I picked up a great old boxing book last week on the Internet through a site called TomFolio.com, where independent used-book sellers list offerings. Boxing in Art and Literature, edited by William D. Cox, was published in 1935. Even back then, pre-Liebling, there was no shortage of classic boxing writing, starting with the most classic classics, The Iliad and The Osyssey. Excerpts from both are in here. Homer has a scene in The Iliad describing a bout between Epeios and Euryalos, written up around the 7th century B.C.:
"Two boxers being girt went into the midst of the ring, and both lifting up their stalwart hands fell to, and their hands joined battle grievously. Then there was a terrible grinding of teeth, and sweat flowed from all their limbs. And noble Epeios came on, and as the other spied for an opening, smote him on the cheek, nor could he much more stand, for his fair limbs failed him straightaway under him."
Homer also has Odysseus delivering trash talk before a fight in The Odyssey that would work at any Thursday afternoon press conference:
"Do not challenge me too far with show of fist, or you may rouse my rage; and old as I am, I still might stain your breast and lips with blood."
Then it's on to Plato, and The Aeneid ("binding on hand and arm these well-seasoned thongs of bull hide...seven folds of the hides of bulls so enormous...insewn with lead and with iron") and more modern writing. There's a terrific report by Robert H. Davis, who had inside access to the Bob Fitzsimmons camp during Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight week in March, 1897. The two fighters crossed paths while running one morning, in a meeting possibly engineered by a San Francisco newspaper editor. When Fitzsimmons put out his hand to shake, Corbett pulled his hand back and said "I'll shake after I've licked you." Of course, Fitz goes away steamed and a few days later beats Corbett in the ring with the famous "solar plexus" punch:
"Such was the speed and violence of the blow that Fitzsimmons' left arm seemed to disappear into Corbett's midst almost to the elbow."
I won't say they don't write 'em like that anymore. Sometimes we do. The book is a wonderful compilation in any case (I didn't mention the art, black and white reproductions of ancient pottery, newer sculptures, and Thomas Eakins paintings). Here's a review of the book from Time, in 1935. It's not $5 anymore but still available for a reasonable price online.
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1939.
INDIANA EVENING GAZETTE, INDIANA, PENNA.
-:- The Brighter Side -:-By DAMON RUNYON
Intei national News service
Miss Hainet Glen chides us gently for occasionally speaking in this
column of the manly art of scrambling ears, otherwise boxing She
says there are so many other much more interestting things that we
might discuss that it is a pitty, to waste space on the gladiators She
is! probably right, but look at the distinguished company were are in
Take Homer. now Homer was always writing about boxing He was
almost the Hype Igoe of his day We think Hype is just about the
greatest boxing writer around in these times He writes for the New
York Journal and American. His "Leather Socking Tales' are little
classics of the manly art and he thinks no other fighter that ever
lived was fit to tie Stanley Ketchel's shoe laces.
Homer could sling more fancy language than Hype when it came
to covering a fight, but he did not tell the story any better One of
Homers best efforts was his report of the great battle between Epeios
and Euryalos, in which the latter got a good shellacking, as you may
vaguely recall from your Iliad he also wrote stirringly in the Odyssey
of the slugging of Iius by Odysses
You gather that when Od got through with Iius the latter was in
a state similar to that of the redoubtable Tony Galento after Joe
Louis had pelted him awhile. Iius was what Hype Igoe would call
busted up. Plato was another writer who frequently touched on boxing
so what was good enough for Homer and Plato ought to be good
enough foi a smalle like us.
Plato, by the way, used boxing as an argument for preparedness —
"surely, if we were boxers,we would have been learning to fignt
many many days x x x and shall the warriors of our city who are
destined when occasion calls to enter the greatest of all contests and
fight for their lives and their country and their property and the
whole city, be worse prepared than boxers "
Of course Plato would have been pretty much discouraged with boxer s
as an object lesson in preparedness if he had seen Mickey Walker
or Harry Greb or Smacksie Maxie Rosenbloom in their championship
days prepare for battle Those boys seemed to feel that standing under
an electnc fan a while agitated their muscles sufficiently for all
purposes.
We do not suppose Lucilius ever saw Smacksie Maxie. but for some
reason his observations to Olympicus, a professional boxer, somehow
brings Smacksie Maxie to mind —' having such a mug, Olympicus
go not to a fountain nor look into any transparent water, for you like
Narciccus, seeing your face clearly will die, hating yourself."
Lucilius was downright pesimistic about the way boxing scuffed up
the faces of the boys He told Stratophon. a boxer. that he had become
after boxing four hours, not only unrecognizable to dogs but to the
city. He remarked to Apollophanes that he could go on boxing without
fear because even if he got smacked around the head he could not cause
any more scars than he already possessed
Virgil, Maitial. Statius and Pausanius got plenty of boxing into the
stuff So did Aristotle Theocritus wrote of the pier 6 affair between
Polydeuces and Amycus ' Quick gushed the black blood from the
gaping temple while Polydeuces smote the giant's mouth with his
left and his close-set teeth rattled And still he punished his face with
quick-repeated blows? till the cheeks were fairly pounded '
Now You know what that sounds like That sounds like the
time Jack Dempsey hewed the hulk of Jess Willard, the old Pottawatomie
pounder, to the canvass at Toledo. We guarantee that Jess
cheeks were fairly pounded that day. Incidentally, Polydeuces slipped
a terrific right hander aimed at his head and nailed Amycus with a
smash to the head, to start his man going, which is just what Dempsey
did to Willard
Victor Hugo. George Borrow, Samuel Johnson, William Makepeace
Thackeray, Arnold Bennett, J B. Priestly, Sir Conan Doyle,
Thomas Moore, Lord Byron, Donn Byrne. William Hazhtt, O. Henry,
Richard Steele and Hundreds of other celebrated writers have written
at length of the manly art Thackeray tore off a long poem on
the fight between John C. Heenan, the American, and Tom Sayers, of
England. Samuel Johnson was practically an expert and liked to sit
around with the lads and fan about boxing.
It is just a personal opinion, but we think the best fiction story on
boxing in the English language is Conan Doyle's "Rodney Stone " It is
a story of. the old English prizering when the fighting was done with
bare knuckles The best fiction story of the modem game is perhaps Ernest
Hemingway s 'Fifty Grand," although Jack London wrote some
corkers
We hope we have established our case with Miss Hainet Glen, and in
closing we want to return briefly to Lucilius and quote a line that could
be applied to some exponents of the manly art that we have seen but
ecently:
' His competitors set up here the status of Apis, the boxer, for he
never hurt anyone."
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