The Best Boxing Books

I have that one from about the 60's.

If you are looking to learn about the Murderer's Row or just the 30s and 40s era read allen Rosenfelds 'Charley Burley: Life and times of an uncrowned champion'.

 

J, are you sure you're not referring to Bernstein's 1978 "Boxing for Beginners" for which Ken Norton wrote the introduction, posed on the cover, and modeled for photographs within? Patterson did publish "Inside Boxing" in collaboration with Burt Sugar in 1974. I'm not aware of any authored collaboration between Floyd and Bernstein though.

From the late 1970s, the only two contemporary instructional books I was able to find on boxing were "Boxing for Beginners," by Bernstein, and 1979's "Boxing Basics," by Chuck Bodak with Neil Milbert. Veteran teacher Bodak was close to Angelo Dundee and Ali, and Muhammad provided contributions to his book, writing some commentary and posing for photographs while still in good shape, chopping wood, skipping rope, and changing into running attire while sitting up on his bed (he advised readers to do road work immediately upon arising), and sparring.

The most interesting thing I realized from reading "Boxing Basics" is that Ali built up his physical strength and muscular endurance through wood chopping, other manual lumber work, and body weight resistance exercises. Having both trained with weights and chopped firewood myself, I would discard muscle isolation weight training in a heartbeat in favor of wood chopping and body weight exercises if forced to choose between one or the other for boxing purposes. (Dundee was a hardcore opponent of weight training for decades, and may still be for all I know. The fact is that even Foreman wasn't able to out muscle Ali, while bodybuilder Cummings failed to out muscle Frazier, another weight training skeptic. Lumberjacks may not have the muscular bulk of bodybuilders, but their muscular endurance and tensile strength can be incredible.)