North Point Press

I wouldn’t have liked to see Louis beaten by a good young fighter, but it would be awful to see him beaten by a clown. Not that I have anything against Savold; I just think it’s immoral for a fellow without talent to get too far

Part of the pleasure of going to a fight is reading the newspapers next morning to see what the sports writers think happened. This pleasure is prolonged, in the case of a big bout, by the fight films. You can go to them to see what did happen. What you eventually think you remember about the fight will be an amalgam of what you thought you saw there, what you read in the papers you saw, and what you saw in the films.

The division of boxers into weight classes is based on the premise that if two men are equally talented practitioners of the Sweet Science, then the heavier man has a decided advantage. This is true, of course, only if both men are trained down hard, since a pound of beer is of no use in a boxing match. If the difference amounts to no more than a couple of pounds, it can be offset by a number of other factors, including luck, but when it goes up to five or six or seven, it takes a lot of beating.

One of the things that make Marciano a disconcerting opponent for a good boxer like Charles is that even his awkwardness is inconsistent; every now and then he does something highly skilled.

With the money earned from his fifty-two fights, Araujo had moved his family away from South Main Street and into a neighborhood with less character but more sanitation.

Hitting at such short range, the boxer leaves a correspondingly brief opening; the trick is to take the initiative by anticipating the opening or by moving the other fellow off balance. Having done that, one boy sometimes can land a whole series of blows before the other breaks into the rhythm. And there is never the brief surcease a fighter gets at longer range. A smart old fighter can sometimes slide through ten rounds on the equivalent of one round of such fighting.

Now he was in that distressful state when every evasive move brings new disaster, until it seems to the boxer and his public that he is ducking into fists, circling into fists, slipping into fists.

One thing all these victors have in common is that they went into the ring as long shots; the man who demolishes a concept is never popular.

You never learn anything until you’re tired.” He would therefore let his students bat each other about for ten or twelve five-minute rounds before he began trying to teach them, and I sometimes think the trouble with young fighters nowadays is that they are never allowed to become sufficiently exhausted.