NEW James J. Corbett book

Great job.

Well done to you, sir.

 

In The Ring With James Corbett is a book that has been written by an attorney. It's hard for me to advise you to do anything that might make an attorney richer, but I have to tell you that this book is worth the cover price and more.

What is most interesting is Adam's angle - it's about the boxing, and all the way to the hilt. This makes for a slow start, as Corbett, the most professional of amatuers, tours the country making a bit of sly cash under a pseudonym so as not to jeprodise his attatchment to the Olympic sporting club, which sounds like a hell of a place. Even these earlier fights are treated with tender loving care by the writer and it is interesting to read the boxer's words regarding his early experiences.

Early in my experience I used to be fond of parrying blows. I found that they would sometimes get through my guard in spite of everything. Then I began to rely upon my legs and eyesight. I found it a great deal better plan...






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This ties in with Adam's exhaustive post fight analysis of the Sullivan-Corbett duel and there is a real sense of the book "coming together" as you read. There is a complete picture of Corbett and no mistake.


Once the book lifts of, it's almost impossible to put down. Adam doesn't drop any sauce into his accounts of the great Corbett battles, he understands the drama exsists regardless and so we are treated to little opinion or speculation but we do get multiple sources for each round of the Corbett-Peter Jackson war of May, 1891.

The coverage is exhaustive and I can honestly say that I have a real sense of what occured in this fight with having ever being able to see it and that's a treat.

The Sullivan fight is treated as a near Holy thing with multiple sources (including The New Orleans Daily Picayune, The New Orleans Times-Democrat, Birminghan Age Herald, The New York Times, New York Herald and New York Sun) compressed into one thrilling account so thrilling it's the closest thing to watching the fight you could ever experience.

After this fight we run into the books limitations a little bit. There is nothing about how Corbett celebrated, what women he saw, what his family made of the events, how quickly he recovered (though he was at the "sparring" not long after)...pretty much none of that. To some that will be a relief, but I felt it was a shame. However, give Adam credit - he set out to write a book purely about boxing and that's what he's done, regardless of the temptation to do otherwise here.

And the book soon goes into overdrive again. Jackson had the sore end of his draw with Corbett but it was a draw, and Jackson was very much the #1 contender - now followed a fascinating rhetorical joust between Corbett's people, Jackson's people and the society of the day as to whether and where a fight between the two should take place. This part of the book - relevant because it concerns making a fight - is my favourite, with astonishing insights into the colour politics of the time through the windown of contempory accounts. Nowhere does Adam judge Corbett but nor does he duck "Gentleman Jim's" conduct in this matter.

I submit that the details concerning the attempts to make the failed Jackson fight are worth the price alone.

Although there is an inevitable sense of "those days were better" in the tone - inevitable because the writer has to descibe scenes like this one, where Corbett and Sullivan spar (long before their fight):

...the boxers wore large gloves, their dinner outfits, including their vests, pants, shirtsleeves, collars and neckties, to the surprise of the spectators. They barely ruffled each other's hair over the 3 rounds...






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But nevertheless Adam keeps a very reasonable detatchment from proceedings, probably because his subject runs directly into the next one - Fitzimmons. That book will be a treat, I suspect, though the one i'm looking forward to most is Jeffries.

So just tell yourself that Adam Pollack is most likely a human rights lawyer of some sort and order the book

Details in the thread.

9/10

 

Interestingly, you may need to hit Johnson to "cross over".

But it's fighters like Greb, Burley, Wills, McVey who wold benefit the most from the "Pollack treatment".