#2: ‘The Sweet Science’ by A.J. Liebling

‘The Sweet Science’ by A. J. Liebling is probably the single most famous book about boxing, possibly due to the way that the internet regurgitates ‘best of’ lists with this title pretty much always present. That being said, it is clearly an important book on the subject. It’s probably worth saying here that I have a slight issue with the pretentious style used by writers heavily rooted in the ‘look at how clever I am’ school of writing that seems to emanate from being a staffer at The New Yorker.

This book, or AJ in general, takes the journalism of Pierce Egan (coining the term ‘the sweet science’) as a starting point or reference to discuss boxing in New York in the 1950s. The book is a great insight into boxing venues of the time, and the bars that trainers and writers congregated in at the time, as well as the emergence of modern training camps.

This book is also worth reading just for AJ’s analogy for the ‘passing on of the baton’, using the image of being punched on the nose by someone that was punched on the nose by someone that was punched on the nose…. tracing the heritage of modern day boxing all the way back to the days of bare knuckle boxing.

Which brings me to a current recurring thought: how do certain boxers seem to straddle so many generations? How did Emile Griffith begin his career in New York in 1959 against Kid Finchique and end it with a loss to Alan Minter?!?!