed another recent controversy in which a phrase, “enforced monogamy”, has been used to delegitimatize him. His explanation of his actual meaning was dealt with in the post-speech q&a which can be seen in the link below:

If there was any one issue that propelled him into the spotlight it was his stance on a piece of Canadian legislation, Bill C-16 which stipulates that people must address transgendered or other “non-binary” people by a pronoun of their choosing. To fail to do so can lead to governmental sanctions. Peterson took to YouTube to voice his objection to the idea of compulsory speech which he vociferously contends is a violation of the principle of free speech. Suddenly he went viral.

Much of what Peterson has to say is his extrapolation of what are the consequences of the hierarchical structure of society, itself embedded in the biological foundations of humanity. His analysis considers the stories of ancient heroes and stories of how man succeeds and fails. This leads him to Christianity which relies on the primacy of the individual. This he contrasts with the collective, which history shows invariably leads to tribalism and the segmentation of society into separate interest groups. And it is here that we can see the genesis of the Left’s hatred of Peterson. By his reckoning history is rife with the failures of collectivism, including the horrors of Nazism, socialism and communism. And he sees the current growth of intersectionality, the collision of differing groups invariably leading to the strong marginalizing the weak, bringing about group conflict, with groups of the privileged victimizing the groups of the less powerful.

He believes that the only way out of these constantly recurring collectivist societies which distort man’s true nature and inexorably leads to societal disaster is through making the individual preeminent. Thus Christ is literally and metaphorically the individual who shoulders responsibility and saves the world. Individual consciousness, the individual’s sense of responsibility despite the burden it places on man is the way out of the collectivist trap.

And it is Peterson’s utter rejection of collectivism as anathema to the flourishing of the human spirit that makes him such a target for the Left.

And it is Peterson’s utter rejection of collectivism as anathema to the flourishing of the human spirit that makes him such a target for the Left. If people once again start to believe in the primacy of the individual, the individual with a sense of meaning, then the Left’s entire narrative crumbles and blows away like dust. This is why they see him as such a danger, as such a monster. To watch the cheer that rose up from the audience when Peterson pointed to the necessity of their taking responsibility for their own actions would be enough to drive the Left to the paroxysms of hate that they have directed at Peterson.

So the monster concluded with a call to people to live up to their “true nature” by accepting personal responsibility for their lives, and taking up… “an ethic of fair play and courage” which “…keeps us a good distance away from Hell.”

By the conversations that could be heard when Dr. Peterson had concluded his presentation the now obviously non-troglodytic audience left inspired to shoulder heavier burdens of responsibility in order to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose.

At this point it became impossible to view the humble academic whose words had just held our attention for two hours as having any of the characteristics of a monster. If a monster had been expected to show up on the Shubert stage that night, he never appeared. In fact he seems never to have existed at all.