'Few Americans today can name more than one or two current boxers, but boxing once stood at the center of American life. It has become a ghost sport, long discredited but still hovering in the nation’s consciousness, refusing to go away and be silent entirely. But there was a time when things were very different. Boxing's history winds a thread through the broader history of the nation.'
posted by zarq on Sep 14, 2011 - 95 comments

"When the eminent French poet Jean Cocteau died last October at the age of 74, his obituaries noted that he had followed an astounding number of part-time careers as well—novelist, playwright, choreographer, film director, critic and artist. But Cocteau's journalistic biographers overlooked the most bizarre of his avocations: he was once the successful manager of a world champion prizefighter." - Sports Illustrated, March 2, 1964 [more inside]
posted by brundlefly on Jul 22, 2010 - 15 comments

Stanley Kubrick's "lost" first movie, Day of The Fight, has apparently been found. Assuming it's real, this 16-minute 1951 reel is the director's debut. Sadly, unless you're a fight fan, that's about all it has to recommend it.
posted by The Bellman on Jun 29, 2006 - 16 comments

Muhammad O' Ali. Geneologists have uncovered his Irish roots. His great grandfather was an Irish emigree who married an African American woman in Kentucky.
posted by Lanternjmk on Feb 8, 2002 - 12 comments