The Boxing Scene (Sporting) - Softcover

Hauser, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1592139779 ISBN 13: 9781592139774

Publisher: Temple University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Thomas Hauser has been called “one of boxing’s greatest writers. The Boxing Scene, Hauser’s provocative new anthology, contains all of his trademark insights and candor as he peels away layers of hypocrisy to reveal the men who make up the contemporary boxing landscape.

Hauser exposes the inner workings of HBO Sports; examines the phenomenon of mixed martial arts as it relates to boxing; and records the amusing encounter between his 81-year-old mother and larger-than-life boxing impresario Don King. The Boxing Scene also updates Hauser’s personal and professional thoughts on superstars like Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, and Bernard Hopkins as well as fight promoter Bob Arum, announcer Bob Sheridan and a host of others.

The Boxing Scene recreates another year in professional boxing and adds to Hauser’s definitive record of the sport.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Hauser is the author of 36 books, including Missing, which served as the basis for the Academy Award-winning film: Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times; and co-author (with Ali) of Healing: A Journal of Tolerance and Understanding. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the prestigious Prix Lafayette Award, the William Hill Book of the Year Award and the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism. He has written articles for The New Yorker, The New York Times and numerous other publications.

Reviews

The prolific Hauser has written 14 boxing books as well as numerous other works of nonfiction and fiction. He also maintains a Web site devoted to boxing, and this is his second collection of essays published originally online. His fascination with boxing began in the late 1970s and produced The Black Lights (1985), a classic portrayal of the boxing milieu through the eyes of a young fighter. What draws him to the fight game is his fascination with the people who populate the business: fighters, trainers, promoters, broadcasters, and even strippers, one of whom, Tempest Storm, a sharecropper’s daughter who counts Elvis and JFK among her lovers, is the subject of one of this volume’s most affecting profiles. Hauser also explores the pay-per-view and mass-media aspects of boxing, as well as soliciting boxers’ opinions of boxing writers. The consensus? The past had better boxers; better writers, too. Maybe so, but Hauser remains one of the best, and if this volume is a little too much of a miscellany to rank as one of his best, it’s still damn good. --Wes Lukowsky

Edition details

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1592139779
• ISBN 13: 9781592139774
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256