Search Results for: boxing

On the Far Side of the Fire: Life, Death and Witchcraft in the Niger Delta

Child Rights and Rehabilitation Center, Eket, Nigeria

Jessica Wilbanks | Ninth Letter | Fall/Winter 2013 | 27 minutes (6,860 words)

 

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One of our previous Longreads Member Picks, an essay by Jessica Wilbanks, is now free for everyone. “On The Far Side of the Fire” first appeared in Ninth Letter and was awarded the  journal’s annual creative nonfiction award. This is the first time it has been published online.

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“I never saw my mother happy with me or proud of me doing something. I never got a chance to talk to her or know her. Professionally, that would have no effect on me, but emotional and psychologically, it was crushing. I would be with my friends, and I’d see their mothers kiss them. I never had that. You’d think that if she let me sleep in her bed until I was 15, she would have liked me, but she was drunk all the time.”

Mike Tyson on his mother, from his book excerpt in New York magazine. Read more on boxing in the Longreads Archive.

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Photo: patman0623, Flickr

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The End and Don King

Longreads Pick

The fading spotlight of one of the biggest icons in boxing history:

“If King wants to reflect on the past during this, the evening of his career, he only has to look around his offices at Don King Productions, where he has surrounded himself not only with memorabilia, but also with the same people who helped him rise to the top. Dana Jamison, King’s vice-president of operations, has worked with King for 27 years. His personal photographer has been around for two decades. Of all the people I met associated with Don King, only Tavoris Cloud was under the age of 40. King’s productions feel even older and more out of date. While waiting for him to show up back at the headquarters of Don King Productions, I squeezed into a long-since-abandoned cubicle, careful not to disturb an ancient Brother typewriter and a stack of press releases and legal documents from the late ’90s. In the lobby, there was an old movie theater popcorn machine stamped with Don King’s emblem. One of his employees told me that in the ’90s, that machine had pumped the smell of fresh popcorn into the vents of the building. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been turned on. Out back in a warehouse behind the offices, more than 20,000 square feet of King’s possessions — mostly ornate furniture and towering bronze statues of lions — gathered dust along with seven of King’s cars. Earlier this month, Jessica Lussenhop of the Riverfront Times published an excellent article about King’s ongoing legal battle with St. Louis boxer Ryan Coyne, a conflict that started in November 2012. If you go to donking.com today, you will find a story titled ‘Undefeated National Champion Boxer Ryan Coyne Meets Cardinals Three-Time MVP Albert Pujols.'”

Source: Grantland
Published: Apr 4, 2013
Length: 26 minutes (6,640 words)

UFC Tries To Prove It’s Capable Of A Knockout

Longreads Pick

How two best friends rehabilitated the Ultimate Fighting Championship franchise, and what’s coming next as the popularity of mixed martial arts expands globally:

“The UFC has border-hopped since 2007, first into Europe and Canada, then Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, and the Middle East. The next step is both simple and excessively difficult. Any international fan knows it: “We need a [local] hero,” says Puerto Rican journalist Angel Cordero. He runs a site called The MMA Truth that caters to a Latino audience, and he is convinced his boxing-obsessed homeland will embrace MMA–but only when Puerto Ricans can root for one of their own.

“Brazil is the UFC’s model country, a place with a tradition of martial arts and local heroes, none of them bigger than Anderson Silva, one of whose fights drew 32 million local viewers. The UFC has put on four live events in Brazil since 2011. It also went back to its American playbook–launching a Brazilian version of The Ultimate Fighter, which was a smash hit, generating the same level of social media buzz as Brazil’s 2010 presidential elections. MMA is now challenging to be the No. 2 sport in this soccer-crazy country.”

Source: Fast Company
Published: Nov 19, 2012
Length: 18 minutes (4,613 words)

An excerpt from Kriegel’s new book, on the fatal fight between Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini and Duk-koo Kim, and 30 years later, how it changed both families: 

In early November, Young-mi found herself on a second-floor balcony at Incheon International Airport. In observing that ancient Asian prohibition against fighters taking lovers, she could not be seen with Duk-koo’s modest entourage, or by the gaggle of reporters following them as they boarded their flight to the United States for the Mancini fight. Her fiancé had made news with intemperate remarks that he would beat Mancini, that only one of them would return home alive.

‘Either he dies,’ Duk-koo said, ‘or I die.’

And now Young-mi was forced to watch without saying goodbye. She could not so much as wave. Even as tears streamed down her face, the dance had begun, the ballet of blood and light in her tummy. She was pregnant with Duk-koo’s son.

“A Step Back.” — Mark Kriegel, New York Times

More on boxing

Quanitta Underwood and her sister suffered years of sexual abuse from their father. She’s now an Olympic contender in boxing, and a public voice for other survivors:

Underwood, of course, covets a gold medal and the fame that would come with it. “I want to take that ride,” she says. “I want to be a household name.”

But beyond that, she wants to be a symbol of hope to anyone who has ever been sexually abused, though to do so requires something harder for her than a thousand hours of hitting the heavy bag. She has to talk about what happened.

“Quanitta Underwood: A Contender for Olympic Gold and a Survivor.” — Barry Bearak, New York Times

The Living Nightmare

Longreads Pick

Quanitta Underwood suffered years of sexual abuse by her father. She’s now an Olympic contender in boxing, and a public voice for other survivors:

“Underwood, of course, covets a gold medal and the fame that would come with it. ‘I want to take that ride,’ she says. ‘I want to be a household name.’

“But beyond that, she wants to be a symbol of hope to anyone who has ever been sexually abused, though to do so requires something harder for her than a thousand hours of hitting the heavy bag. She has to talk about what happened.”

Published: Feb 13, 2012
Length: 17 minutes (4,383 words)

[Three-part travelogue on Muay Thai boxing camp.]

In January of 2010, Neil Chamberlain left Brooklyn for a three-month tour of Muay Thai boxing camps in Thailand. While abroad he kept an online chronicle of his experiences that was followed voraciously by his family and friends. Neil returned from Thailand in early April; less than two weeks later he was dead at age twenty-eight, killed by a hit-and-run driver. In light of the brute intensities he’d so recently and lovingly chronicled, the cruel and sudden randomness of his passing was impossible to comprehend. Like many others close to him I’ve re-read this often since his accident, missing my friend, lusting after his sentences, wishing desperately that I could read even one more.

“Fighting + Otherwise.” —Neil Chamberlain, The Classical

See more boxing #longreads

Fighting + Otherwise

Longreads Pick

Three-part travelogue on Muay Thai boxing camp. “In January of 2010, Neil Chamberlain left Brooklyn for a three-month tour of Muay Thai boxing camps in Thailand. While abroad he kept an online chronicle of his experiences that was followed voraciously by his family and friends. Neil returned from Thailand in early April; less than two weeks later he was dead at age twenty-eight, killed by a hit-and-run driver. In light of the brute intensities he’d so recently and lovingly chronicled, the cruel and sudden randomness of his passing was impossible to comprehend. Like many others close to him I’ve re-read this often since his accident, missing my friend, lusting after his sentences, wishing desperately that I could read even one more.”

Source: The Classical
Published: Dec 7, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,224 words)

Writer David Hill: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011

David Hill writes Fading the Vig for McSweeney’s, writes about basketball for Negative Dunkalectics, writes sketch comedy for The Charlies, and starting next month will write a monthly column for Grantland. He is on Twitter at @davehill77.

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“Too Much Information,” John Jeremiah Sullivan, GQ

John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote many notable things in 2011. I chose to highlight this review of The Pale King for two reasons. First because everyone else has recommended the Disneyland story and the story about his house. Second because it is actually a nice bit of writing and it is fascinating in the way that it hits home how much David Foster Wallace has left an impact on a generation of writers, John Jeremiah Sullivan included. An impact that I think is perhaps both good and bad, but one that the jury will likely be out on for a long time. 

“The Garden of Good and Evil,” Katie Baker, Grantland

I have no idea if it is possible to love this piece as much as I do if you don’t love the Knicks. I mean really love the Knicks, as in cried after Game 5 of the 1999 NBA Finals love the Knicks. What I do know is that Katie Baker loves the Knicks the way I love the Knicks and this post mortem on this past season was, in my mind, a fitting and touching tribute to the team I invested far too much emotional energy and actual time this year. 

“The Art of the Body Shot,” Chris Jones, Grantland

Chris Jones is the best writer in the game right now hands down. Anything he writes is worthy of a list like this. This particular piece, however, is worth your time even if you aren’t much of a boxing fan. I read a lot of boxing writing this year—a lot. This was the single standout piece of writing on boxing I read all year. It made me feel like maybe boxing has life in it still yet, and if so perhaps writers like Chris Jones have more time to carry on a tradition of beautiful boxing prose that was handed to them by writers like James Baldwin and Norman Mailer. If so I have no doubt that Chris Jones won’t let them down.  

“In the Wake of Protest: One Woman’s Attempt to Unionize Amazon,” Vanessa Veselka, The Atlantic

I can tell you from first-hand experience as a union organizer that this piece accurately captures the utter hopelessness, intense fear, and emotional overload that workers who try to organize unions in America today must deal with. This story was heartbreaking but also righteous and in the end I feel like she arrives at exactly the right conclusions. It isn’t just about how a generation of workers who are self-absorbed and overly concerned about their self expression are an obstacle to class consciousness. It also makes the point that whether companies like Amazon are anti-union or not is irrelevant. Companies like Amazon that fight unions do so because they are essentially anti-worker and for me at least there is no nuance or complexity to it, it is just that simple.  

“Manhattan in Middle Age,” Elizabeth Gumport, This Recording

I discovered Elizabeth Gumport’s writing this year through a mutual friend and since have read everything she has written. She’s a wonderfully talented writer and thinker who I hope to see even more from in 2012. In this piece she looks at the life of Dawn Powell in New York City and talks about growing old in a city surrounded by the young. It is a subject I’ve thought about and talked about a lot this year as I adjust to my life as a father and try to walk in two worlds at once—that of my youth and that of my future—all the while knowing that eventually I will have to step completely over into one at the expense of the other. 

BONUS TRACK

“The Day Never Ended,” Everyone, Free Darko

Not really a longread but worth noting on this list of the best of 2011. This was the last post on Free Darko, a never-ending parade of goodbyes and thank yous and memories and glass-raising praise for the blog that was the inspiration for so many good things and the grandfather of so many great things yet to come. How we write, how we write about sports, how we think about sports, the way we write and communicate and build community on the Internet—for myself and I’d guess many other people Free Darko made a singular transformational impact. 

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