Who is the greatest living boxing historian?

Sugar is what you get when a self-promoting character who doesn't know much about or really understand boxing falls in love with the romance of boxing folklore, devotes himself to proselytizing it to the gullible and unwary, and in the process becomes full of himself.

 

Fixed it for you.

 

That's about the best description Ive ever heard of Sugar.

However, one of the funniest stories Ive ever heard told is of Sugar which made me respect his moxie. I'm not going to do it justice but it went like this: When Sugar was running Ring (into the ground) a friend of mine was in New York and decided hed swing by the office and try to meet him. He went to the office and was shown into Sugar's office. Bert was seated behind his desk smoking a cigar and listening to someone cuss him out on speaker phone up one side of the office and down the other. This went on for several minutes while my friend sat there listening as this person went on about how much he hated Sugar, how he was awful, how he was a parasite on the sport, and how he would love to kill, yes KILL, Sugar. With that Sugar grabbed the handset picked it up and yelled into it "GET IN LINE!!!" slammed it down and then turned to my friend and began a delightful conversation as if A. nothing had happened, and B. someone wishing death upon you was normal for Sugar.

 

Sugar came from advertising , but he never really stopped, he was always advertising himself.
I've nothing against him, but a noted historian he was not!

 

Yeah I see him more as a spokesperson for boxing history. He didn't have the depth of the the more substantive historians, but he got people engaged. A lot of casual boxing fans recognize Sugar. He gave off the impression to the outside world that there was a world of boxing history that people dedicated their lives to studying and dissecting. Which there was.

 

Haha great!

Given the nature of the subject, no way a guy like that sustained his position in media for so many years without learning how to deal with critics and haters.

Extremely cut throat at the highest levels.

 

Colin Hart deserves a mention, as does Steve Farhood. But my money's on our very own janitor.

 

Naughty.

 

Hart's been around a long time but when I've seen him interviewed on UK TV, his knowledge hasn't impressed me.
The most erudite of the UK boxing writers is without doubt Hugh McIllvanney.

 

More like a spokesperson for boxing folklore and mythology. He seduced people with the mystical allure of the bygone eras that their fathers and grandfathers may have told them about.

 

I have to admit remarks like Carnera would have whipped Wlad are ridiculous.

 

I think I respect janitors opinions on boxing, and boxing history more than anyone else.

 

Birds of a feather.

 

That's a purely one-sided way of looking at it.
He wasn't completely devoid from the brass tracks.

Do you think he would be harsh on guys like Golovkin, Garcia, Crawford and Lomachenko?
Or would he have been a big advocate?

 

Someone sounds jealous.