My cupboard contains in the region of
25-30 boxing
related books from history books, biographies, training,
auto-biographies, collections and picture books but no “fact
books”, so I picked this up when I saw it for £2.99 in “The
Works” thinking it'd teach me a few things I didn't already
know.
The store seems to have a range of similar books based
on a few other sports with people like Peter Ellis having done one
for Golf and I think Bob Wilson did one for football (soccer). As any
self respecting sports book fan will know Ellis is probably the most
famous golf writer in the world and Bob Wilson's career with Arsenal
means he has more knowledge of football than most of us (added to the
fact he always comes across as a really nice fellow) but John White
to me doesn't suggest the same in the realms of boxing. A place that
would formerly be held by the likes of Harry Mullan and Reg
Gutteridge until both mean sadly passed away or even Bud Schulberg or
Randolph Sugar, even the likes of Henry Carpenter or even Kevin
Mitchell. Normal Mailer for all the love he gets is to me overly
artful and too confusing to really like whilst Thomas Haussler now
seems the king of boxing books. So John White (as in this John White)
actually doesn't strike me as a name I know of though according to
the “about the author” he's apparently a big sports writer having
written the Carlton's Miscellany books on sport.
The cover is
simple, the title, the writer and boxing gloves all sit on top of a
white background, nothing complex here, though when books say “facts
and
trivia” you catch me add boxing and you have me reading it. So
there I was at work reading the foreword by former world champion
Barry McGuigan and thinking “this sounds perfect”. Started
reading it and it was nice and easy to dip in and out of between
calls at work, dodging and diving between the literary flurry's White
has of “facts” and the drainfully boring call centre work I get
paid to do. Though as I started reading the book a few things became
apparent and became real bug bears to myself as both a bit of a
part-time wannabe writer and as a huge boxing fan. The first problem
was the recycling the writer uses, where as using a fact once and
even playing along with it going off on a tangent there and then
would be good, he almost states the same thing twice in sections of
the book. For example telling us that Patterson went down x times
against Johansson on one page, then a handful of pages telling us he
went down x times and Ingemar called the punch “Thors Hammer”
seem like
saying the same thing twice but re-wording it. Why not put
the two facts together in one place? The add other facts about both
fighters together with that one?
The second (and the more annoying) flaw
with the book is that it isn't also factual after 75 pages I started
spotting more and more flaws in the book. These range from the
totally wrong to the ones that could be put down to poor editing work
such as saying Archie Moore's great fight with Yvon Durelle was for
the “lightweight title”. For those who aren't into their mid-20th
century boxing, the title on the line was the light heavyweight one.
A similar mistake is saying Michael Spinks was the Light Heavyweight
champion and former heavyweight champion when he faced Gerry Cooney.
When he faced Cooney he wasn't actually champion of anything (he had
been stripped of his heavyweight titles).
The flaws don't stop at
weights but at silly things such as commenting that 2 real boxers had
appeared in the Rocky series of films, but yet forgot to mention the
most obvious two in Tommy Morrison (who played Tommy Gunn in Rocky V)
and Antonio Tarver (who played Mason Dixon in Rocky Balboa) (and I
actually know several others were. Not just the ones White mentions).
Though for all the faults it has been
well researched, to the point where I am learning completely new
things such as Danny Nardico was the only man to floor Jake Lamotta
(I'd long been told LaMotta had never gone down as a professional).
And that Henry Armstrong (real name Melody Jackson Jnr) was the
cousin of Billie holiday.
Near the end of the book is a
glossary of boxing terms, which I feel could easily have been
extended but it's decent enough for what the writer does
use.
Overall the book is a good read but not essential, the
flaws in Whites research will undoubtedly annoy some as will his
regularly mistakes, but on the whole there is enough good stuff here
to keep me and any other boxing fan interested and happy to read
along. Most, if not all boxing fans will learn something even if they
do spend a few hours ripping their hair out and proclaiming the
writer to be wrong a few times along the way. Though his writing
isn't as poetic as Mailer, or as personal as Gutteridge, or as deep
as Mullan this is a book worth adding to you're collection despite
it's flaws.