Life in the Ring: Lessons and Inspiration from the Sport of Boxing Including Muhammad Ali, Oscar de la Hoya, Jake LaMotta, George Foreman, Floyd Patterson, and Rocky Marciano

168 Pages·2009·1.38 MB·English

by  Oden

For all those friends, acquaintances, and skeptics
who have asked me so many times over the years,
“Why do you like boxing?”
I have never thought of it (boxing) as a sport. There is nothing fundamentally playful
about it; nothing that seems to belong to daylight, to pleasure. At its moments of
greatest intensity it seems to contain so complete and so powerful an image of life—
life’s beauty, vulnerability, despair, incalculable and often self-destructive courage—that
1
boxing is life, and hardly a mere game.
—Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing
Contents
Foreword—Bert Randolph Sugar
Introduction
ROUND ONE
Courage and Confidence—Muhammad Ali
ROUND TWO
Great Opponents Make Great Champions Jack Dempsey and Gene
Tunney
ROUND THREE
Challenging Yourself—Oscar de la Hoya
ROUND FOUR
The Quality of Being Tough—Jake LaMotta
ROUND FIVE
Reinventing Yourself and Making a Comeback George Foreman
ROUND SIX
Overcoming Obstacles / Persistence and Determination—James J.
Braddock
ROUND SEVEN
Winning Without Shortcuts—Joe Calzaghe
ROUND EIGHT
Making Fear Your Friend—Floyd Patterson
ROUND NINE
Overcoming Pain—Rocky Marciano
ROUND TEN
Discipline and Preparation—Bernard Hopkins
ROUND ELEVEN
Maintaining Dignity Through Winning and Losing Joe Louis and Max
Schmeling
ROUND TWELVE: THE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND
Giving Back—Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko
A Final Word
Rules of Boxing and Weight Classes
Boxing Glossary
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Words of Gratitude
Foreword
by Bert Randolph Sugar
to the time when Cain rendered Abel hors de
GOING BACK ALMOST
combat, writers have worn their pencils down to stubs churning
out a sumptuous variety of articles and books about the sport of
boxing. Some of those in the writing dodge remain as unknown as
Whistler’s father, but many are as well known as the face that greets
us every morning in the bathroom mirror—and include such great
writers as Homer, Hazlitt, and Hemingway.
Everyone, it seems has a book in them. So it came as no surprise
when a friend of mine named John Oden, a successful businessman
and white collar boxer himself, approached me to tell me of his plan
to write a book on boxing and asked for my opinion. Now, I’ve been
held up for my opinion with a loaded drink pointed at my head
twenty times or more—enough times for all the products of Scotland
to be exhausted—but I will admit that, at first, words failed me. All
I could do was roll my eyes in their parent sockets and try to
dissuade him by telling him about the hardships of writing, how it
had been described as everything from an act of courage to a
vocation of unhappiness, even throwing in Red Smith’s immortal
line, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a
typewriter and open a vein.” In short, writing is hardly a barrel of
monkeys. I advised John it’d be best to stay away.
Nevertheless, he persevered, desiring only what he could
accomplish. And, writing from the smithy of his soul, he
accomplished much in producing the book, White Collar Boxing—
One Man’s Journey from the Office to the Ring. Honesty dictates that I
tell you it was good: not great, mind you, but good. A different view
from a different pew is refreshing, and Oden had told a
straightforward story of how he had, as a round peg in the square
ring known as boxing, fit. I thought to myself: Welcome, John, to the
amateur division of boxing writing.
Jump-skip four years later, and John, still with printer’s ink in his
blood, came back with yet another book idea. This time ’round he
wanted to write a book of vignettes, illustrating how boxers could
provide everyone, from businessmen on Wall Street to ordinary men
on Main Street, with lessons and inspiration. Simple yet impactful
messages, to be sure, but ones that could be learned and applied to
life.
Studying the sport and its participants the way a scientist would a
specimen, Oden chose 15 boxers from almost every era of the sport
—from yesteryear’s Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, to today’s
Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, and Joe Calzaghe. And, in
telling their stories in vivid vignettes and applying the principles
learned from them, Oden builds a fascinating, case-by-case study
with plainspoken straightforwardness that provides lessons for life.
This is a welcome relief from the many books on boxing that
strain to tell us the sordid side of boxing, the scandals that
pockmark the face of the sport, and are chronicled with numbing
predictability. Oden’s is a positive book on the “Sweet Science,”
which only gets sweeter with its upbeat and inspirational message.
And while some may say an inspirational book on boxing is as
unbelievable as Santa Claus suffering from vertigo or Captain Bligh
with sea sickness, John Oden has done it, rubbing his creative lamp
to give us a book that illuminates the sport in a way different than
anyone has before.
John, welcome to the big leagues of boxing writing!
—Bert Randolph Sugar, July 29, 2009
Introduction
IHAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED that boxing is a metaphor for life.
In this book you will discover the stories of 15 extraordinary men from all walks of
life, from different times and different backgrounds. These men chose boxing as their
vocation. Each one brought his own unique contribution to the sport. Their stories are
profound and each no two are alike.
You will read of their hardship, struggle, defeat, comeback, and victory. They capture
the very essence of the human experience. When a truly competitive boxing match is
performed by skilled fighters, there is also a beauty, grace, and athletic excellence
which cannot be duplicated in any other sport. And it is that combination of elements
which grabs the imagination.
In boxing there are no words, only actions. And behind the action in a boxing ring are
many of the human emotions and complications that one might encounter in life—
preparation, concentration, purposefulness, goal setting, challenges, pain, perseverance,
and a host of anxieties and fears.
There is an aloneness to boxing that is unique in sports. Indeed, when facing an
opponent one-on-one, there is only you … and him. All the training, all the experience,
all the emotions, come with you out of the corner. But there is no team, no ball, no bat,
no racquet, no protective shoulder pads for someone to hide behind. And like a
gladiatorial contest, it is done until one of the participants or the other cannot go on,
either by knockout or stoppage, or when the winner or loser is declared by the judges at
the end of the fight.
At its core, boxing is a sport of self-actualization, a means to discover truths about
oneself which could not be learned in any other place quite so effectively. In boxing,
mental agility and toughness are as equally important as physical strength and ability.
Bruce Silverglade, owner of the famous Gleason’s Gym in New York City and the
“godfather of white collar boxing” maintains that “the only person who can make a
champ is the person himself … not the trainer, the manager, or anyone else. Boxing is
50 percent mental, 40 percent conditioning, and 10 percent ability.” The keys to the
sport are commitment and focus. And these come with pain, long hours of preparation,
and continued sacrifice. And then comes the day of judgment, the moment of truth—
either a boxer wins or loses when he or she climbs between the ropes.
Boxing is ingrained in our culture, and evidence to this effect is everywhere:
references to boxing constantly pop up in the lives we lead, and people make analogies