Falling Hard: A Rookie's Year in Boxing

by Chris Jones

In Falling A Rookie's Year in Boxing , Chris Jones recounts his first year at ringside. He gets dressed down by Don King, gambles his way through Vegas, meets the troubled guy who found Evander Holyfield's ear, goes to Muhammad Ali's birthday party, and witnesses Prince Naseem Hamed explode while Mike Tyson implodes. Like the sport itself, Falling Hard is equal measures of victory and defeat — an intoxicating combination that leaves Jones down for the count more than once. Determined to stay objective, he instead becomes addicted to boxing's special brand of pain, and what begins as a simple curiosity soon escalates into an unhealthy obsession. Jones writes with the rhythm of the sport he hard and fast, with the drama of fiction but the truth of journalism. Sometimes humorous, always suspenseful, Falling Hard is a travelogue for the fight game, boxing distilled to its essence by sportswriting's newest star.

Genres: Sports

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

About the author

Chris Jones was born in London in 1973. He has written for Canada's National Post since 1998 and won the Edward Goff Penny Memorial Prize for outstanding young journalists in 1999 (Over 25,00 Circulation category). He lives in Toronto.

Reviews

[Brian D'Souza · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. I told RG Grant, Howard and Otis's brother about it because its where I HEARD Otis Grant's story for the first time. Otis Grant fought Roy Jones Jr, for those who didn't know.

Loved every single chapter. Amazing insight into boxing from someone who was at the major fights, and smaller fights.