Boxing Books

I sure will...

It was bad enough that the last and the greatest of the 80s champs was retiring but to go out on a losing note to someone like leonard was the ultimate insult.

As you know I attended one of Hagler's last ever sparring sessions out in Palm Springs along with a friend of mine. To my alarm I found that Marvin looked worse than ever. I knew he was finished after what I had seen. I had hoped that Marvin would lose to someone far greater but that's what happens in boxing when a fighter drops off dramtically-they can lose to just about anyone.

 

Fleisher's mistakes (or, sometimes, pure "inventions of his mind") are quite numerous. I posted several examples on this forum long ago (but they are gone due to crash). Say, he's describing in details Jack McAuliffe's 6-round fight with Billy Myer, giving the date of the bout as December 16, 1892. Correct date is December 10, 1892, and according to two local reports (Chicago Tribune, Daily Inter Ocean) and a couple of non-local, the bout was quite different from what Fleischer described in his book. Which leads to conclusion that he made up his description without even looking next-day reports of the fight.

 

Interesting reasoning.... A lot of fight dates were misprinted during the day, due to telegraphed reports etc... I guess you have a very valid point, and I wont argue it... The Heenan/Sayers article in my possession is dated 21st April 1860... 2 days after the fight... the average joe may simply look at the listed date, and pen it as such...

 

I could list many more, but see no point of doing so. The above date has been listed wrong for very long time, at least since Fleischer's book on McAuliffe was published in 1944, Ring Record Book contains the same error, and Boxing Register (including 2006 edition) only made it worse by listing the result as W6 for McAuliffe, while it's either ND6 or D6. Their first meeting Fleischer lists at the end of the book as Feb 13, 1889 (correct date), but in the book's text (page 47) gives it as Feb 23 (Boxing Register contains the same wrong date). To add more confusion in the record he lists location as No. Judson, Illinois, but in the text it becomes "Judson, Indiana". Correct location was North Judson, Indiana.

While I can understand it with some early bouts and locations where it's not easy to get local sources for and where it was not reported in non-local newspapers, but not with easily available Chicago newspapers, or that 1889 Indiana bout being reported next day by multiple non-local newspapers as well. And at least, if you don't have a primary source, why invent your own description of the bout?

Anyway, I only hope these errors will be corrected in next edition of Boxing Register, if they going to previously verify them against current records at CBZ or boxrec.

 

tell us about your enthusiasm for hagler - why were you a fan? are you from new england?

 

Thanks for asking.

I'm not nor have I ever been from New England and have lived in SOuthern California all my life.

My enthusiasm for Hagler was based upon the utmost in standards of excellence, an excellence that I recognized as unequalled in the sport going back to 1980 and one I'd never seen by previous marquee performers including the great ALi. Gifted fighters come and go but having the priveledge of watching Marvin was like witnessing a great event for me because he was a phenom with class.

But I loved it whenever he would take the mind set of

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Eventually, the press would catch up and publically recognize what I already knew when they began proclaiming him the top p4p fighter beginning in 1983.

I think the press was so preoccupied with leonard (with him coming out of the olympics and his big fights) etc, and had already made up their minds that the story was going to be Leonard while overlooking that it was really Hagler who was the star. With the media they were just looking to make hagler another name to be conquered to boost the rep of Leonard.

The press had no imagination of their own. They were looking for another Ali like hero/story and they missed the boat. I dont see how so many people could be fans of leonard. One would wonder when is he going to make his next move and he seldom wants to fight so why wait on someone like that?

So for me, it wasn't leonard but Hagler and the middleweights that mattered because they were always fighting one another. Though many were crude in style, the middleweights fought like hell and whenever some manager like Duva got ideas that one of their fighters was ready to take on the top men in the division, his fighters got the worst of it.

I've only seen one fight of Hagler in person in addition to the sparring match I mentioned- the rematch with Hamsho. I wanted to see the Hearns fight but couldnt make it in person so I settled for TV. I almost watched it close circuit at a theatre in Beverly Center in Hollywood but I forgot what happened and wound up watching it on the tube. Hagler was perfect that night he reminded me of the Hagler of old.

That photo you see there in my avatar is of Hagler warming up before his session with the Weaver triplets.

 

Great stuff Redrooster!
With all the truly great fighter's of the early 80's I always liked watching Hagler's bouts the most.
It was the best time for boxing for me.
I have great memories watching those great fighter's on network tv.

 

atlas is a good read
raging bull was good
gene tunneys new book was pretty decent

stay away from john l sullivan americas hero or something like that, i have never been so bored reading a book.

the devil and sonny liston was a fav but i am a little bias towards liston.

let me know how the langford book is, i havent picked it up yet but plan on it soon.

 

Nice post Rooster. As you know I'm a Hagler fan. So tell me a little bit about your time at the Hamsho rematch. That was on the east coast at Madison Square Garden. Did you travel all the way from California for the fight itself or were you on vacation?

 

Red Rooster, I got the book in the mail this afternoon and just finished it tonight. You'll going to thorougly enjoy it. Believe me. I was reading it at red lights and urinals.

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whistles by like the night train and with the urgency of a textbook combination thrown in earnest. Maranz is neither Liebling nor Tosches. His writing reflects his experience as a reporter facing deadlines -brisk, to the point, but always informative. No analogies or purple prose are necessary in these pages -he puts you there on the pavement watching the main characters. You come away feeling as if you spent months rooming with Marvin Hagler in the Brockton YMCA or sharing a suite with Ray Leonard in Vegas.

No punches are pulled, no bias is apparant. And yet I challenge any reader who will not feel sympathy for Marvin Hagler and distaste for Ray Leonard by the end. Ray was a great fighter, that is affirmed by facts, but he was Machiavellian. He was worse -Leonard was Clintonian: Ruthless narcissism and ambition sans ethics, wrapped up in real talent and undeniable charm. Marvin was both more and less than that Mongolian Warlord he appeared to be. He was a decent man, all too human, who channeled his frustrations to get somewhere the old-fashioned way, the primeval way, through hard work and fists of fury.

Their clash wasn't the inevitable conflict it should have been, it wasn't honest. It was more of a conspiracy -hatched, controlled, manipulated, and exploited by Ray Leonard. Leonard wanted more than Hagler's title. Leonard wanted to vanquish the man and his dignity with him. This is the aim of the unbridled ego faced with the threat of the sincere man, the honest man, who's presence indicts him. Leonard succeeded. Hagler vanished. But a question appears in the heavens written beside that glimmering triumph: For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

(Marantz doesn't quite get that far... but I do.)

...............
I will say this much. Those of us in the Classic forum who have argued for so long about Leonard's greateness being tainted by shananigans have vindication in this book.

Many on ESB Classic may dim that glory they have shining on Leonard once they read this book...

 

If Marantz brings as much life to the page as your post, S89, Sorcery at Caesars is a must-get for me.

 

Thanks JG. It truly is a good read. There is much in there that you (and I) already know, but Marantz is good for some surprises and insights and he pulls it all together very well.

His epilogue is masterful.

 

It was nothing big. I was at a restaurant I usually went to when my brother approached me and asked me if I wanted to go with him along with a cousin who was going on interviews on that side (NY and Boston)

So I went along with them. We were there about three days but I still hadn't planned on attending and was just content on sightseeing. That morning I was in the city and knew I wasn't far from MSG (I visited in '71 and knew it was close to ESB). Out of curiosity I went up to the window to find out ticket prices and found that seats were still available.

It wasn't an event like the Boy George concert that sold out ahead of time.

So I bought a ticket I had to attend alone because my brother was keeping my cousin company on his interviews. I dont remember what time I got in but it was a long time before the main event started. At the time several of the 84 Olympians were making their pro debut and many of them were going the full route :? Then there was the Mike McCallum-Sean Mannion bout that also went the full route.

The rematch was alot better than I was expecting-short and fierce. For some reason it seemed to me as if hagler was losing and that future matches would be in jeopardy but the apprehension began fading towards the end of the second. The finish was unexpected. The two knockdowns really woke up the crowd. This wasn't the Hagler I expected to see. I expected a conservative fight going the full route.

So the crowd came out very excited and the fight won Hagler much acclaim and added to his reputation.

I made a call to the hotel to come get me and had to wait another 45 minutes or so. On our way back we had to drive thru a tunnel which was underwater and someone had managed to clog up one of the lanes which further inconvenienced me.

 

Agreed! Read this one about 6 months ago and it was better than expected.

 

"Many on ESB Classic may dim that glory they have shining on Leonard once they read this book..."

I guess it all depends on what you're looking for. I wouldn't choose Leonard or Hagler or Duran as a role model for my kids. They've all had issues. It's very possible that the best human being of the bunch was Tommy Hearns. This behind the scenes stuff is all very interesting. But I judge fighters on what happened between the ropes. Duran I and II, Benitez, Hearns I, Hagler. Leonard fought great in great fights. Anybody who denies that is in denial and they're being blinded by their dislike for Leonard. I didn't particularly care for Hagler. He just always had a chip on his shoulder. That's how he motivated himself. It got old for me. But that doesn't change the fact that he was a great fighter.