A Hurting Sport: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing

by Thomas Hauser

A Hurting Sport marks the tenth annual volume of Thomas Hauser’s boxing articles to be published by the University of Arkansas Press. Every year, readers, sportswriters, and critics alike look forward to these collections. In 2014, Booklist observed, “This annual series detailing the year in boxing should be a highlight, not only for fans of the sport but also for those who appreciate journalistic acumen and stylish prose.”

Other sportswriters have called Hauser “the dean of fightwriters” (TheSweetScience.com) and “our craft’s most celebrated practitioner” (15Rounds.com). His readers call him one of the last real champions in boxing and one of the very best who has ever written about this sport.

A Hurting Sport continues this tradition of excellence with a behind-the-scenes recounting of 2014’s biggest fights, a look at Floyd Mayweather’s conduct in and out of the ring, analysis of fight impresario Al Haymon’s burgeoning empire, and much more.

170 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2015

About the author

Thomas Hauser (b. 1946) is the author of forty-two books on subjects ranging from professional boxing to Beethoven. His first work, Missing, was made into an Academy Award–winning film. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times earned numerous awards for its author, including the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism.

Reviews

[Joseph Hirsch]

Another solid collection of essays, reminiscences, eulogies, and odds & ends from Thomas Hauser, esquire. Most of the pieces deal with a transitional period in the sport, that, while technically not that long ago, feels like a distant era. "A Hurting Sport" covers the last years when HBO Boxing was solvent (but already close to life-support) and before Senator Manny Pacquiao joined the ranks of the ageless warriors Bernard Hopkins and Archie Moore by fighting well-past his predicted sell-by date.

Hauser is at his best when reminiscing about the past. He's considered Muhammad Ali's prime biographer, so even though Ali is perhaps the most-studied athlete of the modern period, Hauser can always unearth some anecdote or burnish a new insight that makes his take on "The Greatest" worth the price of admission. His moral compass is always pointed to true north, which makes his take on boxing's permanent corruption either quixotic or naïve, depending how you look at it. Windmills tilted at in "A Hurting Sport" include reptilian honcho of the WBC Jose Sulaiman, who invents paper champ titles just to glean sanctioning fees, as well as the blind/black eye which boxing turns on the personal behavior of its less savory stars.

Hauser demonstrates an especial ambivalence for Floyd "Money" Mayweather, recognizing his sublime talent and his heart (Floyd doesn't get enough credit for his in-ring bravery), but faults him for his business model of maximizing reward and minimizing risk when picking his opponents sometimes. It all has a "You're no Jack Kennedy" vibe to it, but considering how tight Hauser was with Ali, you can hardly fault him for looking at the current crop of boxers and finding symbols and heroes wanting. Recommended. No photos.

[Captnamerca]

Eh, it was okay.