Books & articles

Yesterday started reading Herol Grahams autobiography,never knew he got beaten by Tony Sibson in the amateurs

 

Ow! Hey, you are Christopher Smith from the book, my girl gave me your book a few months ago, I still didn´t have the time to read I must say, had no ideia you posted here (well not like I have been here recently anyway).

I see that you now have a portuguese version (mine is the english one), let me tell you, you are a hero my friend, thank you for the job.

 

Those braille books are a service to judges based in Las Vegas and the UK, occasionally elsewhere.

 

I also think it’s pretty clever how “they” set it up for the judges to attend predesignated libraries to collect their “under the table” cash payments from inside the pages of those very same books (braille book in question pre-specified also, of course).

 

It's a great book Vic, you'll enjoy when you get chance to read.

 

If you have a chance pick up a copy of "The Devil and Sonny Liston"--by Nick Tosches. It's an engrossing book--(although if you're looking for something "upbeat" this ain't the book for you LOL!!) Tosches has a unique writing style--he really focuses more on Sonny as an individual rather than as a fighter. It's dark and depressing--kind of a mirror image of Liston's life. But you come away from it feeling much more sympathetic towards him. He never really had any true happiness in his life!

 

My brother and I often exchange offbeat books (and often on boxing) for Christmas, and he got me that one a few years ago.

Author has an odd writing style but you get used to it.

It’s a fascinating topic with some fascinating characters (particularly Rick Elvis Parker).

I don’t necessarily fall on the ‘Tim is an innocent victim here’ side of things — I mean he took a gun there for a reason, and oddly enough he’s also apparently dating Rick’s sister and took her along (and her kid I think? Been a while since I read it).

And I have trouble believing Tim is tagging along for all this stuff all the time while Parker is having huge cocaine parties and Doc is just being an innocent guy in the corner. I think he was part of the circus, but that’s neither here nor there.

The thing I’d really like to know is Tim took a handheld recording device and it was running during the murder. It was thrown against a wall or something and broke the recorder, but it had a tape and presumably that could be salvaged/restored/respooled and played. I’d really like to know what’s on that tape so we’d have a clear picture of just what was (and wasn’t) said before Doc started shooting.

 

Still just my own Library and Resources, I want the JJW and Tony Zale books, not too interested in any else though I have both had and read a good few over the years. My fav being Facing Ali, a veiw of Ali and his Fights as told by his Opponents.

Reports and people who were actually there, it doesn't get any closer than that!

 

The Verge- Fighting Dirty

About Terry Norris and brain damage from boxing

https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/26/5447466/

SB Nation- Gold in the Mud

About James Scott

https://www.sbnation.com/longform/2014/3/12/5496096/james-scott-jailhouse-boxer-profile

Phoenix New Times articles about Michael & Danny Carbajal. It’s probably more of true crime articles than boxing ones. Danny seems like a real piece of ****.

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/family-secrets-6430844
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/brothers-keeper-6445723

 

This from the Sports Illustrated vault focuses on what it’s like to get hit by George Foreman from men who fought him:

https://vault.si.com/vault/1991/03/...-victor-from-his-second-reflect-on-the-ageles

 

Baldwin wrote about Liston with more insight and feeling than anyone else. On that same subject of Patterson-Liston I recommend Norman Mailer's "Presidential Papers" which has a long, atmospheric chapter on the buildup to the fight, the fight itself and its aftermath. The chapter is titled "On Death".

 

One thing that annoyed me about the author’s style (or perhaps lack of boxing vocabulary is a better description) is he referred to every single result the same way. I can’t remember what the exact wording was, but it was something awkward like:

by knockout in round two.

And he might list several results in a row like saying “Foreman beat this guy by knockout in round two, and this other guy by knockout in round four, and this third guy by knockout in round one …” and never vary it to say something like “knocked him out in the second round” or “stopped him in two” or “second-round knockout.”

I’m sure I got his particular wording wrong, but I know it was the same in every single reference in the entire book, of which there were countless.

That being saiid, the writer has a style all his own (the above aside) and after you get used to it, it reads pretty well.

 

The piece about Virgil Akins fascinated me. I'll have to pay another visit to YouTube to watch his fight with Vince Martinez.