Why Boxiana hates football - and agrees with Curtis Woodhouse

The Telegraph featured an interesting and admirably honest interview with the wonderful Curtis Woodhouse the other day, which confirmed my immense liking for the footballer turned British title winning boxer. The former Birmingham City and Sheffield United footballer spoke very candidly about quitting football in 2006 to pursue his dream of becoming a boxer, admitting that he had come to "hate" being a footballer.

"Emotionally and mentally, I didn’t want to be there," he told Gareth A. Davies. "I hated every moment of my life. Can money subsidise the way you’re feeling, make you happy? Not for me. I was earning a lot. I got paid every week and it was impossible to spend the money you were earning. You bought everything you needed … but I hated my job. I hated getting up in the morning to go to work."

There was no further elaboration about exactly why Woodhouse despised football to the extent that he was willing to sacrifice a lucrative and comfortable career in the sport and instead become a professional boxer. Therefore, intrigued to discover more, I searched online and found some other fascinating comments that Woodhouse had made in an interview with Donald McRae of The Guardian earlier this year. "I love boxing," Woodhouse declared in this article. "There's loads of shit in boxing but, when the bell rings, the truth comes out. Football is swamped in bullshit. Even when the whistle blows people are diving and cheating. Football lost its soul because there's so much money in it. There's no integrity. Boxing is brutal but it's honest. When the bell rings we bleed the same. That's why there is so much respect among fighters. It's the better sport by miles."

The interesting thing about these comments is that I found myself agreeing totally with Woodhouse's sentiments - perhaps because, like him, I also quit the football industry a few years ago, albeit a career in the journalism side of the sport, rather than as a player.

Reaching my present state of dis-satisfaction and dislike for football was a gradual process. As a child I was a fanatical sports fan, with particular affection for cricket, tennis and rugby league, but it was football, along with boxing, that were my abiding passions and obsessions. I never had the guts to get into the boxing ring, so pugilism was always an enthusiasm that was channeled passively, by reading and watching TV. In contrast, football was a physical as well as an intellectual pursuit; I played it on the street corner and in the playground at school, I watched it on TV whenever I could and every week I bought Shoot, Match and Roy of the Rovers magazines. I would even make careful notes of football results and statistics in the notebooks and wall charts which I lovingly devoted to my favourite players and teams.

When adulthood finally arrived, I found myself studying for a degree in English and Theatre Studies but with little clue about what career path I ultimately wanted to pursue. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had always harboured an idle dream about becoming a football or boxing journalist (I loved writing, I loved football and boxing, so what career could be more ideal?), however, I had absolutely no idea of how to break into such an industry, and no experience whatsoever, having spent my days at university drinking and smoking rather than acquiring relevant experience on, say, the university newspaper.

After graduating, I ended up working in a bookshop. But, one fateful day in 1999, I spotted an advertisement for a job as a staff writer on a start-up football newspaper entitled Football Gazette.  Unbelievably, thanks to a fictitious portfolio of articles I threw together which I passed off as having written for a university newspaper, I managed to land the job. On a princely salary of £12,000 a year, I was duly installed as the paper's third division correspondent and a general feature writer.

Despite a ridiculous daily commute from south London to Hitchin in Hertfordshire, I loved working for Football Gazette. It was everything I had ever dreamed the life of a football journalist would involve; I travelled from place to place, meeting interesting and passionate people who loved football as much as I did. I investigated and wrote a feature on Plymouth's promising youth team system, I interviewed Barnet's flair player Darren Currie, whose agent was kind enough to give me a lift back to London in his car, and I wrote sub-Charlie Brooker reviews about various football-related TV shows.

I made it my mission to expand my footballing knowledge and expertise so it was as broad as possible. As a consequence, I inevitably scaled down my interest in boxing; there simply wasn't enough time in the day to wholeheartedly devote myself to both sports. In my spare moments, of which there were very few, I daydreamed about how my work at Football Gazette would help me land a publishing deal for my long-gestating biography of my footballing hero Matthew Le Tissier - a book, incidentally, which would double up as a manifesto for the importance of flair and imagination in football and would therefore change the face of English sport forever. (Ah, the idealistic folly of youth!)

Even the lows of being a third-division football reporter were memorable and entertaining; for example, I was stuck for a weekend in a B and B in Carlisle while hoping, and failing, to interview Michael Knighton. Then there was the time I incurred the wrath of a local reporter in the West Country who insisted, very rudely, that I turn off my tape recorder because he simply had to speak to a Plymouth player alone in order to secure an 'exclusive' (the player in question merely repeated his comments to me pretty much verbatim two minutes later, which pleasingly rendered my rival's 'exclusive' useless).

In short, I found my work stimulating, while the people I worked with and encountered were, for the most part, witty, warm and great company. I thought I had found my vocation for life.

Sadly, Football Gazette went under after a few months, and I was forced to look for employment elsewhere. I ended up working for a succession of footballing websites over the next four or five years, some as a freelancer and some as a full-time member of staff, and gradually the charm of the industry evaporated. Ironically, the level of football I was now covering was, on a technical level and in terms of media profile, much, much higher - the European Championships, the Champions League, the Premiership and even the World Cup - but as the quality of football increased, so too did the quantity of "bullshit" surrounding the game and those involved with it.

I'm generalising wildly, of course, but I found higher level footballers far more remote, precious and paranoid compared to their friendly and down-to-earth third-division counterparts. The fans of top-level clubs also irritated me, characterised as they were by an overwhelmingly self-obsessed sense of entitlement. In contrast, I'd always found lower-division supporters to be much more approachable, philosophical and realistic.

Professionally, I also found that my experiences at matches and tournaments were increasingly peppered with incidents that I found unpleasant and uncomfortable. At one international youth tournament I greeted a group of young English players (none of them yet established stars although they were already, of course, on obscene salaries) with a cheerful hello, only to be completely blanked and laughed at. I endured an interview with a full England international before a Champions League match where he refused to even look me in the face, and then loudly commented to his club's press officer, deliberately within my ear-shot, that he couldn't be bothered with "any more fucking interviews". I had to put up with over-sensitive press officers who seemingly wanted to control and micro-manage every question that their precious charges were asked in an interview. Even worse, I had to watch while the well-established broadsheet and tabloid news hounds hogged all the sausage rolls in the press hospitality area; indeed, sometimes it seemed they were more interested in the sausage rolls than the football.

Most infuriating of all, were those people I encountered who seemed to be in the football industry because it struck them as a 'cool job to have', or because they were well connected socially with other journalists or members of the media. To be frank, the ignorance about the game and its history displayed by some of these clowns was downright embarrassing, but then these people didn't need knowledge or journalistic talent because they possessed the qualities which get you far further in life - namely, the ability to network and a talent for bullshit.

There were exceptions, of course. Among the players the nicest people I often encountered were 'foreigners', such as Thierry Henry (charm and warmth personified) and Hernán Crespo (an utter gentleman). Strangely enough, given their organisations' low standing among football fans and the media, I also found that many of the writers, press officers and publications people at UEFA and FIFA were highly professional, friendly and cooperative and possessed higher ethical standards than those who worked for clubs or the mainstream 'critical' media. Indeed, it struck me that the importance of maintaining neutrality while writing for the likes of uefa.com* and fifa.com ensured that these outlets possessed an impartiality which rendered them far more reliable and trustworthy than the reams of biased and controversy-baiting drivel predominant in the rest of the media.

Nevertheless, despite the many good people I encountered and worked with, my cynicism with football gradually grew. The beautiful game that had ignited my passion as a child, seemed to me now to be a giant, impersonal moneymaking automaton, obsessed with wealth, control and status, at the expense of romance, integrity and imagination.

With the cruel persistence of water torture, my feelings of dissatisfaction with football plagued me for a couple of years, until I decided enough was enough. I'd had my fill of suspicious press officers, re-writing bland press releases and trying to persuade agents not to ask for money to interview their pampered, millionaire clients. So I left the game that, to be frank, I no longer had a passion for. I chucked in football journalism and became a teacher instead. Working with children aged 11-16, who are for the most part refreshingly devoid of the bitterness of the middle-aged and disappointed, enabled me to regain the carefree idealism of my youth. I found myself engaging with issues, people and a vocation that I felt meant something and represented something important. (Mind you, none of the kids I taught could believe I'd exchanged a life of watching football for long days in a classroom.)

For nearly a decade, I focused on my teaching career and barely gave my previous existence as a football journalist a second thought. In my spare time I hardly watched football any more. Instead I returned to reading about, watching and studying boxing and its rich and varied history. Eventually, after dipping my toe back into journalistic waters on a very casual basis, I decided that I missed the craft of frequent writing, and that I wanted to write about boxing as much as I could, in-between and around my teaching commitments, of course.

So I began to research a book on the Georgian prizefighting era, I also began writing and compiling Boxiana: Volume 1 and I started this blog. With no contacts at all in the boxing industry, all the legwork for Boxiana has been conducted via Twitter and other forms of social media and something that has struck me thus far is the unswerving integrity and pleasantness I have encountered throughout the boxing world, particularly compared to the rampant bullshit that has infected football. It's been quite a novelty to find that my messages and emails are usually returned, rather than ignored, and that people are actually interested in speaking to me or helping me, rather than being automatically suspicious of my journalistic motives.

Perhaps I've been lucky, and I'm sure there are plenty of arseholes in boxing as well as in football, but compared to the unwieldy and arrogant football industry, the world of boxing seems to me to possess much more class, honesty and integrity.

As things stand now, I couldn't be happier. I can write about boxing to my heart's content, but my career as a teacher means I don't have to worry about it being my sole source of income.

So, Curtis Woodhouse - I couldn't agree with you more; I hate football too.

*(Full disclosure: I worked full time at uefa.com. The content team there were first-class).

Thoughts/ comments? Email me at lgw007@yahoo.com

Indicate if you don't want your comments published in future blogs.

Luke G. Williams

Editor

Boxiana

Follow @boxianajournal

Success, failure and the problem with British sport

In the space of just a few days the England football team has been eliminated from the Football World Cup, the England Rugby team have endured a 3-0 whitewash by the All Blacks and the England (and Wales) cricket team have lost a test match to Sri Lanka that at one point looked impossible to lose.

In such circumstances, widespread navel-gazing, self pity and the fevered gnashing of teeth about the country's so-called sporting ineptitude inevitably follows. I haven't read the newspapers yet today, but no doubt there are several pessimistic 'state of the sporting nation' editorials or features in the works, if not published already.

This is a monotonous cycle that seems to repeat itself on a fairly regular basis, particularly when the England football team is eliminated from the World Cup or European Championships or, heaven forfend, fails to qualify in the first place. But I can't help feeling that - as depressing for some sections of the UK as this trio of sporting disappointments has been - we, as a nation, are invariably inclined towards over-reaction when it comes to sport.

Let's try and take the nervous energy and disappointments of the last few days out of the equation and instead look at some cold, hard, rational facts:

1. England are the only nation to have won both the Football and Rugby World Cups.

2. In the last four summer Olympic Games, Britain have come tenth, tenth, fourth and third in the medals table. Hell, even in the Winter Olympics we've been top 20 finishers in the last two stagings.

3. The reigning men's singles tennis champion at Wimbledon is British.

4. Two Britons have won the Tour de France in the last two years.

5. Carl Froch is British and one of the fiercest and impressive competitors in world sport.

By any standards, this is a more than decent ratio of sporting success for a country which ranks 22nd in the world by population. Indeed, I've often thought that one of the 'problems' with British sport is that, for various historic reasons, we participate at a high level in a far wider range of sports than most other countries. This lack of specialisation inevitably means that we come up a little short of our own lofty expectations in some sports such as football, cricket and rugby.

South Africa, with a population of around 11 million less than the UK, makes for an interesting comparison with Britain. The 'rainbow nation' is often cited as a sporting powerhouse, usually by its own inhabitants whose pride and confidence in their sporting achievements puts the more diffident British to shame. But is South Africa's sporting record actually any better than Britain's? In fact, I'd argue that it's considerably worse. Post-apartheid the country has failed to qualify for the football World Cup on two occasions, and on the three occasions they did qualify they failed to make it out of the group stages. Yes, the South African cricket team has ranked at number 1 in the world on a couple of occasions over the past decade, and has secured some great victories along the way, but the dominance enjoyed in the past by Australia or the West Indies has eluded them, as has the Cricket World Cup. In the final analysis their record isn't much better than the English cricket team's in recent years, with England having also topped the world rankings while failing to win the World Cup. Yes, two South African Rugby World Cup triumphs is an excellent return, but it's still only one more than England, and as for the Olympics, both summer and winter, the South African record is lamentable, picking up seven gold medals since their re-admission into global sporting competition, compared to Britain's 77 over the same period.

Yes, there are plenty of financial, social and cultural reasons why South Africa could never hope or aspire to compete at a high level in as many sports as Britain regularly does, however the point still stands: Britain is a far more powerful sporting nation than we give ourselves credit for. Furthermore, and this is where (finally! I hear you cry!), boxing comes in, I'd also argue that we are a country that doesn't always savour the sporting heroes we do have, particularly the pugilists among them.

Hamed, Lewis, Calzaghe and Froch are among the many British boxers in recent years who haven't received nearly as much acclaim or column inches as their achievements and successes demanded. Partly, of course, this is a problem of boxing's own making; since the 1990s the sport has been too eager to move to the television platforms (i.e. satellite) that provide the most instant cash and gratification, rather than opt for widespread terrestrial television exposure. However it's also a symptom of the way that political correctness, middle-class snobbery and squeamishness have gradually alienated boxing from the mainstream of British sport. How else can you explain the fact that Lennox Lewis, a  British sportsman of almost unparalleled excellence, brilliance and dedication, has never been knighted, while golfer Nick Faldo, patently his sporting inferior (and a monumental prat to boot), is allowed to parade around with the title of 'Sir Nick'? Or how about the fact that British cycling supremo Dave Brailsford received the ultimate gong from the Queen, while Rob McCracken, whose boxing team also topped their sport's medal table at London 2012, is only an MBE? Indeed, only one figure from boxing has ever been knighted, the iconic Sir Henry Cooper - this compares with nine figures connected with rugby and six from motor-racing who have received this honour. Hell, nine yachtsmen have even been knighted!

The mainstream bias against boxing and the sport's gradual disappearance from television channels the majority of the population can actually access are topics I've posted about already here and here, so I won't recite these well-worn complaints again now. Instead, the point I want to emphasise is that, sadly (particularly for our own self-esteem) the British seem to be a nation where the majority view sport in a 'glass-half-empty' sort of way. How else can you explain our disproportionate focus on our failures, at the expense of properly savouring our wonderful successes?

Coupled with this tendency is our puzzling love of gallant losers and underdogs, as opposed to serial winners. Why are we more inclined to root for Frank Bruno at the expense of Lennox Lewis? Or Jimmy White rather than Stephen Hendry? Truth be told, it's a trap I also fall into, perhaps because I see more of myself, more of my own frailties and weaknesses, in the likes of Frank and Jimmy, as opposed to the more remote and robotic likes of Lewis and Hendry. (The fact I am more comfortable using Lennox and Stephen's surnames, while chummily invoking the Christian names of Bruno and White says it all!)

Whether these are significant flaws or not, I'll leave you to decide. But the next time you pause to curse the ineptitude of a British sportsman or sports team, try to recall some of the glories from the recent past too - Lewis overcoming Holyfield and Tyson, Wiggins in the Yellow Jersey, Murray lifting Wimbledon, any number of London 2012 Gold Medal moments - and give thanks for the fact that actually, really, in reality, Britain really is quite good at sport.

N.B. I use the terms British, English, Scottish etc without any bias or agenda, but solely as a factual marker of which country / nation has been represented in each case. Hence Murray and Froch are British, but the England football, rugby teams etc are denoted as such. This seems to me the most sensible way to deal with the issue of national nomenclature.

Thoughts/ comments? Email me at lgw007@yahoo.com
Indicate if you don't want your comments published in future blogs.

N.B. For the purposes of consistency, this series of articles uses the fight records found on BoxRec. I'm aware that, particularly in the era of newspaper decisions, no contests etc there are possible different interpretations / statistics quoted in different sources. Any queries, check BoxRec and then contact me if you have a further query.

Luke G. Williams

Editor
Boxiana

Follow @boxianajournal

 

Boxiana's five favourite boxing books

I spent the weekend just gone engaging in my primary sporting passion outside of pugilism - cricket. During the frequent meal breaks and periods of waiting around to bat, I found myself thoroughly absorbed by Geoffrey Ward's superb book Unforgiveable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. I'd read it once a few years back, but only in fits and starts over the course of several months, which is a highly unsatisfactory way to treat a book that you really need to devour greedily in the course of a few days. Only by becoming fully immersed in the book in a short space of time can you appreciate the dramatic peaks and troughs of Johnson's career, as well as Ward's narrative excellence and research skill.

All of this got me idly reflecting and making notes about my favourite boxing books. The following selection of pugilism-related tomes are the fruits of this labour. Truth be told, it's not a selection I thought too long and hard about, and there are plenty of boxing books which I really love which I haven't included on this list (chief among them, for sentimental reasons, Gerald Suster's Champions of the Ring). Still, if you were to ask me right now what my five favourite boxing books are, these five (or, rather, six) are what I'd pick. I haven't ranked them in any particular order, by the way, and tomorrow this list would probably be different. Click on the titles to access Amazon links to each book.

1. Unforgiveable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2006) by Geoffrey C. Ward / The Original Johnson: Volumes 1 (2010) and 2 (2011) by Trevor Von Eeden (with George Freeman, Don Hillsman II & Glen Hauman):
Straight away I'm cheating here by including two books under one heading (three if you count the fact that The Original Johnson has first published in two parts), but there is a rationale at work, for these meisterwerks are ideal reading companions. Ward's almost perfect biography of Jack Johnson is a rollicking read, smoothly weaving together the threads of Johnson's personal and professional lives, with expertly selected and pertinent source material throughout. If there's one criticism I'd level at the book, it's that I'd prefer the social and historical context surrounding Johnson to be more heavily fleshed out, examined and analysed. But that's only a minor quibble.

Once you've finished Ward's book, it's to Von Eeden you need to turn to bring Johnson to life in all his colourful charismatic glory. The Guyana-born artist's two-volume graphic novel representation of the boxer's life captures Johnson's achievements and interior life superbly. As befits the comic-book medium, it's written and drawn in a polemical, creative and highly dramatic style. I loved it from the first time I picked it up, and I'm excited as hell that Von Eeden (a great talent who the comic-book world has shamefully under-utilised) is providing some wonderful illustrations for Boxiana: Volume 1. (One of these illustrations also provides the background imagery to this blog).

2. Boxiana (various volumes, 1812-1829) By Pierce Egan:
Well, I had to include the original Boxiana, didn't I? Quite simply, Egan's importance to boxing and sports journalism cannot be over-stated; the canon of English Literature as a whole also owes him a huge debt, in particular Charles Dickens. Egan's colourful prose style is peppered with wonderful idioms and turns of phrase as he describes a series of glorious, bloody and thrilling tales from the Georgian bareknuckle prizefighting era. Egan's writing is so vivid and infectious that it instantly transports you back in time 200 years. Not only does he combine extravagant similes, metaphors and classical allusions to beguiling effect, but his eye for detail and drama have never been surpassed, and his use of italics is a sheer joy. Collections of Egan's work (which is now in the public domain) were fiendishly hard to find 20 years ago, but most of his canon is now freely available via Google books and other online archives. Highly recommended.

UPDATE: 15.15pm, 24 June 2014: @GaryMerseybox tweets to make a very valid point, namely that there are many historical and factual inaccuracies in Egan's work. It's a fair point, and I'd like to clarify that it's Egan's style I admire, not his factual accuracy. It's also worth pointing out that journalistic standards at the time were a little more lax than today, and Egan was, in my view, trying to tell a story and weave a mythical history around prizefighting, rather than opt for total factual correctness. 

3. Black Ajax (1997) By George MacDonald Fraser:
The only novel on this list, and what a novel! MacDonald Fraser wonderfully recreates the spirit of Egan and the Regency, as he dramatises the sensational Cribb-Molineaux rivalry and the two contests between the men. Although there are arguably a few too many historical errors, liberties and fictional flourishes (and the linking of the book to his own Flashman series is a needless over-contrivance), this is still one of my favourite novels, and one which stands up to repeated readings. The Georgian glossary at the back is also a joy.

4. The Paddy and the Prince (1998) By Nick Pitt:
This  account of the meteoric rise of Prince Naseem Hamed and his ultimately doomed relationship with his trainer Brendan Ingle benefits from the extensive access Pitt had to those involved in the story. It's a tale of potential, ego, hype and, ultimately, how fame changes everyone and everything. At once exhilarating, inspiring and also incredibly sad and tragic, the book itself even played a part in Hamed and Ingle's bitter 'divorce'. As far as I can tell, it's the only book Pitt has ever written, and it also appears to be out of print these days which is a crying shame - for not only is it a superb book, but we're also long overdue a sequel.

  

5. The Fight (1975) by Norman Mailer:
I had to include one book on Ali - and the question was: which book? In the end it was an easy choice; no one in the history of boxing has inspired more books and articles than 'The Greatest' but, let's be frank, the vast majority are tripe and add nothing new to our understanding of the man and his legend. Mailer's effort is, far and away, the best of them all, although Mark Kram's Ghosts of Manila is a close second, mainly because it dares not to be a hagiography. Mailer's muscular prose can occasionally stray into pretentiousness, but for the most part this is powerful, lyrical and insightful non-fiction writing at its absolute best.

Thoughts/ comments? Email me at lgw007@yahoo.com
Indicate if you don't want your comments published in future blogs.

N.B. For the purposes of consistency, Boxiana uses the fight records found on BoxRec. I'm aware that, particularly in the era of newspaper decisions, no contests etc there are possible different interpretations / statistics quoted in different sources. Any queries, check BoxRec and then contact me if you have a further query.

Luke G. Williams

Editor

Boxiana

Follow @boxianajournal

Ranking the heavyweights: No. 32 James 'Buster' Douglas

In this series I am rating all of the lineal heavyweight champions across five categories, with the fighters then being ranked from 1 down to 37 depending on their final score out of 

50. Today I'm looking at the man who finished at No. 32 in my standings - James 'Buster' Douglas.

Click here to read about No. 33 Michael Moorer
Click here to read about No. 34 Hasim Rahman
Click here to read about No. 35 Leon Spinks

Click here to read about No. 36 Shannon Briggs

Click here to read about No. 37 Marvin Hart

Click here for background information on the ranking criteria

No. 33: JAMES 'BUSTER' DOUGLAS (champion 1990)

Whenever the history of sporting upsets is chronicled, the achievement of James 'Buster' Douglas demands a prominent position. In slaying Mike Tyson in the Tokyo Dome on 11 February 1990, he unforgettably punctured the aura of invincibility that had hovered menacingly over 'Iron Mike' as he cut a devastating swathe through the heavyweight division. In the lead-up to the Douglas fight, promoter Don King had commented of Tyson that: "It ain't about if he knocks a guy out, it's about how he knocks a guy out." In hindsight, this comment had hubris written all over it, but at the time it seemed a statement of cold, objective fact. To those who didn't grow up watching the young Tyson in action, it's impossible to explain just how unexpected Douglas' victory was. Famously only one Las Vegas bookmakers bothered to offer odds on the fight, and they rated Douglas as a 42-1 shot - quite ridiculous odds in a two-man contest. Statistically, as well as in every other way possible, Douglas' win remains the biggest shock in boxing history and as incredible a feat now, at a distance of 24 years, as it was at the time.

Achievement: 6

The momentous slaying of Tyson alone is enough for Douglas to rate fairly highly in this category. However it is also worth remembering that an overweight and undertrained Douglas lost the title meekly in just three rounds in his first defence against Evander Holyfield and the rest of his career was undistinguished. In short, Douglas was the boxing equivalent of a one-hit wonder, albeit a one-hit wonder who produced a song on a par with the greatest songs ever written.

Dominance: 2

Aside from the Tyson upset, when Douglas fought higher ranked heavyweights he usually came unstuck; Holyfield dismantled him, and he also lost to Tony Tucker, Jesse Ferguson and Lou Savarese, as well as anonymous trial-horses David Bey and Mike White. Douglas' best victories, apart from against Tyson, came against Randall Cobb, Greg Page and Oliver McCall. All in all, an extremely sketchy résumé.

Style: 5

When he was on-form, Douglas possessed a superb jab, as well as decent power in his right and impressively swift hand-speed. Unfortunately, we all too rarely saw such weapons employed consistently. As his manager John Johnson once said of Douglas: "He can be kind of passive." This passivity resurfaced against Holyfield to fatal effect; one of Holyfield's trainers, George Benton, correctly noted that it was Douglas' fatal stylistic flaw: "[He] only punches when nothing is coming at him. He has a tremendous jab. And the way you beat a jabber is by jabbing."

Fortitude: 5

The passivity alluded to above was Douglas' most infuriating quality along with, on occasion, a seeming lack of desire. Often when the going got tough, Douglas got going too; he appeared to quit against both Tucker and Holyfield, and his much-publicised weight issues and diabetes plagued his attempts at any sort of successful comeback after he lost the heavyweight crown in October 1990. And yet against Tyson, Douglas showed incredible bravery and fortitude; surviving an eighth-round knockdown, and some big Tyson haymakers, en route to stopping his man in the tenth. The only explanation is that a magical coalescence of circumstances, including the death of Douglas' mother just 23 days before the Tyson contest, somehow came together in perfect unity to create a real-life piece of poetry superior to anything Hollywood screenwriters could ever have dreamed up. Yet Douglas' own explanation for what happened remained marvellously prosaic: "why did it happen, James?" HBO's Larry Merchant asked him after the fight. His reply? "Because I wanted it."

Impact: 8
Douglas provided boxing fans with their very own 'JFK moment'; those of us old enough to have been alive in 1990 can all recall exactly where we were when we first heard Tyson had lost; it was a result which reverberated around the world on a tidal wave of shock, confusion and disbelief. Sports Illustrated's simple but brilliant cover that week said it all: a picture of a groggy Tyson on the canvas emblazoned with the abbreviation 'KO'd'. The following week, Douglas took his place on the cover with the headline "Rocky Lives!" They forgot one crucial fact though; if you remember the climax of the first Rocky film, Rocky didn't win - Douglas did.

Boxiana verdict:

Douglas once said he'd like to be remembered as "a man who had a dream, went after it and achieved it." However his victory against Tyson was so much more than that, for it was a contest that succeeded in re-framing the narrative and perception of heavyweight boxing for all time. As Tyson fumbled for his mouth-guard, like a helpless new-born baby, we were witnessing the impossible made real and, as a result, it is likely that never again will a heavyweight champion be elevated in the collective public consciousness to the status of 'unbeatable' as Tyson was. Douglas proved that in the sphere of human existence and sporting endeavour, everybody is beatable and nothing is impossible. He reminded us that human beings, no matter what physical virtues or qualities they possess, are eternally fallible. With that truth established, heavyweight boxing has never, and will never, be quite the same again.

Total marks (out of 50): 26

Thoughts/ comments? Email me at lgw007@yahoo.com
Indicate if you don't want your comments published in future blogs.

N.B. For the purposes of consistency, this series of articles uses the fight records found on BoxRec. I'm aware that, particularly in the era of newspaper decisions, no contests etc there are possible different interpretations / statistics quoted in different sources. Any queries, check BoxRec and then contact me if you have a further query.

Luke G. Williams

Editor

Boxiana

Follow @boxianajournal

Ranking the heavyweights: No. 33 Michael Moorer

In this series I am rating all of the lineal heavyweight champions across five categories, with the fighters then being ranked from 1 down to 37 depending on their final score out of 
50. Today I'm looking at the man who finished at No. 33 in my standings - Michael Moorer.

Click here to read about No. 34 Hasim Rahman
Click here to read about No. 35 Leon Spinks

Click here to read about No. 36 Shannon Briggs

Click here to read about No. 37 Marvin Hart

Click here for background information on the ranking criteria

No. 33: MICHAEL MOORER (champion 1994)

Something of an enigma, Michael Moorer had a natural ability to wreak destruction with his powerful fists and possessed well-schooled boxing skills to boot; after 22 straight knockouts as a light-heavyweight he moved up to the heavyweight division where he won 13 successive fights, culminating in defeating a near-peak Evander Holyfield to win the Heavyweight title in 1994. At this point, the world was at Moorer's feet; however, he lost the title in his first defence to an aged George Foreman and would never fulfil his considerable potential.

Achievement: 6

When he won the title with a majority points verdict against Holyfield, Moorer became the first southpaw to become Heavyweight champion, and one of the few former light-heavyweight belt-holders to also succeed in winning the heavyweight crown. These were both laudable achievements, as was beating Holyfield before his long and gradual decline set in. However, when Moorer lost the title against 45-year-old Foreman, a single right hand knocking him out, his reputation took a huge knock. Moorer rebounded to win the lightly regarded IBF crown, but lost it in a rematch to Holyfield in 1997. A comeback three years later saw a decidedly patchy run of form, including a 30-second loss to David Tua in 2002.

Dominance: 3

Aside from the first Holyfield victory, Moorer's best wins were against Bert Cooper, Vaughn Bean, Frans Botha and Axel Schulz - a pretty thin CV. He destroyed everyone he faced at light-heavyweight, although the division was weak and he only held the lightly-regarded WBO bauble.

Style: 7

Emmanuel Steward, who moulded the young Moorer into a highly destructive and smooth boxing light-heavyweight, once remarked that his charge was the most "awesome puncher" he had seen at 175lbs, with power that "could make mountains crumble". Sadly, Moorer and Steward split after his wild and memorable war with Cooper in 1992, and thereafter the development of Moorer's skills and his physical conditioning were erratic as he skipped from trainer to trainer. Teddy Atlas coaxed a great performance out of him versus Holyfield, but it was, sadly, a one-off. Moorer had all the tools to become a dominant champion, but failed to nurture them or treat them with respect.

Fortitude: 5

The mercurial Moorer was capable of displaying impressive bravery and determination; for example, he rose from the canvas in round 2 to beat Holyfield and took and threw lots of leather in that absolute heart-stopper of a thriller versus Cooper. However, although he took his punch up to heavyweight with him, his chin was a different story. Ultimately, Moorer's inability to withstand big shots or sustained pressure, coupled with his mental weaknesses, too often left him exposed.

Impact: 4

His victory against Holyfield was a significant upset, but, sadly for Moorer, he is now more remembered for being on the receiving end of Foreman's mighty and fairytale-completing right than for any of his 52 victories from 57 fights.

Boxiana verdict:

Moorer was an under-achiever. After terrorising the light-heavyweight ranks and defeating Holyfield he had the potential to stake a claim for greatness. Ultimately, however, his mercurial conduct, conditioning and personality prevented him from reaching the heights which he was capable of; after his loss to Foreman, his career thereafter was the very definition of anti-climax.

Total marks (out of 50): 25

Thoughts/ comments? Email me at lgw007@yahoo.com
Indicate if you don't want your comments published in future blogs.

N.B. For the purposes of consistency, this series of articles uses the fight records found on BoxRec. I'm aware that, particularly in the era of newspaper decisions, no contests etc there are possible different interpretations / statistics quoted in different sources. Any queries, check BoxRec and then contact me if you have a further query.

Luke G. Williams

Editor

Boxiana

Follow @boxianajournal

Ranking the heavyweights: No. 34 Hasim Rahman

In this series I am rating all of the lineal heavyweight champions across five categories, with the fighters then being ranked from 1 down to 37 depending on their final score out of 50. Today I'm looking at the man who finished at No. 34 in my standings - Hasim Rahman.

Click here to read about No. 35 Leon Spinks

Click here to read about No. 36 Shannon Briggs

Click here to read about No. 37 Marvin Hart

Click here for background information on the ranking criteria

No. 34: HASIM RAHMAN (champion 2001)

Like many of the other boxers in the lower reaches of this chart, Rahman's status as World Heavyweight Champion was achieved through one sensational performance, or, more specifically in his case, through one sensational punch - a thunderbolt of a right hand which separated reigning champ Lennox Lewis from his senses in Carnival City, South Africa on 22 April 2001. Lewis enacted brutal revenge a few months later after a Las Vegas court upheld a rematch clause in his contract. However, as Rahman himself has since said: "To capture all the titles and be the unified champion and to beat 'The Man', how do you top that?" Well, he never did top it, but his KO of Lewis while a 20-1 underdog remains one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight history.

Achievement: 5

Rahman failed to mount a single defence of the Heavyweight title, but his achievement in winning it in the first place was remarkable, even more so considering he didn't take up boxing until he was 20 and only had a handful of amateur fights. Outside of the Lewis victory, however, his career is short on triumphs against marquee names, with his best results being draws with David Tua and James Toney and victories against Corrie Sanders and Monte Barrett. He also briefly held the WBC strap in 2005-06.

Dominance: 3

The majority of highly-ranked contenders Rahman faced got the better of him; including Tua in their first, albeit controversial contest, Oleg Maskaev (twice), John Ruiz and Wladimir Klitschko. A technical decision loss to Evander Holyfield was a touch unfortunate, given the terrible swelling that the 'Real Deal''s use of the head inflicted on Rahman's forehead. 

Style: 5

A strong and orthodox boxer-puncher, with a powerful jab when he utilised it effectively, Rahman's scowling presence and snarling pre- and post-fight rhetoric were particularly entertaining during his rivalry with Lewis. A total of 41 KOs in 50 wins is an eloquent expression of Rahman's ability to deliver a brutal punch, however, his lack of amateur seasoning left him vulnerable to being out-boxed. His natural gifts and physicality were never quite enough to consistently succeed at the highest class.

Fortitude: 6

Rahman showed plenty of fortitude to walk away from his early life of crime and associations with "bad people in bad spaces" and find salvation in boxing; he was once shot five times and also badly injured in a car crash, which left him with permanent scars. As he once admitted: "If I didn't change, I would [now] be in somebody's penitentiary or somebody's graveyard." After the Lewis loss Rahman showed guts in mounting several comebacks, each of which was slightly less successful than the previous one, unfortunately. Despite his frequent bravery, vividly illustrated, for example, by his wild war with Sanders, Rahman's punch resistance was some way below the standard required to thrive against the division's biggest hitters.

Impact: 5

His victory against Lewis was a sensation that shook the boxing world, but its impact was lessened by the fact the Briton reversed the result so quickly, enabling the tag of 'one-punch wonder' to stick. None of Rahman's other wins came anywhere close to matching the heights of that heady night in South Africa.

Boxiana verdict:

There is much too admire about the way that Rahman turned his life around after those grim early days in Baltimore. I fervently hope that his recent loss to Anthony Nansen in the New Zealand Super 8 tourney has signalled the end of his career. It's now time for Rahman to concentrate on his interests in property development and community work, as well as preserving the money he's made from boxing, rather than attempt yet another comeback. Rahman wasn't one of the great heavyweights, but the power and perfection of that punch which felled Lewis will live long in the memory.

Total marks (out of 50): 24

Thoughts/ comments? Email me at lgw007@yahoo.com
Indicate if you don't want your comments published in future blogs.

N.B. For the purposes of consistency, this series of articles uses the fight records found on BoxRec. I'm aware that, particularly in the era of newspaper decisions, no contests etc there are possible different interpretations / statistics quoted in different sources. Any queries, check BoxRec and then contact me if you have a further query.

Luke G. Williams

Editor

Boxiana

Follow @boxianajournal