Boxing is drama, ultimately tragic. Every fight ends in tears and broken hopes. In the long run, even the victors end up -vanquished. Enoch Powell's oft-quoted observation about all political lives ending in failure -"because that is the nature of politics and -human -affairs" may even more truly be applied to boxers. My first boxing hero, Jackie Paterson, world flyweight champion, was killed by a broken bottle to the throat. His predecessor Benny Lynch, the classic "wee hard man" of Scottish mythology, was dead of alcoholism at 33. Other heroes of my youth, Freddie Mills and Randolph Turpin, committed suicide. Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, perhaps respectively the greatest of heavyweight champions and the greatest pound-for-pound boxer of modern times, died with their brains scrambled. We have all been witnesses of the horrid physical decline of Muhammad Ali, bravest and most beautiful of boxers. Countless others have died in squalor. The most destructive, like Mike Tyson, are also often self-destroyers.
Boxing is indefensible; nevertheless we, its aficionados, defend it. It's a proving ground for manhood. Ken Buchanan, world lightweight champion, told once he was "a has-been", replied: "Better a has-been than a -never-was". And there is sometimes the saving grace of humour. Terry Downes, asked why his championship fight with Willie Pastrano had been stopped in the 14th round with Terry ahead on points but helpless on the ropes, explained: "The ref's getting old. He can't last 15 rounds."
Boxing has been a way out of the ghetto, for Jews, Italians, Latinos and, of course, for Blacks. Boddy is good on the history of race and boxing in America. The first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, provoked resentment and the search for a White Hope. His fights led to race riots. Johnson was a great champion - the British boxing writer Terry Leigh-Lye ranked him behind only Louis, Ali and Jack Dempsey - but the animosity he aroused, partly on account of his consorting with white women, ensured that no black boxer was permitted to fight for the heavyweight crown for 20 years.
