One thing I realised pretty quickly is that the internet has been a boon for boxing fans, just as it has been for devotees of f ly fishing, trainspotting, collecting nineteenth-century Japanese erotic woodcuts and any number of other niche pursuits. It’s so heartening to discover the thousands of like-minded weirdos out there. Finally, you can stop boring your girlfriend and start talking to the strangers on the internet who really get you.
In time, I would find my strangers and weirdos, befriend them, crash on their couches. But it was YouTube and Boxrec. com that got me in the door. To an extent I didn’t appreciate back then, the streaming video service and the record-keeping database have revolutionised fight fandom. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to learn about a historic fight, your options were to read about it in a book, hope it might be broadcast on a cable TV sports channel late at night or send a cheque in a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the mail-order equivalent of a guy in a trench coat on a street corner, whose ad you saw in the back of The Ring.
During the film era, some fight footage collectors amassed truly enormous archives—Jim Jacobs, later Mike Tyson’s manager, is said to have owned films of over sixteen thousand bouts—and were feted by trainers and matchmakers as guardians of boxing’s arcane secrets. Nowadays, it’s mostly online. It’s as easy to track down the silent, time-scarred black-and-white footage of Bob Fitzsimmons’ 1897 victory over Jim Corbett for the heavyweight title as it is to watch an ultra-high definition copy of whatever featherweight fight took place in Osaka’s Bodymaker Colosseum (a real and fantastically named venue) over the weekend, complete with f luorescent hospital lighting and screaming Japanese commentary. The only thing you have to know is what to type into the search bar.
Eventually, you build up a historical vocabulary: first watching the unmissable masterpieces—Ali’s fights with Frazier and Foreman; the round robin between the ‘Four Kings’ of the 1980s; Arturo Gatti’s trilogy of wars with ‘Irish’ Micky Ward—before diving deeper into cult classics, lighter weight classes and black and white.
Boxrec is another wonder of the internet age. It was created in the year 2000 by an English systems analyst named John Sheppard, himself a late convert to boxing. To say that it’s a database of fighter records is a bit like describing Wikipedia as an online encyclopedia; it profoundly undersells the scope and impact of a seemingly simple enterprise.
Consider the record of Muhammad Ali. At the top of the page, beneath a banner ad (nothing is perfect), is Ali’s name, a green box containing the number of fights he won (fifty-six, of which thirty-seven were KOs), a red box containing the number of fights he lost (five, of which one was a KO) and a blue box containing the number of draws he fought (zero). Beneath this is a picture of Ali from the days when he went by the name Cassius Clay and a few vital statistics (birth date, death date, nickname, height et cetera).
Collecting this information for every fighter for whom the information is available would be remarkable enough on its own, but the true utility of Boxrec comes from what follows further down the page: a table representing every fight in Ali’s career, from his 1960 debut against Tunney Hunsaker in Louisville to his sad 1981 farewell against Trevor Berbick in the Bahamas. Each entry notes when and where the fight took place and what happened inside the ropes.
And here’s the really amazing bit: everything in the table is hyperlinked. Not only can you see that Berbick beat Ali in a ten-round unanimous decision and that one judge, Alonzo Butler, scored it closer than the other two, but you can click through to Berbick’s page and see his record, or to Alonzo Butler’s page to see all the fights he judged or even to the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre’s page to see every bout that has ever taken place there.
From there you can click on yet more links, going deeper and deeper into boxing history, ad infinitum. As you do this, a kind of pugilistic six degrees of separation begins to become apparent. It seems absurd that Ali should be only three fights away from the infamous John Hopoate, who picked up boxing after he was hounded out of rugby league for digitally penetrating another player during a tackle, but he is. Ali fought Joe Bugner, who fought long-time Australian heavyweight contender Bob Mirovic, who fought Hopoate. Tada.
It’s just as possible to link Ali to the very earliest days of the Queensberry Rules or the top contenders of the current era. Boxrec makes it clear, to paraphrase A. J. Liebling, that all professional boxers are in some way joined to all other professional boxers in an unbroken chain of punches on the nose. I could spend hours clicking from boxer to boxer, especially as I head back into the 1920s and ’30s, encountering ever more evocative names as I go. I can practically smell the cigar smoke when I read, for example, that Shuffling Billy Baker fought Steamboat Bill McCoy nearly a dozen times between 1933 and 1937.
And speaking of which, nicknames are another great amusement. I once tried to compile a list of the best variations of the ‘Kid’ formulation that was popular before World War II, but gave up, overwhelmed. Kid Chocolate and Cocoa Kid are relatively well known, but for mine Airport Kid, Patent Leather Kid, Spaghetti Kid, Young Kid, Kid Mondue and Kid Bollock have a little something extra. I’m also partial to Zulu Kid, especially knowing that he was Italian, not African.
But beyond name games, Boxrec has had a significant effect on boxing. The open availability of boxers’ records is now very easy to take for granted, but until the advent of Boxrec it was necessary to consult the phone-book-sized Ring Record Book to research a boxer’s history. Current detractors might argue that Boxrec, like Wikipedia, contains the odd error or inflated record, but it’s never seen the kind of blatant falsification that was possible during the analogue era. The scandal that shook boxing in 1976—when Ring associate editor Johnny Ort tarted up the records of several Don King fighters by simply making up victories for them—would be impossible today, mainly thanks to Boxrec.
It was also a key part of my boxing education, because it allowed me to absorb the maximum amount of historical information as quickly as possible. From YouTube and Boxrec I soon expanded my research to message boards and forums, and began reading as much as I could: from the illustrious authors listed in the last chapter to lesser lights; from fighters’ biographies to old Sports Illustrated features.
It took me a while to work up the confidence to debate Manny and Floyd with Fritzy and Jake, but I liked to imagine myself impressing an imaginary group of old boxing hands with my observations. Surrounded by memorabilia in some dingy bar, sipping slowly from my scotch, I would smile at the points made by a fellow barstool philosopher before countering. ‘When it comes to the Sugar Ray fight, Hagler really had nobody to blame but himself; he gave away the first two rounds by coming out orthodox.’ The other chaps would nod wisely and buy me another drink.
TO ENCOURAGE SWEATING
BOXERS SPEND VERY little time actually boxing. That might sound ridiculous, but consider the fact that the longest professional fight, breaks included, lasts for roughly as long as the first half of a football game, and a top modern pro who fights more than three times per year is considered to have an almost absurdly busy schedule. Amateurs fight more often, but their bouts only last nine minutes.
No, the real business of boxers is getting ready to fight. That’s understandable. The stakes are higher than in other sports: you don’t just lose, you get bashed. As a consequence, boxers are some of the best-conditioned athletes in the world. Even low-level amateurs are expected to train twice a day, running in the morning and going to the gym in the evening or vice versa.
The basics of training haven’t changed much in the last hundred years. Endless roadwork for stamina. Sprints for explosiveness. The heavy bag for distance control and strength. The double-end bag for timing and head movement. The speed bag for shoulder strength and rhythm. Ab exercises and calisthenics to harden the body. Sparring to put it all together.
Every punch, every step, every move of the head must be drilled thousands of times until it becomes second nature. Then it must be repeat
ed, improved and elaborated on until it can be executed while exhausted and under pressure in front of a crowd of people yelling Hit him.
It takes a decades-long, samurai-like apprenticeship and constant physical torture to become a top fighter, so it’s hardly surprising many boxing tales are about training. In Boxiana, his chronicle of English prize fighting during the Regency, journalist Pierce Egan chronicles the regimens of various ‘milling coves’. The fighters of that era were advised to take three long walks a day, sometimes wearing heavy clothing to encourage sweating. This might not seem very intense, but bare-knuckle fights could sometimes last for hours, so low-intensity endurance training was just the ticket.
When journalist Nellie Bly visited John L. Sullivan at his training camp, Champion’s Rest, in 1889, she was similarly fascinated by his routine. John L. woke at six for a rubdown, followed by a three-mile run, another rubdown and a showerbath, after which he changed into ‘an entire fresh outfit’. What did he wear while running? A heavy corduroy suit, gloves and a sweater. Did he take a hot or a cold showerbath after running? Medium temperature; John L. did not ‘believe in cold water…it chills the blood’. What was he rubbed down with? A mixture of ammonia, camphor and alcohol. What about for the rest of the day? A twelve-mile walk before lunch, then, after dinner, wrestling, punching a bag, throwing footballs and swinging Indian clubs and dumbbells. Did he harden his hands? Yes, with a mixture of vinegar, white wine, rock salt and several other ingredients. He also applied the brine to his face.
Bly was mightily impressed, though she did quote the assistant trainer, Mr Barnitt, who said that when John L. ‘got angry’ he ran ‘over the fields until his good humour returns’. Which I assume was a polite way of acknowledging that the hard-drinking Sullivan periodically escaped from custody at Champion’s Rest in search of alcohol, which he would consume until he was physically dragged from his barstool.
Glowering, shaven-haired middleweight champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler (he changed his name by deed poll after ABC Sports refused to introduce him by his nickname) owns a special place in boxing history as one of the hardest-training fighters of all time. During the bleak Massachusetts winters of the 1970s and ’80s, he would rent a shuttered motel at Provincetown and turn it into what he called ‘jail’. Disapproving of such creature comforts as sleep and running shoes, Hagler would wake at 3 a.m. to run over the gelid Cape Cod sand dunes in army boots. Afterwards, he would retreat to ‘solitary’ in his room, silently contemplating his opponent’s annihilation while staring out at the Atlantic Ocean. In the afternoon he hit the gym for workouts that were open to the public, sparring one hundred rounds a week with a roster of partners who never did more than two rounds in a row to ensure they were fresh, even as Hagler tired.
Long-time Hagler sparring partner Buster Drayton reported that many of his colleagues would leave the gym with their mouths so busted up they couldn’t eat dinner. After the evening meal (at least for Hagler) it was back to solitary to watch footage of his opponent’s fights until bedtime at 8 p.m.
But even Hagler’s jail can’t compare to the conditions imposed on James Scott, who became a light heavyweight contender in the late 1970s while an inmate at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey. Boxing was popular as a mode of rehabilitation at the time, and Scott became the light heavyweight champion of the New Jersey prison system. It got to the point where other prisoners simply refused to fight him.
He turned professional while paroled in 1974, but quickly ended up back in jail with a robbery conviction. Scott’s training regimen consisted of eighteen thousand push-ups and sit-ups a week and miles of roadwork, performed in tight circles around the prison yard. Incredibly, the warden supported Scott’s efforts to continue his career, and NBC, CBS and HBO were willing to broadcast his fights from the prison auditorium. He had a world title shot in sight when he was sent down for murder, which was a bit much even for the TV execs.
If there’s a special place in boxing history for ascetics like Hagler and Scott, a grudging respect is also given to those who succeeded despite their lackadaisical approach. Men like Wilfred Benitez, who reportedly trained for only two weeks before going nearly fifteen rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1979, and Argentine defensive wizard Nicolino Locche, who compiled an impressive record of 117-4-14 (wins-losses-draws) in the 1960s and ’70s while living like a playboy prince. He was even known for smoking between rounds, puffing on cigarettes hidden behind a towel held up by his cornermen.
But Tony ‘Two Ton’ Galento must be the patron saint of undertrained and overfed boxers. If you called Central Casting and asked for someone to play a mobbed-up, heavyset Italian-American bartender turned heavyweight contender, they might send you a pale imitation of Galento. In the 1930s he was as famous for his drinking and cigar smoking (and for claiming he would ‘Moida da bum’ before losing to Joe Louis) as he was for his boxing.
He earned his nickname when he showed up late for a fight and told his manager he had stopped on the way to deliver two tons of ice, but it could easily have been a reference to his physique: Galento was said to eat six roast chickens for dinner, washing them down with nearly two litres of red wine.
An early manager, former champion Jack Dempsey, was convinced Galento could win the heavyweight title if he could be convinced to train. But when he turned up to the gym to inspect his out-of-shape and whiskey-soaked charge, Dempsey was so disgusted he shed his bespoke suit, rolled up his monogrammed shirt sleeves, climbed into the ring and knocked Galento out with a crushing left hook. Then he informed him he could find another manager.
Despite his limitations, Galento kept getting decent paydays, mainly thanks to his genius for publicity: he entertained fight writers at his New Jersey bar, and at various points in his career staged fights with an octopus, a kangaroo and a bear (the octopus won by TKO: Galento fled the tank after it sprayed ink at him).
Perhaps to make up for his lack of conditioning, Galento also employed the unusual tactic of not bathing or brushing his teeth for weeks before a fight in order to put his opponent off. ‘He smelled of rotten tuna and a tub of old liquor being sweated out,’ said Max Baer after they fought.
Baer himself was not known for his monastic lifestyle. After the handsome, curly-haired twenty-four-year-old won the heavyweight crown from the clumsy Italian giant Primo Carnera, he embarked upon a year-long champagne bender, much of it spent in the company of chorus girls and Broadway actresses.
This did little to prepare him for his first defence against the underrated James Braddock and he lost the heavyweight title 364 days after winning it. At least Baer retained his sense of humour, telling reporters after the fight: ‘I’m happy for Braddock…he has three kids. I don’t know how many I have.’
The Baer story is typical: most fighters pay for their overindulgence eventually. Motivation isn’t hard to come by when you’re making your way up the ranks, but it can be difficult to maintain at the top. Suddenly coming into possession of millions of dollars and thousands of admirers is not an entirely natural situation for anyone, particularly a kid from a poor neighbourhood. The resultant decrease in time spent training has brought many an elite boxing career to an end.
Training to box requires dedication and a wide-open schedule. Luckily, at twenty-one, I had nothing but time. In fact, I had so much time I was getting bored.
Like any good middle-class millennial, I was still an adolescent in my early twenties. I lived at home with my mum in the same green-roofed weatherboard house I grew up in, on the same quiet street, down the road from schoolfriends who also lived in the houses they grew up in, also with their mums.
We liked to blame this situation on Sydney’s ‘insane’ housing market, but none of us had ever seriously considered moving out. I doubt we even knew how much rent would cost. We liked living at home. Sure, the roommates could be a bit overbearing, but the fridge magically stocked itself, the sheets were clean and if we asked ahead of time, we could usually borrow the car.
Georg
e, too, lived at home, though we stopped sleeping in bunks at the possibly unhealthy age of sixteen. He kept the old bunkhouse, while I moved upstairs into what used to be Mum’s home office. I had a walnut-veneer Ikea double bed and maroon sheets. He had a beech-veneer Ikea double bed with blue sheets. We had the same friends, went to the same pubs and played the same video games on the same computer (on which we still took turns). On the two or three days a week I went to uni to study journalism, I got there by walking the same route I had walked in high school, down the same camphor laurel-lined streets, before catching the same bus from the same stop.
The major difference between university and school seemed to be that you didn’t have to go as much. The tutorials resembled high school classes in both size and atmosphere, with tutors desperately trying to coax rows of impassive young faces into participation: ‘So after reading Foucault can anyone suggest some Australian institutions that are panoptic…Anyone? Anyone?’
As a natural suck-up trying to look cool, I found this absolutely torturous. I suppose I could have dropped out, but that would have been way too rebellious. In any case, it was virtually impossible to fail, so I decided it was easier to simply coast along. By second year the hardest work I did was at the beginning of each semester, when I pored over the class schedule and prepared appeals to the timetabling office in an effort to cram my twelve contact hours per week (nine if I didn’t go to the lectures) into as few days as possible.
So yes, I had plenty of time for boxing, and while my training hardly approached Hagler levels, it was slowly picking up. I was running in the mornings and training in the evenings, and the weight was coming off in an avalanche.
On the Chin Page 6