A Thrilla In Manila: A Fight of a Lifetime...40 Years Later

 

 A Thrilla In Manila: A Fight of a Lifetime...40 Years Later

By Peter Silkov

The history of boxing is colorfully littered with a multitude of rivalries between fighters who have fought each other numerous times. This is the lifeblood of boxing, the point where the hardest game reaches its boiling point. No other sport can match boxing for the intensity that is produced between two boxers who are about to fight.  Only boxing creates that unique mixture of soap opera and brutal theatre. It is the most brutal and real drama in sport. 40 years ago today saw the third and final installment of perhaps the most acidic and explosive rivalry that has ever graced the heavyweight division. The final clash between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier displayed boxing at both its most beautiful, and its most brutal.

Often called the sweet science, there was nothing sweet about the fights between Ali and Frazier, especially fights 1 and 3. The violence of the blows, which both men exchanged throughout their trilogy, echoed the depths to which their personal rivalry had reached. In the course of 5 years, Ali and Frazier had gone from having a respectful friendship, to one of the bitterest feuds ever seen in boxing. Ali was a master of taunting his opponents, but with Frazier it was different. Perhaps it was because Frazier had taken his world title while he had been banned for his refusal to go to Vietnam.  Perhaps it was because Frazier became the first man to beat Ali in their classic 1st fight on March 8, 1971. Whatever the reason, there’s little denying that Ali saved some of his sharpest and most hurtful insults for Joe Frazier. 

For his part, Frazier, after playing the game at first, began to simmer, stew, and build a genuine anger and hatred towards Ali for the things he had said about him. It was an anger that did not subside, even after he beat Ali in their 1st contest.  With that victory, after a fight that could rightly be declared as the greatest heavyweight contest of all time, Frazier had proved himself to be the rightful world champion. He had beaten the returning king. Yet it was not enough, for either Frazier or the fans. After his greatest career performance, and his greatest victory, Frazier could only watch, as Ali became even more popular with the public in defeat. The bitterness deepened when Ali won their rematch on January 28, 1974, in a fight that while very good, was almost mediocre compared to the two wars within which it was sandwiched on both sides. By their 2nd fight, Frazier was an ex-world champion himself, having lost his crown the previous year to George Foreman.  After he had lost to Ali in their second fight, many people wrote off Frazier as a fighting force.

Ali meanwhile regained the world title in late 1974, with his magical destruction of George Foreman in Zaire. Ali’s and Frazier’s careers seemed to be going in opposite directions now, with Ali enjoying a new lease of life, while Frazier was viewed as a mere shadow of the man who had beaten Ali in 1971.  But, the feud was still burning, and a third fight between the pair was a natural, if only to tie up the loose ends. A boxing rivalry, which ends with one victory for each man is always somehow unsatisfactory, with something unfinished, like a soap opera that had the plug pulled on it before the final episode.

With Ali and Frazier, the final episode of their joint drama would be the most hard-bitten, which is what boxing fans had hoped for, and even more.  It would reach heights of physical violence that would make fans feel both enraptured and disturbed, in equal measure.

The fight was set for October 1, 1975, in Manila, Philippines, before a crowd of 25,000, which would include the Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The build up to the fight found Ali firing up more jokes at Frazier’s expense.

“It’ll be a killa, a chilla, a thrilla, when I get the gorilla in Manila” cried Ali numerous times during the build up. 

Frazier on the other hand, was quietly seething with his bitterness against Ali, saying in one interview prior to the fight:

“No question about it, it’s real hatred, I want to hurt him. If I knock him down, I’ll stand back, give him breathing room.  I don’t want to knock him out in Manila; I want to take his heart out."

Behind all the ballyhoo and bluster, Ali and his team really believed that this time around Frazier would be an easy touch. Ali was enjoying the fruits of being world champion once again, and being the most recognized man in the world, and his focus on his training had unsurprisingly suffered. Some of the fruits that become available with success can be bittersweet.  Ali’s focus on the fight was further shaken when his estranged wife Belinda flew over from America to confront him about his mistress Veronica Porsche, whom he was staying with in Manila, and who would soon become his third wife. But, if Ali went into his third fight with Joe Frazier distracted, ‘Smokin’ Joe soon got his attention.

From the start of the 1st round, it was clear that both men meant business. Ali came out flat-footed, throwing bombs, and looking for an early stoppage victory. Both men were a little heavier and slower than in their first fight. As the fight progressed, all pretense of science and skill would be discarded. This was a fight, with each man throwing and landing as much and as often as they could, and each man unable and to a certain extent, unwilling to get out of the way of the other man’s punches.

Standing flat-footed, Ali won the early rounds by landing his bombs on Frazier at will. Frazier was being out-punched and was visibly shaken in the 1st and 2nd rounds.  As the fight wore on Joe kept on coming in, boring his way onto the inside of Ali, where he would realize punches of his own onto Ali’s body, and then switch quickly to his head. With a maniacal grin on his face, Frazier seemed to welcome the punches that Ali was landing upon him, almost as if they were giving him energy to build up his own assault.

By the middle rounds, Frazier was indeed ‘Smokin’, as Ali visibly tired, found himself pressed back against the ropes, and forced to exchange bombs toe-to-toe with a Frazier who was showing that on this night, he was by no means a washed up fighter.     

In the 7th round, Ali tried to get on his toes and fire his jab, but the heat of Manila, along with his 33 year old legs, made it difficult for ‘the Greatest’ to keep away from Frazier’s relentless assaults.

“Old Joe Frazier, why I thought you were washed up” declared Ali during the round.  To which Frazier replied, grimly between punches, “Somebody told you all wrong pretty boy.”

The middle rounds belonged to Frazier, now it was ‘Smoking’ Joe who was out- punching Ali, who was now spending too much of his time pinned onto the ropes, and trying to cover up against punches he couldn’t block or dodge. Frazier was still eating clean shots as he bored into Ali, firing his punches almost frantically at Ali’s body and head. In the 10th and 11th rounds, it looked as if Ali might be through, as he struggled to trade leather with Frazier, and seemed so leg-weary that he was just about to topple over to the canvas under the savagery of Frazier’s attacks. Then in the 12th round, Ali showed why he is very possibly the one and only ‘Greatest’ of all time, certainly at heavyweight. The ability to turn the tide of a fight through sheer guts and strength of spirit, the same kind of spirit that took him to his improbable victory over Foreman. 

In the 12th round, Ali opened up on Frazier with both hands. It was a brutal assault in which Frazier took punch after punch. By the end of the round, his mouth poured out blood and his left eye was closing. In rounds 13 and 14, it was Frazier who looked ready to topple over onto the canvas. Ali was out-punching Frazier once more, somehow finding the strength to fire blistering combinations upon ‘Smokin’ Joe, who despite his continued efforts to fight back, began to look more helpless and more gruesome a figure, with every passing minute.

The 14th round was especially brutal, as Ali landed, at will, upon an opponent who could no longer see the punches coming at him. When the bell rang ending the 14th round, the referee Carlos Padilla had to guide Joe to his corner. Then it was all over.  With just three minutes to go, Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Futch did what he knew Frazier would never do himself. Convinced that his fighter was on the point of being seriously hurt, or perhaps something worse, he threw in the towel, despite Frazier’s protests. Ali, who had at times been at the point of quitting himself during the brutal fight, was the winner, victorious in what must go down as probably the most grueling and savage contest ever waged for the World heavyweight championship. While their first fight featured more skill and speed, mixed with a thrilling violence of its own, their third fight took the gloved violence to a whole new height.

Later, at the post-fight press conference, a battered Ali said of his opponent,

“I have nothing bad to say about Joe Frazier. Without him I couldn’t be who I am and without me he couldn’t be who he is. We’ve been a pretty good team for four, five years.”

Frazier for his part said of his conqueror,

“I’ve seen walls tumble under shots like I gave him.  He’s a great champ.”

It was to be the last great night of both men’s careers, an explosion of superhuman effort from both boxers that afterwards left them both depleted. Frazier would fight just twice more, losing again to Foreman, in an almost surreal fight 8 months later. He then struggled to a draw with Jumbo Cummings in a one off comeback fight 5 years later. Ali would reign as World heavyweight champion for almost another 3 years, but his skills eroded with every fight. But, like his millions of fans around the world, Ali didn’t want the ride to end, and so he stuck around too long and came back too much.

Sadly, the feud with Frazier simmered on, long after both men had finally said goodbye to the ring. After all the punches that Ali landed upon Frazier in their three fights against each other, it was the words that he landed upon Joe that hurt the most. They had the deepest and most lasting effect. Despite efforts by Ali to apologize for some of the things that he said about Frazier and called Frazier, during the height of their rivalry, ‘Smoking’ Joe remained bitter towards Ali until his death in 2011.

It is an unfortunate postscript to a great fight. Sometimes life is not as forgiving as we would like it to be, and wounds collected in the ring can remain with a fighter for the rest of his lifetime. Ali and Frazier created something special with their trilogy, something that will endure perhaps even beyond the survival of the sport from which it emerged. They created something that will endure, but they also lost some parts of themselves along the way.  Perhaps that is the price of greatness.

Copyright © 2015 The Boxing Glove, Inc. Peter Silkov Art. All Rights Reserved. Peter Silkov contributes to www.theboxingglove.com and www.theboxingtribune.com

TBG Book Review: Facing Ali: 15 Fighters, 15 Stories

 

The Boxing Glove Sunday Night Book Review by Peter Silkov

Facing Ali by Stephen Brunt

There can be little argument that Muhammad Ali, in addition to being the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, is also the most famous sportsman of all time. 34 years since his last fight, Muhammad Ali is still the most easily recognized sportsman around the world, even by people who were born long after he had finally retired.

Despite all of his personality and talent, Ali was also blessed to appear at just around the right time to become a star in boxing and the sporting world in general. When he first emerged during the early 1960s boxing, especially the heavyweight division was crying out for a new star; a dash of lightning to light up both the heavyweight division, and the sport itself.  Ali became that star, as he amused, amazed, fascinated, and outraged both the fans and the media in equal measure. Then, after he had been banned from fighting for almost 4 years, due to his refusal to go to Vietnam, Ali came back to the ring in the early 70s to discover a heavyweight division that was enjoying an explosion of talent that was unprecedented in the history of the division.  With the return of Ali, the heavyweight division enjoyed what is fondly referred to as a ‘golden age’ for the rest of the 1970s.

From the start of his professional career, Muhammad Ali’s fights became real life drama’s, that became larger, and more important as his career progressed.  But, while Ali was always the hero of his fights, his opponents would also find themselves thrust into the limelight when facing ‘The Greatest.’  For Most of Ali’s opponents, fighting the most famous man in boxing would become the high-point of their boxing careers. Usually it would be the most financially profitable too, with the aura of Ali guaranteeing most of those he faced during his career the best paydays of their own careers.

There have been innumerable books written about Ali, many of them outstanding. Muhammad Ali has always been an inspirational figure and has inspired some fascinating books dedicated to him.  After all of these years, it might be thought that the material on Ali might have started to run dry. Considering that the present day Ali has been debilitated by his lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease, and is a much quieter, and less visible figure than he was in his fighting prime.

And yet, the Ali of the past, in his prime, is in many ways as loud and as visible as ever.  Ali and his career is still talked about, analyzed, and reminisced over every day amongst the boxing community.  At a time when most boxing fans cannot name most many of today’s so called ‘world champions’ Muhammad Ali is still a name that sparks recognition and wonder.

In “Facing Ali: 15 fighters, 15 stories” Stephen Brunt takes a new angle in analyzing the career of Muhammad Ali.  Instead of the traditional analysis of Ali, instead, Brunt looks at Ali through the eyes of 15 of Ali’s opponents.  Interviewing each man about his experience both as an Ali opponent, but also as a fighter in general.  The opponents chosen in this book vary from those who achieved a greatness of there own during their careers, to those whose main claim to fame was their fights with Ali.

The opponents of Ali included in this book are Tunney Hunsaker, Henry Cooper, George Chuvalo, Brian London, Karl Mildenberger, Joe Frazier, Jugen Blin, Joe Bugner, Ken Norton, George Foreman, Chuck Wepner, Ron Lyle, Jean-Pierre Coopman, Earnie Shavers, and Larry Homes.

Brunt examines each fighter’s own career, both before, and after their confrontation with Ali, and how their fights with one of the most famous sportsmen in the world affected their own lives and careers.  It is interesting to see the often fascinating stories of these men’s own lives, and how Muhammad Ali has made an indelible mark upon each of them, both as fighters and as men.  A few of these men have fought Ali more than once in the ring, such as Cooper (2 times) Chuvalo (2 times) Joe Frazier (3 times) Joe Bugner (2 times) and Ken Norton (3 times.)

Each man in here has a story to tell, and they are all interesting stories in their own right, some, like Chuvalo’s, are tragic.  Brunt gives his subjects plenty of space to show the true depth of their personalities, and experiences, rather than simply making them into one dimensional cutouts of people, whose only point of interest is the night (or nights) that they crossed swords with Muhammad Ali.

Every fighter here has his own set of memories and views upon Ali. It is a curious aspect of Muhammad Ali’s character that, while he was renowned throughout his career for his often merciless taunting and clowning of his opponents, he did keep in contact, and in many cases, become friends with these men.  Save for the case of Joe Frazier, where a genuine case of animosity seemed to have developed from their meetings as opponents in the ring.

This book is recommended for those who are interested in seeing the boxing career of ‘The Greatest’ from a different and often thought provoking angle.

The most admirable aspect of this book is that Brunt allows these men to express their life stories in various ways that are not simply beholden to their fights with Ali.

First published in 2002, “Facing Ali” is another illustration of the inexhaustible material that exists about the life and fighting career of Muhammad Ali.  This is a new and fascinating angle, which shows us Ali from the perspective of his opposition, and gives us some enlightening anecdotes upon ‘The Greatest.’

Since the publication of this book, Lyle, Cooper, Norton, and Frazier have all passed away, making their contributions all the more poignant.  Once again Ali has upstaged his opponents, by surviving them.

Copyright © 2015 The Boxing Glove, Inc. Peter Silkov Art. All Rights Reserved. Peter Silkov contributes to www.theboxingglove.com and www.theboxingtribune.com

TBG Book Review: Battling Ski by Peter Benson

 

The Boxing Glove Sunday Night Book Review by Peter Silkov

“Battling Siki: A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race & Murder in the 1920s”  By Peter Benson.

 “A lot of newspaper people have written that I have a jungle-style of fighting, that I am a chimpanzee, who has been taught to wear gloves. That kind of thing hurts me. I was never anywhere, but in a big city, in my life. I have never even seen a jungle.” Battling Siki

The life story of Battling Siki is one of the darkest and most dramatic of any world champion in boxing’s long history.  Dark, because of the tragedy, which his life became, and because of the thick cloak of rumour, myth, and mystery that surround both his life, death, and his boxing career.

In “Battling Siki: A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race & Murder in the 1920s” Peter Benson explores the life and career of one of boxing’s most notorious and misunderstood champions.  Siki rose to fame and won the World light-heavyweight championship, but found only persecution and disdain as champion.   Just a little over three years after he won the world title from Georges Carpentier, Siki was found dead in a dark alley in New York’s ‘Hells Kitchen’, his turbulent life ended by two bullets in the back.

Born Amadou M’Barick Fall on September 16, 1897, (though his exact birth date has also been a subject of dispute) in Saint Louis, Senegal, he would later call himself Louis Phal, and fight under the name of Battling Siki.  From early on, Fall’s life seemed destined to be removed from the ordinary.  When he was around 10 years of age, Fall was ‘adopted’ by a wealthy woman, who may have been either Dutch or German (and either a dancer or an actress) and taken with her to France. For a while, she dressed and fed him and taught him to read, before suddenly disappearing from his life.  As with many aspects of his life, Siki’s benefactress is a mysterious figure, and there are many conflicting stories about how and why she took Siki under her wing, and also why she eventually either abandoned him, or was forced to leave him behind.  Left to fend for himself, Siki went through a range of menial jobs, before eventually coming across boxing.

Siki’s professional boxing career started when he was barely 15 years old, and despite its mediocre beginnings, his early record was just 6-7-2. With the interruption of the 1st World War in which he fought and was awarded medals for bravery, would eventually lead him to the World light-heavyweight championship in 1922.Siki was the first coloured fighter to win a world title since the fall of Jack Johnson, and he was the first African to win a world championship in the sport’s history.

When he went from a boxing unknown, to World light-heavyweight champion, after beating French idol George Carpentier in front of his own adoring French fans, Siki became an overnight sensation.  Unfortunately, almost immediately his achievement was swallowed up by a tremendous backlash of malignant publicity.  The fight itself was controversial, with rumours that Siki had agreed to ‘lay down’ for Carpentier, only to change his mind midfight.  The press generally was horrified by Siki’s victory over Carpenteir, and immediately began to attack Siki with a mixture of ridicule and condemnation, and with the strong racist overtones plain for everyone to see.

Siki, who was a come-forward, free-swinging slugger, was depicted as a savage figure straight out of the jungle.

"Even Siki’s own manager, Charlie Hellers was quick to point out the fighter’s “gorilla’s skill and manners” to reporters. “He’s a scientific ape,” Hellers said. “Just imagine an ape that has learned to box and you have Battling Siki.” http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-fight-that-wouldnt-stay-fixed-126493491/?no-ist
Siki was described either as a ‘savage’ or a ‘clown’ and an illiterate, who grunted and rolled his eyes in the ring, and was barely able to speak.  Siki’s cause was not helped by the fact that his character was not of the shy and retiring type, he was more Jack Johnson in personality, than Tiger Flowers. 

Confronted by a wave of negative publicity almost from the minute that he had won his world title, the new champion, rather than bow down and try to hide away, began to revel in his notoriety and fame. He indulged in long nights of drinking, partying, and walking through the streets of Paris with his pet lions and loaded guns. The press quickly jumped upon this aspect of his personality, which along with his colour, made him even more of a threat to modern civilization in their eyes.

Add to this, Siki’s cardinal sin of being married to a white woman, and soon he was being viewed as great a menace, as Jack Johnson ever was before him.  In the end, even the generally more tolerant French press and public turned on Siki, still shocked and devastated by the fall of their beloved George Carpentier to the hands of a savage.

Siki’s reign as world champion was short and turbulent, with Siki getting in more trouble and fights outside the ring, than inside it. The world championship soon proved to be a poisoned chalice for Siki, who found himself unable to get a fight of any kind, as the boxing authorities around the world turned upon him.  When he did finally secure a place to defend his world title, six months after he had won it, Siki found himself defending his world title in Ireland against an Irishman, Mike McTigue, on St Patrick’s day, in the midst of a civil war.

It almost goes without saying that after the fight had traveled the full 20 rounds, to the sound of constant gunfire outside the building, it was McTigue’s hand that was raised in victory, and Siki left Ireland shorn of his world crown. Many writers over the years have used the story of Siki's St. Patrick’s Days world title defence, in Ireland, against an Irishman, as an illustration of the Senegalese fighter’s lack of intelligence. The truth is that Siki had no other options of fighting and defending his title anywhere else.

Being an ex-world champion did not bring Siki peace from the constant barbs of the press and public in general.  If anything, it intensified the ridicule that he had to endure daily.  Struggling to find fights, he went to America, where his reputation deepened further, as did his wild and reckless nightlife.  By the time he was shot dead in Hell’s Kitchen, Siki’s boxing career was more or less finished, as he had suffered a trail of damaging defeats.  Siki’s greatest achievement in the ring had brought him only personal and professional ruin.

Peter Benson goes through Siki’s life meticulously, trying to separate fact from fiction, exposing the virulent abuse that Siki had to suffer for his achievements, and his wish not to bow down to the constraints of his time.  Siki emerges from this book as a colourful and extrovert character, who found himself, overwhelmed by the mixture of fascination and repulsion, that his exploits generated.  It’s easy to see that Siki’s non-stop carousing was at least in part an effort to block out the reality of the hostility that he had to deal with every day.  He was also stuck in a vicious circle of needing to play on his infamy, as it was the only way in which he could gain fights, and earn money.

More than anything, he was a victim of the racism of the day. He did not have the kind of character to weather the barbs of his time, unlike Tiger Flowers and Joe Louis later on.  Instead, Siki tried to snub his nose at his detractors, in a manner much like Jack Johnson, but unlike Johnson, was in the end overwhelmed by the reputation that he and his detractors had created. 

Siki comes alive in these pages, and the reader finds himself sympathizing with his plight, and admiring his courage. This is an absorbing and engaging portrait of a fighter who has, until now, been much maligned and misunderstood. It is also a searing documentary of the times, and the prejudice’s and hostility that fighters of colour had to deal with on a daily basis.  Most of them dealt with their situation with quiet stoicism. Those that dared to stand up and try to break the constraints of their time ended up like Battling Siki.

Perhaps most poignant in this biography is Siki’s plea that he is not an ignorant beast.  “A lot of newspaper people have written that I have a jungle-style of fighting, that I am a chimpanzee, who has been taught to wear gloves. That kind of thing hurts me. I was never anywhere, but in a big city, in my life. I have never even seen a jungle.” In the end, however, he seemed to give up on himself as he fell into a steady decline of drinking and getting into constant scrapes with the New York police.

“Battling Siki” is made complete by a collection of rare photographs of Siki.  This is a haunting biography that will appeal to any boxing fan wishing to explore the life of one of the ring’s most tragic and enigmatic figures. 

Copyright © 2015 The Boxing Glove, Inc. Peter Silkov Art. All Rights Reserved. Peter Silkov contributes to www.theboxingglove.com and www.theboxingtribune.com

TBG Book Review: Slats: The Legend & Life Of Jimmy Slattery

 

 The Boxing Glove Sunday Book Review by Peter Silkov

 "Slats: The Legend & Life Of Jimmy Slattery" Written by Rich Blake

Alongside the era of the 1970s and 80s, boxing’s other great golden era is widely agreed to have been the 1920s and 30s. This was a time of million dollar gates, a multitude of talented fighters in every division, and numerous boxing clubs holding sold out fight cards every day of the week. At that time, the light-heavyweight division in particular held some of the most talented fighters of any weight in boxing.  Men like Tommy Loughran, Jack Delaney, Mike Mctigue, Paul Berlenbach, and Maxie Rosenbloom, but the man whom was thought by many to be the most talented of all the fighters in the 175 division was Jimmy Slattery.  

Born in Buffalo, New York, on August 25, 1904, and of Irish descent, Slattery was a unique and mercurial talent, with exceptional speed, mobility, and defensive wizardry.  Slattery would fight with his hands down by his sides, as he bounced about the ring in a manner akin to how a young Muhammad Ali would box some 40 years later. The Irishman also had a good punch in both hands, and the ability to lash out with blinding combinations.  Add to this a toughness, which defied his handsome, yet fragile looking physique and it seems that Slattery had it all. At one point during the 1920s he was heralded as the next World heavyweight champion, and praised and admired by figures such as Jim Corbett and Gene Tunney.  Former World heavyweight champion, Corbett, had described Slattery as “the most perfect fighting machine I ever saw."

Despite all of his ability, Jimmy Slattery was fatally flawed with a love of the nightlife and an idiosyncratic attitude to the serious side of boxing. After turning professional as a lanky 17 year-old, he began to find success as a boy wonder. The adulation and success that quickly came his way soon found him being drawn towards the bright lights, fast cars and glamorous women, rather than the humdrum repetitiveness of training.  Although Slattery would go on to win the World light-Heavyweight championship twice and finish his career with an impressive 111(49koes)-13 record.  His was still a talent perhaps only half realised.  Finished as a top fighter by the age of 28, Slattery’s life soon descended into the chaotic twilight world of alcoholism.

Since his death in 1960, at the age of 56, Slattery has been all but forgotten by the wider boxing world. All of that is about to change now, with Rich Blake’s meticulous and engrossing biography of the wayward, yet, immensely talented boxer, who was being called a ‘Will o’ the Wisp’ of the ring by boxing writers 20 years before the great Willie Pep made that nick name his own.      

Rich has produced a biography that is not only fascinating for the detailed facts, which he uncovers about Slattery’s life, but it is crafted in such a way that it is really hard to put down once you begin reading it. While Rich’s admiration for ‘Slats’ is clear, within these pages, he does not let it colour his work, and is not blind to the fighter’s darker side.

Slattery’s life reads like a film script. An unknown, fragile looking teenager discovers that he can fight when standing up to the street bully, and within five years, he is facing the great Harry Greb, and despite losing to Greb, is being hailed as one of the greatest talents in his or any division.  In the end, however, Slattery’s success would prove to be the trigger of his own ruination and demise.

Slattery rose to fame like a character from Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”  With his fall from the heights being just as fast and spectacular, as his rise.  Slattery in many ways embodied the ‘roaring 20s’, and looked for a while as if he really might be able to burn the candle at both ends, and continue to be a success inside the ring. His boxing career eventually fell apart, just as the roaring 20s came to a devastating end with the wall street crash, and the beginning of the Great Depression.

Rich does a great job of bringing Slattery back to life within the pages of “Slats: The Legend & Life of Jimmy Slattery. Slattery is revealed to be a complicated, flawed, yet, courageous, and a good-hearted man. He succumbed to the pressures and temptations of a success and fame, which came too fast and too soon for someone who was still a teenager when he first started, to taste the forbidden fruits of the fast life.  Indeed, as you read through this biography, and read about the fame and fortune that Slattery’s fistic ability brought to him, it becomes clear how difficult it must have been for any young man to keep a clear head when faced with the intoxicating acclaim, and the increasing demands of the ever growing throngs of fans and ‘hangers on’ that increasingly surrounded him.

Slattery’s boxing career is very well described here, with many of his most important contests analyzed in great detail.  One thing that emerges from these pages is that, despite his flaws and self destructive nature, Slattery still achieved an outstanding career, with his victories over the very best light-heavyweights of his day, plus two reigns as world champion.  If he was a wasted talent, he was a wasted talent who still managed to achieve an awful lot in the short time that he made the boxing ring the stage for his talent.  Slattery’s greatest fights with the likes of Jack Delaney, Paul Berlenbach, and Tommy Loughran are all relived here in great style.  Rich also provides insightful portraits of Slattery’s greatest rivals and the overall effect is to bring back alive these great characters and fighters of the 1920s era.

Undeniably, this is a bittersweet biography.  After experiencing Slattery’s greatest triumphs inside the ring, and being entertained by his daring playboy lifestyle outside of it, we then witness his fall from grace, as both his boxing career and private life collapse, and his steady alcoholic decline to his early death in a tiny hotel room.

This book is a great read for anyone who is interested in boxing’s golden era of the 1920s, and one of that era’s most gifted and flawed characters.  In the end, Slattery was as golden and flawed as the era in which he tasted his greatest success.  Slattery’s life might be seen by some as a tragedy, but can someone who has achieved so much in his life ever be truly tragic?  One thing that Jimmy Slattery was not, is ordinary, he was an extraordinary man in an extraordinary time, and it is good to see him brought back to life here in such a stylish manner.

Copyright © 2015 The Boxing Glove, Inc. Peter Silkov Art. All Rights Reserved. Peter Silkov contributes to www.theboxingglove.com and www.theboxingtribune.com