Tiger Flowers Book - worth a read?

Your presumption of bias just because it was commissioned work and of bad faith in "glossing over" as opposed to just not deeming certain things relevant is strictly a matter of your opinion.

Many people are of the opinion that Mee is knowledgeable and that his works are worth reading, various among them being awarded or receiving plaudits from within the community, just as have your own. That you consider him a hack devoid of anything to offer is your opinion, and should no more be the deciding factor in whether someone purchases his work than if Mee were to come out and say the exact same about yours.

People can decide for themselves.

I'd encourage anyone considering a purchase to certainly weight in your opinion, being that you're so informed and passionate on the subject - but to also not treat it as gospel and to cast a wider net and seek out alternate opinions, both pro and con, to make the best decision they can for them.

 

Im not presuming anything. I know enough about Flowers, more than 99% of the people on the planet I would imagine, to spot the mistakes and/or omissions. So no, its not strictly a matter of opinion. If a book is commissioned by the fighters widow and written by his friend and omits anything negative, such as newspaper decision losses, fatal at-fault car accidents, ducking other fighters, etc etc to a fault then its not a matter of opinion that the work is biased. Its a matter of fact.

Mee can debate me any time he chooses or try to find fault with my work. His work on Flowers was absolute ****. Pure ****, period end of story. I will put my work and my research up against his supposed expertise any day of the week. However, the discussion isnt a competition, it began with someone asking if it was worth a read. They solicited a response and I gave one. Whether you like it is neither here nor there. If you find fault with any of the criticisms Ive leveled at Mee's work then lets hear your rebuttal. So far all Im not hearing that. Id like a factual explanation of how what I said about Mee's book is incorrect? Would you care to expand on that? What? You dont know the subject well enough to enter the debate? Then leave that up to people who actually know what they are talking about and go back to doing RBR reports on the modern forum. You are out of your depth.

Thats right. People can decide for themselves. If you read the book and found it good then post that here. After all this guy was asking if it was worth a read. I answered him. Have you read it? Would you care to discuss its finer points with me here so we can air all of Mee's mistakes or are you just trolling me?

By all means. Id love to hear the opinions of anyone else who has read this book. Especially those people who are even passingly familiar with the events. Any historian worth his salt who has done any investigation into many of the people in this book would be appalled at Mee's lack of diligence. People like you that would defend such shoddy work arent worth wasting time on and deserve to have their money wasted on such ****.

 

You know what I like most about you, Klompy? Your grace and humility. :good

 

I don't think Klompton is noted for his humility ,he is however noted for his knowledge of Harry Greb and his times, that being the case he could hardly avoid being up to speed on Greb's famous adversary Tiger Flowers.

I'm not genned up on the subject of Flowers , but I have read some of Mee's other work and have been underwhelmed by it.

 

I've no cause to doubt he's done the applicable research (for which he clearly is head over heels in love with himself) or that he knows more about Flowers than "99% of the people on the planet" as he so modestly puts it, but in distilling his critique of Mee's book into answering the original inquiry, which is kind of the point here, he just didn't make all that compelling a case with the actual nitpicks cited, in what read like more of a negative, emotionally charged and probably strongly biased rant (perhaps on a level of personal or at least deep professional enmity? :conf Maybe jealous Mee beat him to publishing a volume on the subject matter, or having the idea to? Snooze you lose. Not to read too much into anything or play armchair shrink...) rather than a professionally written and objective critique.

Just going by his own self-chosen examples of gripes with the book in question, he doesn't make his case in a very compelling way by stressing that a bio commissioned by the widow and written by a friend was used...or that his own scr@pbook was used to source this or that. Stating flatly that any of those automatically precludes the material from being objective is very much a matter of Klompy's personal opinion. The facts are what they are but the conclusion is his opinion. As for things like "did this fight happen on this date, or happen period, or did more newspapers have it this way or that", Klompy is either asserting that Mee is fabricating things from thin air, or they simply have conflicting sources and Klompy is, naturally, assuming that his own are infallible. Again, his information gleaned from his own research may well be the more correct, but in that review he posted it boiled down to a bitter diatribe where he confuses "facts" (ie the circumstances around the original bio's authorship...or leaving out an "at-fault auto accident") with his interpretation of them (presumption of bias on the part of the biographer, or determining the accident to be a crucial element of a bio that any reader simply must know about)

Informed about Flowers he may be, but neither that nor the fact that he wrote a meticulously researched and well-liked book about Greb ought to make him the godlike sole arbiter of the value of another writer's output, especially when his passion-play railing against it consists glaringly of fallacies like "if the widow commissioned it and friend wrote it and the personal scr@pbook was a source, then it 100% no is ands or buts MUST necessarily be terribly biased and of no use" (which are general enough fallacies to be spotted with or without specific firsthand knowledge of the subject mmatter) it would behoove interested parties to look into a more neutrally toned (if not glowingly pro-Mee necessarily) review before final deliberation.

 

Im not bragging or trying to thump my chest Im merely stating that through my research into Greb, his life, and his opponents I studied Flowers life in depth, as I did all of Greb's opponents, to better understand them and their careers. Thats why when I read garbage like what Mee wrote I have a major issue with it. If I went to the degree that I did to research Greb's opponents, who werent even being written directly about, why couldnt Mee do at least that much research on a guy whose life he was documenting? Ive said all along if you are going to take it upon yourself to document a mans life you owe it to him to know his life better than anyone else. Instead Mee filled gaps with pure fiction that could have easily been filled by doing nothing more than 30 mins of free research on the internet. The lazy ******* didnt even have to leave his living room and still couldnt be bothered. Instead he just made **** up as he went along. Thats unforgiveable. Its beyond negligent IMO. Defend that kind of **** all you want but he wrote a horrible piece of "history" and smeared the good names of a lot of people in the process who did absolutely nothing to deserve it. If you look at my comments on the book the vast majority are in regards to and defense of people that I couldnt care less about in the larger scheme of things except for the fact that what he wrote wasnt true and history should be about the truth. Not a version of the truth, there is no such thing. There is only THE truth and Mee, either out of ignorance, laziness, or pure deceit chose to just make it up as he went along when he couldnt be bothered to spend more than five minutes researching a subject.

All I know is this ****ing idiot has been passing himself off as a boxing historian for decades and he had the nerve to say he hadnt heard of Flowers until a few years ago. Are ****ing kidding me?? Either he's saying that to pretend he stumbled upon this long lost great, or hes the worst boxing historian in the world to have never heard of the first black MW champion who was sandwiched between to of the P4P greatest fighters ever. Youd have to be blind or stupid to be boxing history buff for years and have never heard of Flowers. Either way its pathetic.

 

I have never had any interest in publishing a Flowers book. LOL. I also have nothing to do professionally or otherwise with Mee outside of my criticism of this book.

No its not. Im sorry but Ive stated the case and given examples. If you choose to ignore them thats on you and doesnt surprise me. After all you are defending a book here that I doubt youve even read which is horribly researched so why wouldnt you defend another book which is biased?

And anyone who wants to check the facts and then check Mee's book will see that Mee's book is sorely lacking. I believe most people buy biographies for their factual historical representations. It is a fact that those people will want to steer clear of this book.

This is an ignorant statement. Facts dont shift and change based on the source. A fact is a fact. A fight happened or it didnt. An author wrote an article or he didnt. A doctor graduated medical school or he didnt. etc etc. Time and time again Mee gets these facts wrong. There are no supporting sources for the stories Mee concocted, and in fact his text makes it clear that when hes filling in these gaps in his knowledge its supposition written in a way to guide the readers opinion. Thats a fabrication. Whether you, in your ignorance, think thats an opinion is neither here nor there. If you think its an opinion that a fight happened when it actually didnt its pointless to even argue with you because you clearly dont even understand the basic definition of the word. You might as well argue with me that its your opinion that Mike Tyson knocked out Lennox Lewis in Memphis in 2002.

When did I ever attest to being the sole arbiter of value of Mees book. A guy asked if it was worth reading and I said it wasnt. Answer me this: Have you read the book? I havent seen you post anything tangible in regards to the book itself or its contents. Are you just here to belabor a worthless point and troll or would you like to rebut me on the facts as I have presented them. Not opinions. Facts. I dont care about your opinion. Furthermore, I never said that a book commissioned by Flowers' intimates MUST necessarily be biased. I said it was biased. There is a big difference. Its correct that Flowers wife and friend and s****book COULD have produced an unbiased account of his life. The fact is that they DID NOT. Again, if youve read this book and care to discuss its merits in detail then by all means lets do that.


Essentially what we have here is someone who has read none of the books Ive discussed but who likes to troll me so he came here to defend a book hes never read and cant discuss in any detail. Im just curious, if you admit that I likely know more than most people on the subject why wouldnt I be qualified to give a review or even simply my opinion of the book(s)?? Because in reality I was very much looking forward to Mee's book and had been following it for months before it was even purchased. I pre-ordered a copy from Britain (where it was released earlier than in the United States). It was only after I got my copy and read it that I realized how bad it was. I didnt have any preconceived notion about it and had nothing against Bob Mee. It was only after this book and his flippant remarks in regards to boxing historians and academia in general that I gave this book a deservedly bad review. You can believe what you want (which again, is based on nothing since you havent read the book) and waste your money as you see fit. I dont care but I wont say anything positive about this glorified toilet paper roll with a picture of Tiger Flowers on it and if people solicit my opinion they are going to get it.

 

Im just going on what he said in a recent interview discussing the book. He said something to the effect that "I had never heard of Tiger Flowers until a few years ago." That was an interview done less than a year ago. I believe it was on Youtube but I cant remember where I saw it now.

 

There is a big difference between using supposition to fill in the gaps to what is irretrievably lost to the historical record and using it to mask shoddy or lazy research. Big difference. I studied both history and archaeology in college and I can tell you beyond question what Mee has done in this book is frowned upon and he knew it going in which was why he rejected any criticism from academics. He knew going in that he was going to be criticized. Were this book submitted for peer review it would be slaughtered every bit as mercilessly as I have briefly above.

Its the historians duty to have the facts at hand and expound on them. Flavoring his text with flights of fancy when the facts are very easily obtained is simply bad history. There are no two ways around that. If Mee really felt his work could have stood up under scrutiny he wouldnt reject the opinions of a "clique of boxing historians" and hide behind the pretense of not citing every source for every fact or quote. That right there would get you an "F" in any first year English or History course.

 

I liked Mee's book on Ali and Liston but the Tiger Flower's book looked very thin to me simply by picking it up .. there is no doubt in my mind Klompton is dead on regarding it .. in addition, if he liked it he would give it it's due .. I skimmed it at a book story and put it back .. I have no interest for 101 version boxing books, thin on details and simple like the recent Hearns and Quarry books .. just not for me ..

 

Mee is an absolute hack.