Top Boxing Writer Ever?

[The Old LefHook]

The last site had some good writers all right. They advertise using the name Jimmy Cannon, but the site has nothing to do with Cannon. So I erased it and replaced it with a story by Ring Lardner.

http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/2015/07/champion-by-ring-lardner.html

[The Old LefHook]

And the Schulberg effect.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1987/04/20/the-illusion-of-victory-another-view-of-the-leonard-hagler-decision

[markusmod]

His piece on James Toney was one of my all time favorites. Let it be known that Joe, was always available to discuss something and give feedback.

I think he started on some site called Fight Beat or something like that

[Marchegiano]

Matt Dunnellon has only one book and it's a bio book. Not my cup usually. I like more prolific and proven authors and I kind of hate bio books because they just suck the ******** of the subject.

Matt Dunnellon titled his book Peter Maher, and yes, a lot of it is about Peter Maher and plenty of it in unfair in Pete's favor, but, jesus and criminy one has to give proper work and research it's just due.

I mean no disrespect to other authors mentioned, I have never read any single work that was so thorough before and I think that deserves mention.

I bought Peter Maher because I was researching CC Smith and Matt told me he had some info in the book on CC, and he did. I learned just as much about CC from Dunnellon as I did Smith and Smith's books are actually about black fighters, not the irish champion. Extremely thorough. If anyone even thought they'd fight during Maher's era Matt has them covered.

He is worth mention

[billeau2]

I think he started on some site called Fight Beat or something like that

Yes he did. I met him there before being a poster for many years. It's been years since i saw the site I used to write articles under dsimon for them.

[The Old LefHook]

Boxing writers from the Golden Era (circa 1910-1950) had their own compressed style. Look all you want, but you will not find writers today who write like that. It happens in every field that things keep moving on, even when what they are moving from is better than what they are moving to. The old writers worked extremely hard and their work is jammed with adjectives and adverbs and life. When they wow you, you can see exactly why, you know how they did it. Slightly more modern writers hide all their technique from you. It is like sleight of hand. You cannot see how they wowed you or made you cry. They have concealed it in their very technique. When Saul Bellow wows you, you sit there reading the passages over, trying to figure out how he did it.

[The Old LefHook]

Lads, I am not suggesting Saul Bellow was a boxing writer, though I thought he had written one boxing story. Must not have, for I cannot locate it. I only used him as an example because I feel he is the best at concealing from the reader precisely how he affected them so strongly.

[QueensburyRules]

The last site had some good writers all right. They advertise using the name Jimmy Cannon, but the site has nothing to do with Cannon. So I erased it and replaced it with a story by Ring Lardner.

http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/...g-lardner.html

- - It should be said that Hugh McIlvanney with whom I am otherwise unfamiliar with has nailed Hagler/Leonard to the eternal archives with a short, succinct, almost poetic summation of a great fight falling short in the naked disgrace of the officiating.

The Shulberg effect is an expansion of my Slugger's Curse where Boxers are allowed to win by KO to accolades, whereas Sluggers not KOing their opponent are universally deemed a loser undeserving of any decision.

[markusmod]

Lads, I am not suggesting Saul Bellow was a boxing writer, though I thought he had written one boxing story. Must not have, for I cannot locate it. I only used him as an example because I feel he is the best at concealing from the reader precisely how he affected them so strongly.

What about someone like Hauser?

[The Old LefHook]

Sure, Hauser is good.

It makes sense that the Golden Age of Journalism would have cultivated a cadre of writers to shame today's acolytes of print. Reading some of those guys was actually exciting, instead of merely an exercise to extract information.

We must admit, however, that sensationalism was the order of the day in the Golden Age. You cannot let facts get in the way of good sensationalism. So along comes the next batch of quill drivers. They want a new way. They choose what they see as facts, over sheer excitement.