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Hooking Off the Jab: Nigel Collins on Boxing
From the smoky clubs of Philadelphia to the visiting room of an Indiana prison to the primetime spotlights of Las Vegas, Nigel Collins has covered boxing like no other writer in the world. His proximity to both the champions that wouldn’t stay down and the opponents that went down a little too easily allowed him to bring fans all the action both in and out of the ring. Hooking Off the Jab recounts five decades of incomparable access, incredible personalities and improbable outcomes in a sport that even the most jaded boxing fan could not accurately predict. Wherever and whenever the bell rang, Nigel Collins was there to answer it.
“Nigel Collins has remained one of the essential voices analyzing and contextualizing boxing for half a century. In his writing, there emerges both an enduring passion for the sport and a brutal honesty about its toll.”
—Eric Raskin, Showtime Boxing Podcast
“If you’ve seen the fight, Nigel Collins will fill you in with what you didn’t see, big picture and little picture. If you missed the fight he’ll make you believe you did see it.”
--Larry Merchant
“Nigel Collins is a master storyteller. A new collection of his work is a reason to celebrate!”
—Don Stradley, author of The Hagler, Hearns and Three Rounds for the Ages
“In 1987 I was in my thirteenth year of working for ABC Sports. I had begun my stint there covering college football, and eventually touched every sport imaginable through my exposures on Wide World of Sports and Olympics broadcasts. Then I was suddenly assigned to boxing, a sport in which I had experience only as a viewer. In a panic, I began foraging for every byline that might educate me and keep me from failing my new responsibility as a storyteller in the most revered storytelling sport. And the first name that became a basic staple was Nigel Collins, at that time the executive editor of the magazine that was seen as the Bible of Boxing.’ His writing and reporting helped to keep me afloat. It was a form of poetry that 28 years later we entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame together. He didn’t need exposure to me to achieve that recognition, but I know I wouldn’t have gotten to Canastota without his work.”
—Jim Lampley
“Nigel Collins is, simply put, one of the best to ever write about the sport of boxing. He’s vastly experienced, enormously insightful and he’s been in the small halls, the outdoor stadiums and everywhere in between. He’s met champions, journeymen, promoters, has-beens, never-weres and, of course, his fellow Hall of Famers. He has carefully and colorfully chronicled boxing for more than 50 years and his excellent must-read work will stand the test of time for generations to come.”
—Tris Dixon, author of The Untold Story Of Brain Trauma In Boxing
"Nigel Collins is one of the greatest boxing writers of them all. Whatever he writes deserves to be read."
—Matt Christie, Editor of Boxing News
“Nigel Collins has remained one of the essential voices analyzing and contextualizing boxing for half a century. In his writing, there emerges both an enduring passion for the sport and a brutal honesty about its toll.”
—Eric Raskin, Showtime Boxing Podcast
“If you’ve seen the fight, Nigel Collins will fill you in with what you didn’t see, big picture and little picture. If you missed the fight he’ll make you believe you did see it.”
--Larry Merchant
“Nigel Collins is a master storyteller. A new collection of his work is a reason to celebrate!”
—Don Stradley, author of The Hagler, Hearns and Three Rounds for the Ages
“In 1987 I was in my thirteenth year of working for ABC Sports. I had begun my stint there covering college football, and eventually touched every sport imaginable through my exposures on Wide World of Sports and Olympics broadcasts. Then I was suddenly assigned to boxing, a sport in which I had experience only as a viewer. In a panic, I began foraging for every byline that might educate me and keep me from failing my new responsibility as a storyteller in the most revered storytelling sport. And the first name that became a basic staple was Nigel Collins, at that time the executive editor of the magazine that was seen as the Bible of Boxing.’ His writing and reporting helped to keep me afloat. It was a form of poetry that 28 years later we entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame together. He didn’t need exposure to me to achieve that recognition, but I know I wouldn’t have gotten to Canastota without his work.”
—Jim Lampley
“Nigel Collins is, simply put, one of the best to ever write about the sport of boxing. He’s vastly experienced, enormously insightful and he’s been in the small halls, the outdoor stadiums and everywhere in between. He’s met champions, journeymen, promoters, has-beens, never-weres and, of course, his fellow Hall of Famers. He has carefully and colorfully chronicled boxing for more than 50 years and his excellent must-read work will stand the test of time for generations to come.”
—Tris Dixon, author of The Untold Story Of Brain Trauma In Boxing
"Nigel Collins is one of the greatest boxing writers of them all. Whatever he writes deserves to be read."
—Matt Christie, Editor of Boxing News
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Published November 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 30, 2023
This is an exceptional book. I'm a middle aged man and Nigel Collins has been writing about boxing pretty much my entire life; an extraordinary career. This anthology covers fighters and topics from the 70s though to the very recent past. Nigel can join my other dream dinner party guests Hugh McIllvaney and A. J. Liebling, although it would probably be better just as a night in a bar rather than a dinner party.
April 5, 2023
Fight fans and readers drawn to thoughtful prose tend to be two separate groups. But they intersect enough to keep boxing writers like Nigel Collins in business. Leaf through this collection of finely-crafted essays and articles based on the sweet science and everywhere you stop you find astute observations. Collins admires the fine points of a remarkably complex sport at the same time he despises its ugly features. Despite his background as a former editor-in-chief of The Ring magazine and an honoree of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, he’s quite willing to explore why such a savage sport persists in what we like to think of as a civilized society.
He describes a series of fights among attendees at an Atlantic City boxing show as “a slow-moving flood, oozing down the risers to the floor and out into the lobby, where spectators formed a semi-circle around the brawlers.” Attending a boxing show isn’t particularly dangerous, but Collins freely admits it’s not for the squeamish either: “Like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, sometimes the line between spectators and participants is so blurred it’s hard to know the difference.”
No matter how much you know or don't know about boxing, this collection will serve you well. And Collins manages to inform you without talking down to you. The title of this collection, “Hooking off the Jab,” describes a tricky maneuver in which a fighter uses his left to throw a jab, a straight punch, and follows it in split-second timing with a hook from the same hand coming from a completely different angle. Executed well, it’s a particularly unwelcome surprise and may leave the recipient in a restful state on the canvas.
Discussing the difference between a dive and a setup, (yes, they’re both still around), Collins defines and explains their intricacies in seamless prose that’s clear, concise and pleasing. This guy not only knows what he’s talking about, he says it well, choosing excellent topics and tackling them with flair. Although the articles in this collection were published originally in a variety of periodicals, nothing is outdated. An interview with Mike Tyson is just as intriguing today as it was when it was originally published in 1996. And it’s not the usual interview fare because Collins doesn’t ask the usual questions. He knows from experience that Tyson is a deep thinker. In fact, the ex-champ was so fed up with typical reporters’ questions that he wasn’t talking to the media when Collins sat down with him.
“What is the biggest misconception that people have about you?” The champ’s answer may surprise you. Collins, who’s been in the game more than 50 years, was a childhood fan who attended boxing shows with his father, later competed in amateur bouts, and then managed fighters before finding his true calling as writer and editor.
The Ring, which has been through a series of owners since its founding more than a century ago, used to call itself the “Bible of Boxing.” This collection of articles and interviews is a boxing bible unto itself, a valuable reference that’s earned a prime spot on my bookshelf in jabbing distance of Mailer and Dostoyevsky.
He describes a series of fights among attendees at an Atlantic City boxing show as “a slow-moving flood, oozing down the risers to the floor and out into the lobby, where spectators formed a semi-circle around the brawlers.” Attending a boxing show isn’t particularly dangerous, but Collins freely admits it’s not for the squeamish either: “Like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, sometimes the line between spectators and participants is so blurred it’s hard to know the difference.”
No matter how much you know or don't know about boxing, this collection will serve you well. And Collins manages to inform you without talking down to you. The title of this collection, “Hooking off the Jab,” describes a tricky maneuver in which a fighter uses his left to throw a jab, a straight punch, and follows it in split-second timing with a hook from the same hand coming from a completely different angle. Executed well, it’s a particularly unwelcome surprise and may leave the recipient in a restful state on the canvas.
Discussing the difference between a dive and a setup, (yes, they’re both still around), Collins defines and explains their intricacies in seamless prose that’s clear, concise and pleasing. This guy not only knows what he’s talking about, he says it well, choosing excellent topics and tackling them with flair. Although the articles in this collection were published originally in a variety of periodicals, nothing is outdated. An interview with Mike Tyson is just as intriguing today as it was when it was originally published in 1996. And it’s not the usual interview fare because Collins doesn’t ask the usual questions. He knows from experience that Tyson is a deep thinker. In fact, the ex-champ was so fed up with typical reporters’ questions that he wasn’t talking to the media when Collins sat down with him.
“What is the biggest misconception that people have about you?” The champ’s answer may surprise you. Collins, who’s been in the game more than 50 years, was a childhood fan who attended boxing shows with his father, later competed in amateur bouts, and then managed fighters before finding his true calling as writer and editor.
The Ring, which has been through a series of owners since its founding more than a century ago, used to call itself the “Bible of Boxing.” This collection of articles and interviews is a boxing bible unto itself, a valuable reference that’s earned a prime spot on my bookshelf in jabbing distance of Mailer and Dostoyevsky.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews