Jabs and Straight Writes

MUHAMMAD ALI AND THE ELEPHANT

FURTHER EVIDENCE THAT ‘THE GREATEST’ LIVED A HIGHLY UNUSUAL LIFE

What was it like to be Muhammad Ali?

For starters, this-couldn’t-possibly-be-happening moments were common. Like the time Ali walked out of his home in Berrien Springs, Michigan, and found a real, live, enormous, honest-to-goodness elephant in the backyard.

That doesn’t happen to most people. But it happened to Ali. Let me explain.

Jabs and Straight Writes

‘LET’S GET READY FOR DUMBO!’

Michael Buffer has lost count of how many feature films he has been in. His best guess is around 20. That includes three appearances in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky franchise.

Jabs and Straight Writes

BLINDED

The dialogue over racial prejudice in the United States has gotten uglier the past few months. Let me add an experience I had years ago to the discussion.

Jabs and Straight Writes

SPORTS ROYALTY

‘WHEN AMERICAN HEAVYWEIGHTS RULED THE RING’

For more than a century, the heavyweight champion of the world was sports royalty. But unlike many kings, whose authority is bestowed as an accident of birth, these men derived their authority first through conquest and then from the consent of the governed.

Jabs and Straight Writes

BROADCAST BOOM

NEW BOOK RECOUNTS THE RISE OF BOXING ON RADIO AND THEN TELEVISION

There was a time when boxing fans relied on newspapers for the most timely recounting of big fights. That changed in the 1920s with the mass commercialization of radio. Then, in the 1940s, television began the process of supplanting radio.

Jabs and Straight Writes

FIGHTER FOR A DAY

Jim Thomas is best known as Evander Holyfield’s adviser but he had his own (extremely short) career as a kickboxer

Jabs and Straight Writes

THICKER THAN WATER Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman was scheduled to take place in Zaire on September 25, 1974. On September...