Boxing Writing

One of the things we’ve all been bitching about for the last few years is the ghastly lack of depth in boxing writing. Boxing isn’t just two guys punching each other in the head. And it’s not, “Cotto is calling Mayweather out.” It’s a business, it’s a reflection of elements of culture, it’s a complex and often contradictory network, and it’s an elaborate, mostly unfair hierarchy. If all boxing writing is reduced to a bunch of macho hearts and flowers weeping and tough talk, it’s worthless.

You know, it’s about time for something worthwhile. “Cut Time” was published in 2003. I hate waiting five years between meaningful boxing books. “Owning Cassius Clay: The Commercial and Cultural Appeal of Muhammad Ali” by our own Mike Ezra is more of what we need. It constructs an elaborate timeline that ties together Ali’s boxing career, the various financial machinations that both propelled him forward and fucked him up, and the shifting culture that valorized, condemned, forgave, and ultimately deified him. What emerges from the book is the clearest literary picture we’ve ever been given of Ali. Viewing Ali largely through the prism of events that have surrounded him actually clears away a lot of mythological deadwood. Maybe not surprisingly, Ali comes out of things pretty well.

I like the bar set this high. In order to maintain it, we’ve got to write like adults.