Words In, Words Out: This Fight Scribe’s Reading Guide

Words In, Words Out: This Fight Scribe’s Reading Guide

Happy New Year 2020 to the TSS community!

It’s hard to believe we’ve arrived at this point in the future. So many of yesterday’s top boxing writers and boxing media outlets are gone but not forgotten.

Wordsmiths like Pat Putnam and Joe Rein are no longer with us. The glory days of Max Boxing and other internet start-ups have passed. Newspaper writers like Boston’s own Ron Borges are harder and harder to access as print media recedes from view. It’s a new decade and my sights are set on the best of today.

As evidenced by their yearly haul of BWAA Bernie Awards, your choice to read and frequent The Sweet Science is smartly based on both quality AND quantity. This is a space where professional boxing journalism is still being done by real pros.

Thank you for being here.

My sincere thanks also to fellow writers Arne Lang, David Avila, Ted Sares, Kelsey McCarson—and the two Matts. You fellas have set a good example and you’ve set a standard for others like myself to follow.

Special congratulations to TSS colleagues Bernard Fernandez and Thomas Hauser for their recent, well-earned election to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota. To any true fistic journalist, BFern and Hauser (as they’re called) are the best examples of what to do and how to do it.

“There are two elements required to produce a quality boxing story,” explains Fernandez. “One is the writing. The other is the depth and accuracy of the reporting, the detail stuff. Thomas Hauser not only writes elegantly, demonstrating a mastery of the language, but he digs as deep as anyone to ensure that his copy includes every pertinent and verifiable bit of information.”

A very well-spoken boxer recently thanked me for the diligence I put into telling his story on TSS. I didn’t watch him train in the gym or spend any time with him in his dressing room before a big fight. But I did do my homework. I owe every fighter that much. It is the high bar set by new Hall of Famers Hauser and Fernandez that challenges me to write and report at their level.

There is a well-read soft-cover copy of Mr. Hauser’s famous book Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times in my bathroom in Maine. My favorite scene in Rocky Balboa is when Fernandez (playing himself) tells the panel on ESPN, including Bert Randolph Sugar, that Mason Dixon “never had to dig down to rally back” and that he doesn’t have a big enough shovel anyway.

Apparently, Fernandez wrote his own line of dialogue about that shovel and ad-libbed it into the 2006 film. The director liked it. “I facetiously asked if that would get me a screenwriting credit.”

THE WRITE STUFF

In 2018, only Boxing News and ESPN (led by investigative reporter Mark Kreigel) outdid The Sweet Science in the annual BWAA writing contest participated in by its members. The popular Boxing Scene tied TSS for third place.

No lightweight in the industry, Boxing Scene publishes respected writers such as Cliff Rold and Lyle Fitzsimmons but the hyper-busy website actively flips the notion of quality over quantity. Other news outlets finishing in the top ten included The Sporting News, RingTV (the online face of The Ring magazine), The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, and Sports Illustrated.

If I’m not writing about boxing, I am reading about it. Or watching it. For every single word I write, a hundred or more must be read. Words in, words out, see? But where exactly do I find fighting words worth reading in 2020? Here are a few of my sources, laid bare for your examination.

The list is by no means exhaustive but it is an honest accounting of who I read where. These are the sites and writers I turn to when there’s nothing fresh to consume and digest on TSS.

Springs Toledo: This North End Bostonian is the best boxing writer in the world, word-for-word. I read Toledo wherever I can find him. His old-fashioned books are meticulously researched and flow like poetry. His columns and features are recognized with Bernie Awards year after year. An exceptional contributor at TSS and elsewhere, Toledo’s real baby is his boxing ratings program, the Transnational Boxing Ranking Board. I enjoy the site’s feedback page more than its top tens. It is here that Toledo answers his critics and tries to make sense of his decisions.

The Fight City: Appropriately based out of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, The Fight City online offers its readers a “literary edge that embraces this brutal, cruel, glorious, heartbreaking sport in all its facets.” Featuring bylines from Lee Wylie and Ralph E. Semein, the site updates frequently enough to keep me coming back looking for another insightful column or new quality feature. While I wait, I gladly take in their many Top Twelve lists and fleshed out historical flashbacks.

Ringside Seat: Boasting a murderers’ row of “old guard” fight writers including Nigel Collins, Steve Farhood, Ivan Goldman, Carlo Rotella, Don Stradley and Eric Raskin, Ringside Seat is an e-mag designed to “provide boxing fans with a product unlike any other currently available.” For six bucks you can download the latest issue or any one of their exquisitely designed eight back issues; all of which feature thoughtful cover art and the typical trappings of a magazine.

Hannibal Boxing: Joseph Santoliquito (current BWAA President) recently joined a packed staff of contributors that’s already loaded with heavy hitters like Carlos Acevedo, Tris Dixon, and Frank Lotierzo. Hannibal Boxing regulars Sean Nam and Jimmy Tobin are also excellent writers. Boston based Hamilcar Publications, the book publishing division of Hannibal Boxing, offers a line of boxing titles in print (a few of them were reviewed here) with several more forthcoming in 2020.

NYFights: This relatively new website of former TSS editor-in-chief Michael Woods placed fourth in the latest BWAA writing contest. I go there for the TalkBox podcasts with Woodsy & Guests but end up staying for the Commissioner’s Corner columns by New York State boxing icon Randy Gordon. Stick around a bit longer and you might develop a taste for their man on the streets John Gatling.

Honorable Mentions: The RingTV website ain’t what it used to be but I still enjoy the Travelin’ Man reports penned by one of the friendliest people in boxing, Lee Groves (pictured above). If friendly fun is all you’re really looking for, check out the reimagined Ring Magazine under creative editor-in-chief Douglas Fischer the next time you’re stuck at an airport or sitting in a Barnes & Noble. The retro covers and the cool content reflect his true love of the fight game. And with HBO Boxing gone but not forgotten, I don’t read as much Kieren Mulvaney as in years past, but what a writer.

Photo: 2020 IBHOF inductees Thomas Hauser and Bernard Fernandez flank BWAA president Joseph Santoliquito. Photo compliments of Joseph Santoliquito.

Boxing Writer Jeffrey Freeman grew up in the City of Champions, Brockton, Massachusetts from 1973 to 1987, during the Marvelous career of Marvin Hagler. JFree then lived in Lowell, Mass during the best years of Irish Micky Ward’s illustrious career. A new member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and a Bernie Award Winner in the Category of Feature Under 1500 Words, Freeman covers boxing for The Sweet Science in New England.

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel 

To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE