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Sporting Blood: Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing

Carlos Acevedo,

Thomas Hauser (Foreword)

4.53 · Rating details · 43 ratings · 12 reviews

"I just read Carlos Acevedo on Davey Moore in Boxing News and I think he may well be the best boxing writer in the world today."--Danny Flexen, Boxing Monthly

Sporting Blood is a new collection of twenty-one essays by multiple award-winning boxing writer and historian Carlos Acevedo. The book's foreword was written by Thomas Hauser, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award no ...more

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Paperback, 256 pages

Published March 31st 2020 by Hamilcar Publications

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Apr 06, 2020 Bart rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

My review is here:

http://www.15rounds.com/writing-for-t... ...more

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May 24, 2020 Lee Tait rated it really liked it

Solid 4 Star ,reqlly enjoyed it.

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Apr 22, 2020 Jimmy rated it it was amazing

This book proves what those of us who follow and read about boxing have known for years: Carlos Acevedo is the best boxing writer active today. Stylistically, he’s peerless, blending a formal understanding of literature, of good writing, with a talent for creative yet familiar analogies - Think Kool G Rap with a Masters in American Literature.

His method also sets him apart. Acevedo sets each essay in the context that furnishes the richest understanding for the reader. You cannot fully understand ...more

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Mar 29, 2020 Lance rated it it was amazing

Shelves: blog, boxing, favorite-authors, history, own-a-copy, sports, nf-books-read-2020

Anyone who follows the sport of boxing knows that for every success story, there are many others that have a darker side. Even for those fighters that have enjoyed tremendous success during their careers, many of them had other tales of woe. These can range from financial problems, drug abuse, crime, even an untimely death. This book by boxing writer Carlos Acevedo tells some of these stories on many different boxers from different weight classes and eras.

The variety of the stories and the boxer Anyone who follows the sport of boxing knows that for every success story, there are many others that have a darker side. Even for those fighters that have enjoyed tremendous success during their careers, many of them had other tales of woe. These can range from financial problems, drug abuse, crime, even an untimely death. This book by boxing writer Carlos Acevedo tells some of these stories on many different boxers from different weight classes and eras.

The variety of the stories and the boxers portrayed is the biggest strength of this book. Not only are legendary fighters portrayed such as Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, but there are some very interesting tales about other fighters who may not be as familiar to readers such as Ad Wolgast, Carmelo Negron and Eddie Machen. There are several sad stories on fighters whose career either ended too soon after a defeat (Davey Moore), fighters who seemed to always be on a path to destroying themselves (Tyson, Aaron Pryor, Tony Ayala Jr.) and even one who became known to even non-boxing fans, Jake LaMotta. While his story of sinking to very low depths and rising about them is familiar to movie goers who saw “Raging Bull”, Acevedo’s account of LaMotta does much more justice than the movie does in only a few pages.

That is pretty much the theme across the entire book as Acevedo writes essays about these pugilists that are complex yet very easy to read and comprehend. Some of his prose is pure bliss to read. Here are just a sample of some excellent quotes from the book:

- When talking about the legendary third fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, the brutality of that match led Acevedo to state that “The ‘Thrilla in Manilla’ was a CliffNotes for sadism.”

- He states that boxing “lends itself far too often to an intellectual clam chowder (common ingredients: social Darwinism, atavism, gladiatorial analogies, talk of warriors and so on)”

- Describing promoter Don King when he dropped Davey Moore from his band of boxers: “Even Don King, a man who would rush into a burning oil tanker to rescue a crumpled dollar bill, cut him loose”

This is just a small sample of the excellent writing and research that was put into this great collection of stories on a wide selection of boxers. Any reader who has any interest in the “sweet science” will want to pick up this book – but be warned, once one starts, this is very hard to put down.

I wish to thank Hamlicar Publications for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
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Jun 05, 2020 Joseph Hirsch rated it really liked it

How many boxing scribes do you know of who would compare the plight of Mike Quarry, suffering from pugilistic dementia in the twilight of his years, to the cutup technique pioneered by William S. Burroughs? Carlos Acevedo is one of those boxing heads who knows the fight game but also knows a lot about other subject, too, and he marshals everything he knows to turn in a quality (but not quite great) addition to a massive corpus of books on boxing.

A lot of this overland journey is made on very wel How many boxing scribes do you know of who would compare the plight of Mike Quarry, suffering from pugilistic dementia in the twilight of his years, to the cutup technique pioneered by William S. Burroughs? Carlos Acevedo is one of those boxing heads who knows the fight game but also knows a lot about other subject, too, and he marshals everything he knows to turn in a quality (but not quite great) addition to a massive corpus of books on boxing.

A lot of this overland journey is made on very well-trod ground, but it's the gimlet eye the writer brings to the task that determines whether or not anything new is spotted as we once again sift through the wreckage of ill-fated fighters who go from being mobbed by the ladies to being accused of rape (and sometimes convicted), or from the gutter to the penthouse (and then usually back to the gutter). A case in point is the piece on Mike Tyson, probably the most written-about man in the history of Fistiana. It should have been a paint-by-numbers job, but little new details are ferreted out by Acevedo in his retelling of classic Mike calamities that make this one a must-read. The piece on the previously mentioned Mike Quarry, ill-fated brother of white hoper Jerry Quarry, also manages to say as much in a few pages as one or two bios of the "Bellflower Bomber" and his brother.

Acevedo seems to really find his stride, though, when casting a light onto the less illumined byways of the fight game, those boxers who maybe shined brightest for one season before burning out. Hardcores may know Eddie Machen or Carmelo Negron, but the author gives the names we usually only see on Boxrec records some flesh and bones, and though these men who've met ignominious ends (or even worse, died without so much as a peep) are long-gone, Acevedo does what he can to resurrect their memories and restore a bit of the dignity to their names that boxing long ago took from them (along with most of their money and a good number of their brain cells).

It's a solid boxing book, but falls a bit short, in this reader's opinion, of the high praise that attended its publication. That's just me, though, and since no less a personage than Thomas Hauser gave this one his stamp of approval, judge for yourself. Recommended. ...more

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Apr 06, 2020 Katie P. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arcs, ew-netgalley

Award-winning boxing writer, Carlos Acevedo has given us a beautiful collection of essays highlighting the people, the events, and the complexities that make up the world of boxing. Sporting Blood: Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing contains 20 essays dedicated to people from Muhammad Ali to Johnny Tapia to Mike Tyson to Eddie Machen and events like Wilfredo Gomez v. Lupe Pintor, the curious death of Sonny Liston, and the interestingly complicated relationship between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Al ...more

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Aug 14, 2020 Chris Carlisle rated it it was amazing

This is one of the most captivating boxing books I've ever read simply because the author is such an outstanding writer who takes influence from all of the great boxing writers of old including Thomas Hauser, Nat Fleischer and Bert Sugar. He has a very Vivid way of putting things and has a very colorful writing style. The stories in this book are some that you may have never heard even if you read other boxing books and it kind of reminds me of 'Boxing Babylon' and 'The Squared Circle: Life, Dea ...more

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Oct 28, 2020 Angus Jonson rated it it was amazing

Saw Donald McRae recommended this do picked it up. Just phenomenal writing, really. Stories of tragedy, of excess, of corruption, of abuse inflicted and suffered - and an unsparing depiction of the sport's brutality, through physical punishment that'll make you wince, and the enduring scars felt for a lifetime ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 Bruce Egert rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Not for boxing fans only

Boxing is not about boxing. It's about poor uneducated kids trying to earn respectability. along the way they get caught up and stopped by the very sport that they had hoped would redeem their already experienced lives. So sad yet so dramatic. A ...more

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