Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #16: The Belfast Spider
As anyone who has spent much time contemplating the history of pugilism already knows, no sport offers more in terms of crushing heartbreak and dispiriting tragedy than boxing. From the trusting, dedicated fighter who gets chea...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #14: Pancho Villa
The real Pancho Villa was a prominent Mexican revolutionary who won fame for his military victories. Exactly why Francisco Guilledo of the Philippines was renamed “Pancho Villa” is difficult to know, though it no doubt had some...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #13: The Barbados Demon
The recent controversy arising from Adrien Broner’s apparent contempt for the idea of weight divisions and weigh-ins causes many to get their knickers in a knot and rightfully so. Making weight is a fundamental obligation...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #12: The Manassa Mauler
If boxing’s greatest era was that in which it was most popular, then Jack Dempsey is the fighter most identifiable with the sport’s zenith. The ‘Manassa Mauler,’ whose appearance and temperament seemed fashioned from the rugged...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #11: The Michigan Assassin
For middleweight legend Stanley Ketchel, the boxing ring was the only theater in which his mania could legally project its voice. Born in 1886 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and orphaned at fourteen, the ‘Michigan Assassin’ travell...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #10: The Galveston Giant
Jack Johnson looms over boxing as the sort of mythical figure one connects with a more legendary age. Born in 1878 to former slaves, the native of Galveston, Texas would become the first black world heavyweight champion, subver...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #9: The Old Master
Born in Baltimore in 1874, the great Joe Gans got his start in boxing the way many black fighters of his time did, in absurd, exploitative spectacles called “battle royals.” For these brutal, winner-take-all brawls,...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #8: Speckled Bob
We live in the age of the camera and the television, of mass produced and carefully manicured images, when glamour, style and looks have never been more important. On this score, one of the greatest boxers of all time would hav...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #7: Little Chocolate
Who was the first black man to hold a world boxing championship? Jack Johnson? Joe Gans? While incorrect, these likely answers reflect the fact that, for reasons unknown, Johnson and Gans enjoy greater renown than the man who f...
Pugilistic Profiles
Pugilistic Profile #6: The Ghetto Wizard
In the long history of boxing there have been many master trainers, gurus of the ring who made it their life’s work to mould young men into pugilists. Any list of great trainers and cornermen would have to include Ray Arcel (18...
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