Photographer Holger Keiffel has chronicled the living face of boxing in lush black and white portraits which glare off the page, offering a stark but heroic glimpse into the heart of the cruelest sport through the men who have learned its cruelest lesson:
“BOX: The Face of Boxing” by Holger Keifel with Thomas Hauser
September 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A League is Born
September 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In what may be the most ambitious move in boxing since an Attorney General told Frankie Carbo that the sport would be better off without him, a world league has formed.
Floyd Mayweather, Charlie Goldman and a Ring Education
September 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
We are, in a sense, in between bouts at the moment and I find myself thinking about Charlie Goldman and the rantings of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Best known as Rocky Marciano’s trainer, Goldman fought as a bantamweight and pushed his mashed nose into more than 400 fights back around the early 1900’s.
Sporting a derby hat and always good for a quote, when asked about women and marriage, Goldman replied that he preferred to live “a la carte.”
Margarito, Capetillo and the Not So Long Arm of the Law
September 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
With all due apologies to T.S. Eliot and Carlos Acevedo, boxing is the cruelest art. But it is also, strictly speaking, a series of assaults and batteries— with the law suspended for the moment between two consenting adults who wish to prove a point.
Billy Conn, Chad Dawson and that Other Part of Valor
August 18, 2010 By 1 Comment
It may be unfair to mention Billy Conn and Chad Dawson in the same sentence. But I just read Frank Deford’s masterful rendering of Conn in “The Boxer and the Blond,” and I can’t help make the comparison.
Sadam “World Kid” Ali, Next Champion of the World?
August 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The first time I heard the name Sadam Ali it was in fear. And a sort of wide-eyed resignation. I was walking into a weigh-in at the Prudential Center in Newark and had struck up a conversation with a boxer who was entering the doors the same time I was. When I asked him who he was and who he’d be facing he looked at me in disbelief. Slightly skittish, he seemed to not understand how the opponent who now consumed his every thought was not on my mind too. “Sadam Ali,” he said, pausing a moment to look me over again and see if I really was that stupid. “The Olympian,” he added with a stammer and a pained look as he had to hear from his own mouth the shibboleth he’d been trying to avoid. He walked away with his shoulders sagged under the weight of “The World Kid” Ali. Since his three round dismantling of Julius Edmonds on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights, Sadam “World Kid” Ali is having trouble finding fights. The 21 year old boxer glides through the ring—fast, fluid and effective— with what can only be described as Promise. Boxing fans talk openly of the beauty of his style.
Michael Grant, Stand In, Vs. Tomasz Adamek at Newark’s Prudential Center
August 4, 2010 By 1 Comment
A one-time Next Big Thing in professional boxing, Michael Grant has been to the top of the hill, but only to look. His stay wasn’t long, and he did not descend as its king. Instead, like Jack in the nursery rhyme, he tumbled down—repeatedly— at the point of Lennox Lewis’ right hand. Canvassed three times in the first round, he failed to rise by the count of 10 in the second. That championship bout, all two rounds of it, took place in April, 2000.