Just Bought The Book " Four Kings" By George Kimball

Yeah it's pretty great overall. I like to view it as an unofficial mini Hagler biography for his sections.

In fact it was thanks to this book that I developed my love for Hagler, as I initially thought him the least interesting of the 4 kings and hadn't looked into his non fab 4 fights.

His story really made me give him another chance and he's either my favourite or 2nd favourite of the group now.

 

Kind of a weird coincidence but Jewel Kilcher based her song "Who Will Save Your Soul?" on thinking Duran's low blow would damn him to hell.

 

Good man. Leonard did not want a rematch.

 

Excellent book. Read it adleast 3 times

 

It’s a fantastic book.

Read it cover to cover years ago and ever since, every few months I pick it up and thumb through to a random section and reread (and relive) another great chapter in boxing history.

The author was there to witness it all. He primarily covered Marvin for one of the Boston papers (I think it was Herald rather than Globe but maybe I got that backwards) but also covered the rest. But one of the best things about it is he freely credits other boxing writers of the era (most of the major papers in the northeast had boxing writers and these guys would regularly congregate at the big fights and hang out whilst also competing with each other, a sort of brotherhood) and giving them their flowers by quoting from their accounts or relating things they saw/experienced/reported upon. Which adds great perspective imo rather than just one guy (however capable and qualified) giving you just his own takes.

It’s well-written but not a navel-gazing ‘poetic masterpiece’ in the way The Sweet Science by AJ Liebling nor Norman Mailer’s The Fight are — but nonetheless it’s one of a handful or less of must-read boxing books for my money. An absolute golden era captured in one tome and chock full of surprising stories an anecdotes.*

* For example, I love the story about how Hagler was training in secret with closed workouts (for Leonard iirc) and to get an edge, the photographer at his paper snuck into the gym and set up a camera with a timer or something like that and when the pictures surfaced, Hagler’s camp went ballistic (and it fed into their paranoia that his workouts were being spied upon. You could have studied boxing history for an entire lifetime not gotten that gem of a story, or many more related in this book).

TL/DR: If you haven’t read it, you need to. If you have, read it again (and again and again).

 

Yes. I enjoyed it.

 

Good book, plenty of detail on all four fighters. Also read Hands of Stone by Christian Guidace around the same time so it was a nice complimentary experience

 

Brilliant book, talking about an era of boxing I doubt I will see again.

Just a worthy tribute to four boxing icons.

 

It’s good to have Roberto’s excuses collected in one place, haha.

Seriously, it is a good book … but as far as Duran is concerned he never lost a fight … because his losses don’t count!

 

My "Four Kings" says George Kimball. Am I missing something?

 

Great book. Given the level of coverage of those fighters and that era on film, what it does really well is re-create the excitement of the era so that you feel you’re living those fights as they happened.

I also didn’t know that Leonard and Hearns had the opportunity to fight as early as 1978 but Angelo Dundee said ‘not yet’ because he knew it would be a mega fight a few years down the line.

 

I don't remember the books having too many excuses but maybe I didn't dwell on it

I have to re-visit the book after I'm done re-browsing through Irish Thunder about Mickey Ward