Who is the greatest living boxing historian?

Thomas Hauser deserves a mention. As does Colleen Aycock, she has written some fine books recently.

 

LMMFAO. Simply put, your posts are can't miss.

 

Hank kaplan argued with me for 30 minutes that Lennox Lewis was ducking John Ruiz and scared of his right hand. He did not think Lewis was the best. Lol.

 

Hauser spent 30 years being an Ali sycophant and when the family cut ties with him he flip flopped and started writing negative copy on him. Since then the guy hasnt had an original thought in his head. Everything hes written has been co-opted from better sources.

Aycock has way too many mistakes in her books to be considered good.

Callis is a good shoutout.

 

He was very nice when I met him. I forget what year it was. in Los Angeles.

 

id guess Tyson would hold his own with most in a boxing history debate

 

The book Hauser wrote in the '80s about Don King was enthralling reading. He dug up a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

It really opened my eyes, as a teenager reading it, that Don's big smile in public was a mask hiding what he really was - a ruthless scumbag.

 

Sounds like Hank doesn't know too much about analyzing fighters. He may be a great collector, but that doesn't make him an expert.

 

But that was contemporary reporting at the time, which is still his primary MO so I wouldnt qualify him as a historian. And even then his contemporary stuff is borrowed and cobbled together from better journalists with better sources. What hes good at is summarizing all of those disparate voices into a single thread and making it all make sense.

 

I guess it boils down to what constitutes a boxing historian? There have been many great boxing writers.

Red Smith, Bill Heinz,Jimmy Cannon,Bob Waters,Hugh McIllvanney, AJ Leibling, maybe Dave Anderson.
Are they historians though?

 

Exactly

 

Well Kaplan was such a gentleman, I think arguing would be the wrong word. Late in his life he did in fact think Lewis was the best of all time. Below is a 2005 interview. You'll like it.

http://www.thesweetscience.com/articles-of-2005/2862-q-a-a-with-hank-kaplan

 

I recall reading a few Larry Merchant's write-ups in Philadelphia Daily News from the 1960s, a lot of water and little substance.

 

Again. Naughty.

I know what you're saying about Hugh McIlvanney, by the way. I love his essays and his book 'On Boxing' is as good as it gets but I see him more as a brilliant sports journalist, master of several trades, rather than a boxing historian. He wrote superbly about what he was covering at that particular time but he never struck me as someone who would eat, sleep and breathe boxing and was imbued in its history. Colin Hart couldn't carry his typewriter as a writer but Colin was the one trick pony, as in he only really covered boxing, that I would expect a boxing historian to be. I'm perhaps giving him too much credit based on narrowness of speciality and longevity rather than depth of knowledge, though, so can see what you're saying about him, as well.

 

Yes McIlvanney wrote just as eloquently about horse racing!
Of the UK boxing boys, I think Reg Gutteridge,Frank McGhee, Frank Butler ,& George Whiting were all better than Harty.