Boxing Books

Mr. Stravinsky writes a decent biography of Ali, although some details of his personal life could have been covered in a little more detail. More coverage of his first three marriages, early years and gradual conversion to the Nation of Islam come to mind. Don't let this dissuade you from reading this nice little tome. I think it gives just enough information to pique ones curiosity into buying a more detailed work. The bibliography in the back of the book will give you some good choices. As a boxing fan, I found the detailed coverage of the boxing matches especially interesting. Highly recommended for those who wish to discover more about a diverse and interesting life.

I found the book to give not much insight compared to others previously written about "The Greatest". A good book for starters but not for serious Ali fans.

If you rolled your eyes when you read the title of this review, then you'll want to steer clear of Nick Tosches overwrought, insipidly pretentious prose. Here's a snapshot:

"Truman Gibson told me a story, in that way he has of delicately spinning out a web that can be plainly seen only from a distance, the gossamer of a tale that seems to have no meaning in itself, but which, when the moon of understanding waxes, shines softly with the light of meaning that was there all along."

The writing is comical, but the source from which it springs is Tosches meglomania, which is what truly ruins the book, unless you want to read it as comedy, with Tosches as the unintended punchline. Because to Tosches, he is as historically significant as his subject, and for this reason his own ego keeps bumping into everything he tries to write about. Try this:

"Lowell was not in the best of shape. Like Frankie Carbo, like me, like a lot of people, he had diabetes, and the complications were getting the better of him."

There's Nick again, inserting himself into the story. I'm sorry he has diabetes, but he's not asking for sympathy. Oh no. You see, Nick's talkin 'bout diabetes. The big D. Lots of tough guys have it. Guys like Frankie Carbo, lord of the underworld. And guys like him. You know how it is.

And just in case you've come to the end of the book and you still haven't figured out that Nick Tosches is every bit as big and bad as Sonny Liston, don't worry, cuz he's not gonna hold back on you no more. He's just gonna come right out and say it. Try this one on for size:

"I write this on a cold night as one millenium, a dead wisp in that supernal breeze that we call time, becomes another. It is black outside, a little after half past four, when the joints too are dead. In the background--f*** the neighbors--the melancholy violin and viola, the mean self-threnody of Iggy Pop's "No S***," from his brutal, beautiful and courageous "Avenue B." I remember a night a few months back, at Manitoba's, a joint on Avenue B. I was there to read poetry, and Chuck Wepner, one of the last of the stand-up guys--a guy who fought not only both Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali, but also, for charity, a Kodiak bear--had come in to introduce me. 'This guy,' he said, 'writes like Sonny Liston hit.'"

By the end of it all, I realized that I'd just consumed far too many supernal gossamers, filigrees of wisdom, and wispy moons of understanding. More than anything, though, I realized that I'd had enough of Nick Tosches to last me until the Great Self-Threnody in the Sky. Come to think of it, though, Wepner may have been right. Reading Nick Tosches might be just about as pleasant as being hit by Sonny Liston. And you know how hard he hit.

I remember, as a mere slip of a lad, tape-recording the Liston-Clay fight on my Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder. (I think it weighed more than I did.) I played that tape over and over. ...

"SONNY LISTON'S NOT COMING OUT!" excalimed Howard Cosell. "SONNY LISTON'S NOT COMING OUT! HE'S OUT! I'M NOW GOING UP INTO THE RING!"

Actually, I congratulate Nick Tosches on writing a book about Sonny Liston and not once mentioning Howard Cosell, who I simply *loooooooathe(d).*

As for Nick's book, you have to give him credit for the research he's done, he is thorough. But as a previous reviewer noted, he's a Jimmy Breslin/Damon Runyon wannabe. Of course that's not an unambitious wannabe gene to have, is it? So I can't really criticize Nick for aspiring to such obvious greatness.

The thing is, though, Nick manifests his hipness in an all too obvious way. Alas, there's nothing sadder than a hipster who tries too hard to be too hip.

Still, Nick was raised in Newark, New Jersey, as I was, he's about my age, and he's clearly a good, solid, interesting writer, so whaddya want? fugetaboutit -- da bum's okay!

In Hemingway's short story "A Clean Well-Lighted Place," the old man in the cafe is asked: "What are you thinking about?" To which he replies: "Nothing." Meaning: nothingness.

Indeed, this is the key that unlocks the mystery of Sonny Liston. In considering Sonny Liston, one inevitably looks into the abyss -- comes face-to-face with the personification of nothingness. ("Nada y nada y pues nada.")

Easily the most feared and ferocious of heavyweights, when he wasn't (probably) throwing both Ali fights, Charles Sonny Liston was nihilism to the 12th power. As such, I wish Nick had written a bit more about Liston from an existential point of view. His writing style is perfectly suited to such an approach. Put another way: I don't imagine it's a coincidence that Nick has also written biographies of Dean Martin and Jerry Lee Lewis, both of whom, each in his own unique way, has danced on the precipice of existential dread.

If you don't know Sonny Liston from Adam, or if you consider the only accceptable biography to be that of a famous, notable or "respected" individual (as opposed to a thug like Liston), then you're a square, daddy-o, and you should pass on this book, ex Post Toasties.

(Did you see what I did there? Huh? A little cereael humor -- "ex Post Toasties." ... I gotta million of 'em.)

If, on the other hand, you're consider Sonny Liston to be an important part of our cultural past and therefore worth paying attention to ("Attention, attention must be paid this man!"), then give my paisano Nick Tosches' bio of Sonny Liston a shot.

Meanwhile, there's no question Liston threw the second Ali fight. But what about the first one? Did he throw that one, too? If he did, one has to wonder what would have happened to Ali had he faced the full, "unfixed" fury of Liston.

Before the first, at the weigh-in, Ali went nuts, with most commentators (in hindsight of course) maintaining that this was meant to psyche out Liston. I don't believe it. I think Ali was scared witless of Liston; maybe not necessarily at the weigh-in but in his general psychological preparation for the fight. In fact, he was probably as surprised/shocked ed as anyone that he emerged from the fight victorious -- let alone survived it!

It's interesting how Nick points out that after the Mob's influence over boxing waned, many of the people involved in boxing, including the boxers themselves, longed for the days when they dealt with the Mob, as opposed to the real thieves, the compleat crooks, namely, the lawyers, corporatists and other buttoned-down nouveau riche hustlers we civilians are all now plagued with.

The Mob may have been rough, but as Mario Puzo once put it: at least back in the day you could get a decent bowl of spaghetti & meatballs in Las Vegas. Today? Fugetabout it!

All this negativity, wow. I thought this book was fantastic. It made me buy other books by this guy and I liked them as well. He's not my favorite author of all time, but this book was great. 5 stars.

It's refreshing to read that so many others here can see through Tosches as the "literary" equivalent of a snakeoil salesman.

I've worked in the industry so I know that copywriters at least attempt to come up with the jacket- or cover-copy that will entice readers into buying the book. But a writer with Tosches' clout usually gets to write his own copy. So, with that in mind--DINO, while allegedly a depiction of how down-and-dirty Dean Martin really was (yes, the man was flawed and he did some bad things--but Frankie Sinatra did a LOT of MUCH worse things) is actually a book about an entertainer, Martin, who was a genuinely, physically and mentally tough man (the type who Sinatra pretended to be--Dino didn't need bodyguards to do his fighting) who was beloved by his female costars, who found him to be genuinely funny, charming, and a true gentleman. One alleged insult to a call girl quoted on the mass market cover--who flattered herself that she could take Dino for a ride--does not contradict this. He was streetwise and when he told Jerry Lewis "you can talk about love all you want, you're just a f**king dollar sign to me," it was in the context of having played second bananna to a narcissitic, juvenile cretin, for year. For example, Lewis was so obnoxious that, in an episode of the old Colgate Comedy Hour, he kept interrupting Martin to upstage Dino was he attempted to seen what was his hit song. Who wouldn't to throttle the little punk?

I see that Tosches' "biography" of Arnold Rothstein--the famous gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series--is subtitled to call this a story that's never been told before. Do an Amazon search. Do a Google search. Okay, Rothstein is not a household name but anyone who has read a few books on American gangsters has heard of Rothstein. "A.R.," as he was known, is NOT an overlooked figure in histories of the era.

Tosches is a "wannabe," as another post stated, and yet another post(s) commented on his faulty research skills, irrelevant digressions, and affected prose.

But you know what really got me pissed about this Liston book? Tosches states--as though it were an indisputable fact--that the last fight Rocky Marciano had, against the great Archie Moore, was fixed. Archie took a dive to preserve the Great White Champ's record.

Just like that. This is a historically significant allegation and one that has not been made before (at least not in any serious reportage). Does Toshces cite a source for this bombshell? God forbid. He makes this statement without batting an eye or even addressing why this charge has never been revealed by any of the truly great boxing writers who have preceded Tosches. I'm sure Bert Randolph Sugar, for one, would have touched on this years ago, if it had even a grain of truth.

In truth, Archie Moore's gripe was that the ref--after Moore had hit Marciano with a shot so hard it's said to have lifted the Rock several inches off his feet before he hit the canvas--gave the Rock the equivalent of a "long count," allowing the younger and stronger Marciano precious seconds to recover and knock out Moore.

Other boxing writers (Sugar, for one, I believe), some who were present at the fight, others who have seen the B&W film footage, respectfully disagree. Moore was a great champ, a great fighter, and a proud man. NO doubt about that. And he gave the Rock one hell of a fight. He came thisclose to winning the heavyweight title. So did Billy Conn against Joe Lewis. (Was that a fix, too?) It must be difficult to deck an opponent with a punch that would ended the fight against virtually any other opponent in that weight class and then see him, in true Marciano fashion, rise from the canvas, shake off the punch, and come back at you like a wrecking machine.

But Toshces' version? Hell, he just makes a statement out of "punchyland" that suits his biases. Were it true, it would be a helluva revelation, a story that would capture the attention of boxing aficionados--if it were only true.

Toshes is, indeed, a con artist. He tries to dazzle you with his footwork but has little to back it up.

Sonny Liston deserves a better biographer, one that keeps the spotlight on his subject and not on himself.

While the negative reviews here hold a certain amount of water, it must be understood that this is certainly not a "traditional" biography, if a biography at all. I came upon this book from the opposite direction as previous commentators, as an fan of literature with a passing interest in boxing. Tosches' entire ouevre reads much the same way as this text: pop cultural riffing, hyperbolic spiritual send-ups, flourishes of bizarrely germane quotes. But it all works.

I can safely admit that this won't serve as an effective biography for anyone hoping for detailed accounts of Liston's fights, but it is a wonderfuly tempered, passionate work. In terms of boxing studies, if you care at all for the style of Oates' "On Boxing," this is certainly worth a paltry $0.19.

Perhaps for the 1960'S this might be considered good; however I think the technique leaves much to be desired. Many of the low kicks are terrible (incorrect distance,lean and/or bending of support leg). The boxing is sloppy in terms of guard and stance (looks like modified karate).
Even Tegners earlier Savate book has similar problems (especially concerning distance control and extension in kicking).
Savate is a very efficient art - assuming its performed corectly.
However a good book for the price. You can even learn from a bad book.

I had the original Savate Book from Tegner. In that book he taught a very simple method of kicking along with general boxing. One of the ideas I got from this book was his T method. The back leg was a support leg only. The front leg did the kicking. Now most martial artists today would go HUH. But when I tried his method in my Wing Chun class it confused alot of the students. More advanced students I was doing very well against. The one weakness in Tegner's style is if your opponent attacks that back leg you might get in trouble. My Wing Chun Teacher figured it out. But if you are going to fight some thug who does not know what he is doing. The techniques in this book are very easy to learn and can be effective!

I haven't trained Savate but always been curious about this version of martial art. As a student of karate and boxing I found that many of the techniques presented in Tegner's book is similar to what I learned doing the other styles. Without having more to go on than what I learnt from this book I found this discipline to be like an upgraded version of boxing. However, I remember seeing a French championship in Savate on TV a few years ago and when watching it Savate seemed much more related to Kickboxing than regular boxing. Guess it's difficult to give an all-inclusive description/introduction about a whole discipline in a book? I'm sure it's works better as a complement to existing students of Savate than to newbies.

Bruce Tegner had an older version of this book, where he actually demonstrated the techniques, and it even had tips on defending against a knife. Although there are better books on the subject, I would try to find the out of print version, rather than waste time on this. This book was just watered down karate.

When this book first came out in the 60's, it was the first book on Savate published in the U.S. There are still only a few that have ever been published on the subject, and although I'm aware that there are now better books on it, I credit Tegner for coming out with the first useful book on the art.

As a karate and TKD man, the most important thing I got from this book was how different the "chambering" or delivery methods are for the basic kicks vs. karate. I am pretty big and tall, and I find that several of my kicks are actually delivered more like the Savate version rather than the classical karate version, which is sort of interesting. The high back stabbing kick from a quasi-layout position is also a kick I have worked to perfect as there is nothing quite like it in either karate or tae kwon do, and it's something I have occasionally used to good effect in sparring, since they're not accustomed to seeing this sort of oddly delivered kick.

If you are interested in more reading on Savate, there is a good section in Donald Gilbey's Secret Fighting Arts of the World, where he meets the great Savate master, Baron Fegnier. Fegnier was a ferocious kicker and incredibly fast, who had been in numerous street fights and never lost. One of the interesting things I came away with from this interview was Fegnier's emphasis on precise interval, rather than focus, in a kick. This is interesting since he is correct that even being slightly off in your interval or distancing will nullify most of your focus. Although Gilbey is probably Robert W. Smith, and many of these stories are no doubt apocryphal, the "Baron's" advice is still cogent and relevant.

Anyway, Tegner's book is still a useful introduction to this fascinating and obscure martial art, which almost completely died out after World War I, as many of the Savate masters were killed in the Great War, although I understand the art is now making a long-delayed but much deserved comeback.

Sonny Bear is half Native-American and is possibly in the running to become the youngest heavyweight champion boxer ever. His Native-American blood causes difficulty--he has to figure out where his loyalties lie, and he has to combat racism when he travels from town to town fighting.

Sonny Bear's friend Marty is traveling around with him, trying to keep him motivated to fight and recording his story in the form of a creative-writing project for a college course. Keeping Sonny motivated is becoming more and more difficult. He is disgusted with the home-town fights where everything is balanced against him. His tribe is also in conflict; there is talk of building a casino on their reservations, but not everyone is in favor of the idea.

Sonny needs to get his head straight and decide if he is really going to dedicate himself to the boxing title. Marty may be the only one who can help him get back on track.

This was a decent story, although not very in-depth. The characters, especially Sonny, were likable and interacted well. The conflict was too easily resolved, though, and Sonny's authority was too easily recognized by the angry older members of his Nation.

I liked this book it was really interesting in that it told how Sonny Bear the main character on his journey to the heavyweight championship.

Robert Lipsyte gets you interested in the characters and their journey towards the heavyweight boxing championship. I also liked the book because Sonny Bear, a young boxer, doesn't give up on his dream to become the champ, despite being judged by his Indian heritage. One aspect of the book that I didn't like was that there were too many characters at some points in the book and it was hard to follow them all.

The Chief

This book is about a guy named Sonny Bear who is a Cherokee Indian. He is a boxer who is struggling to get any good boxing matches after he cheated and was disqualified from a match that was for the championship. Ever since, he has been traveling all over the country with his manager/trainer Alfred, a guy named Jake who is a also a trainer and a guy named Martin Witherspoon looking for matches but are having a hard time finding any. Just when Sonny was about to quit Martin had an idea to go to Las Vegas and interrupt the championship match.
I didn't like this book because it was very hard to follow. Also boxing isn't one of my interest but if it is an interest to you then you will probably like this book.

I really liked robert Lypsyte's book The Chief. It really gave me a feel for the characters. It also made all of these emotions towards the characters surface, which I really like in a book. The author makes you have feelings for the characters. He makes you really want the characters to either succeed or fail, but there is not any room for an "I don't care" character. All in all I think everyone should read this book, because it is truly an example of great writing.

I wanted to love this book. I looked forward to receiving it with great anticipation. I am a boxing data researcher over the last 40 years. I love boxing, numbers, and rankings. How could this book not be great? Because the supposed "objective" criteria, using 29 categories, is spurious and devoid of any understanding of what numbers can and cannot do.
Why does this book fail? Because the writer is overextending his expertise, to an area he is not qualified to delve into. Mr Gray is an expert in Baseball research. He has been honored for a similar book about baseball. I praise him for his work in that area. But this is not baseball. This is boxing, where you can't just buy a statistics book and start creating "objective" evaluations. Boxing scribes have been studying and writing about this sport for many years. They know every statistic in this book, but they would never claim that they can throw them all together, and come up with an "objective" ranking of the 100 top boxers. They certainly would not claim for numbers, a conclusion which numbers themselves cannot deliver.
Oh, boxers rated one to five are OK! Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Duran and Julio Cesar Chavevez. But when he gets to the heavyweights, no evaluation is made for size differences, quality of opponents, era of activity, observation of abilities by reliable writers, or hundreds of data categories which are not available in basic record books. I rate heavyweights on over 160 data categories. Many of this book's categories are not very helpful, unless a boxer has a long career. And the 160 categories are very instructive, but they require research which this author has not done.
The rankings of this book are not helpful, and are based on a very limited and out-dated use of mathematics. If the book has any use, it is as a comparable volume to Bert Sugar's "subjective", Boxing's Greatest Fighters, which I recommend.
A snapshot of the results, suggests the weaknesses of the heavyweight ranking. #s 1-10: Ali, Foreman, Louis, Holmes, Holyfield, Lewis Fitzsimmons ?, Burns ?, Marciano, Charles. #s 11-20: Sullivan, Johnson, Dempsey, Tyson, Carnera ?!?!?, Tunney, Jeffries, Walcott, Willard, Patterson. Frazier is relegated to #21, Liston #22, etc. All divisions suffer from similar anomalies.
I think this is enough, to suggest you save your money.

If anything, this book woke me up to what boxing champions did in their whole career. As a boxing fan and a list freak, I have my preferences. Some of Gray's picks surprised me, but he has a rationale for all of his rankings. It might be more fun for us to just go at it and argue the virtues of our favorite fighters rather than to coldly analyze them by Gray`s method, but this book gives order to the "who is the best" debate. If you agree that Gray's method led to some solid choices at the top, (Robinson, Moore Armstrong, Duran, Chavez and Ali) at least consider that the rest might be in proper order because each fighter is ranked in exactly the same way. This is innovative stuff and a must read for any boxing fan. It will change the debate.

I agree with D. Naughton 100%. Good reading, but Mr. Arcel might have been
the best trainer to ever work a corner and there was much more to him than
is portrayed in the book.

ok, this is a good book, but the title is misleading as there is not much info here on Ray Arcel. The book mainly covers the fighters who were trained by Arcel and associated with him directly or indirectly (Joe Louis for example) and there is relatively very little in this book about the man himself, gotta say i was a little disappointed, most of what ive read in this book ive read elsewhere before, i would reccomend "Corner Men" by Ronald Fried (I Think)there is possibly the same info on Arcel in one chapter of "Corner Men" that there is in this entire book, but all said this is still worth a look

Wonderful job! The stories of both the famous like Ezzard Charles, and the little-known fighters are very interesting. Covers the whole range of boxing, amateur and pro, and with good photographs.

Left out so many people that made Cincinnati a great Boxing town. When doing a book like this should get more input from boxers and family members to do it justice !

Only in America, it is possible to have a Don King dominating the boxing scene. Newfield describes all the tricks of the trade King is using to his advantage and delivers recommendations what should be done. There is hope that one of these days boxing will be a respectable sport.

A superb, meticulously-researched book by an author who truly loves boxing. The career of Don King is well documented here and is as fascinating as you would have imagined. Yet it's more than a biography - an account of how the collective talents of what should have been boxing's Golden Age were squandered through corruption, er...fight engineering (shall we say) and a ratings system based on money not ability. Don King's rise is vividly described - he arrives at a Frazier-Foreman fight with Frazier, but as the fight progresses creeps closer to the Foreman camp and inevitably leaves with the victor. A pattern repeated again and again. The experiences of Tim Witherspoon, Larry Homes and Muhammad Ali make grim yet compelling reading. Finally, we see the Tyson years as yet another athletic talent wasted.
One of the best sports books I have ever read - and deserves a wider readership: So, Amazon, why isn't it available on your UK site?

I really enjoyed the stories in the book and how Kelly had such a struggle growing up. She was faced with many challenges and the weight loss was only a small part of everything she has faced in her life. I think it took a lot of courage to train as hard as she did and to have to face the tuff competetors in the boxing arena. She had a lot of drive and she should be very proud of her accomplishments. I think this book could be used in many ways, not just with weight loss. It can teach many people how they can over come adversities and tough challenges with life. I really enjoyed this book.

I disliked this book. There's nothing in it that you couldn't find in anyone else's how-I-did-it self-help book(s).

Solid book with some somewhat interesting brief bios on the big champs, although it's little more than a bit of flavoring to get you interested on them. Nothing really new is learned here.