Books & articles

I just finished Tris Dixon’s “Warrior” on Matthew Saad Muhammad. A great read, if a sad one at times, but a great book. I highly recommend. Up next is Nigel Collins’ new release, “Hooking off the jab” which I purchased from him and he signed for me in October at the Atlantic City Boxing HOF.

 

Larry Holmes: Against the Odds (autobiography co-authored with Phil Berger)

I ready it years ago and I’m not going cover to cover with it (my brother will almost certainly gift me a boxing book for Christmas so I’m just using this to keep me busy in my spare time for a week, haha), just picking spots where he writes about specific fights.

Larry’s a very insightful guy. He’s got an ego (all champions do) but doesn’t come across as pushy about it to me. It’s an enjoyable read.

 

Very enjoyable book. As was George Foreman’s too.

 

My friend Christian Giudice has some very good books and not just on boxing btw.

As far as what im reading right now? My auto-biography...on tumblr.......

 

Not reading any Boxing books presently,

though I have an extensive collection of 1930's & 40's material at my leasure, which is less than a quarter of what I used to have...

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Muhammad Ali: His Life And Times by Thomas Hauser.
Sting Like A Bee by Jose Torres

McIlvanney On Boxing - Hugh McIlvanney. Probably my fave boxing book ever.

 

I mentioned above that my brother will probably get me a boxing book for Christmas this year. He works hard to find interesting ones that are off the beaten path. Here are three from the last few years I can recommend:

Drama in the Bahamas — story of the Ali-Berbick fight; not just the fighters but how it came together with a promoter who had no experience, how it almost didn’t come off because the huge satellite dish they had to bring to the island to broadcast it fell into the ocean during transport … all kinds of crazy stuff. Author talked to a ton of people to put together the full story (including Don King going to the island claiming he had rights to either Ali or Berbick or both and trying to stop the show or get a payoff and getting beaten to a pulp and sent packing, haha.)

Ring of Deceipt — story of promoter Harold “Rossfields” Smith (aka Ross Fields) who embezzled like $21M from Wells Fargo bank and used it to nearly take over boxing. He had many top fighters of the day, including Thomas Hearns and Aaron Pryor and others signed to fights or deals with his stolen money and was able to get network TV for several fights. He was about three months away from putting on a supercard (which would have included Cooney-Norton plus like four world title fights and a star-studded undercard) when his embezzling got exposed and he went on the lam. This is co-written IIRC by the prosecutor so he had access to all the documents and behind-the-scenes stuff. Fascinating chapter.

The Years of the Locust — Account of journeyman boxer Tim Anderson’s murder of promoter Rick “Elvis” Parker for allegedly poisoning him to cause him to lose his rematch with ex-football player Mark Gastineau (Anderson KO’d Gastineau in the first fight, derailing a potential big-money fight with George Foreman that would have been Parker’s promotion). Sordid tale all around. The author has a very unusual writing style that’s a bit annoying at first but you get used to it — he’s not inept but just very … quirky. But the facts are all there and it’s a riveting story. Parker was a bad dude but also just a lot of craziness and drugs, etc, behind the scenes going on.

 

Interesting, I'm reading it as well ... astonishing what a deep era he fought in at 175 ..

 

Superb book that was extremely depressing for me

 

Since this forum is more historical, I think think this thread would make a good sticky so people would have a good reference for boxing books and articles. There have been some other threads with this subject that I have contributed to but because of the amount of new threads in this forum, they cycle off pretty quickly and you specifically have to search for books.

 

That’s an excellent suggestion which I asked for in regards to the following thread which contains links to full scans of several of the boxing magazines listed therein. It’s a waste to have them get pushed down and out of sight.

Vintage Boxing Magazine Scans

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/vintage-boxing-magazine-scans.673824/#post-21273504