45. 10 Songs about Boxing

Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J
The Boxer - Simon and Garfunkel
Sonny Could Lick All Them Cats - Chuck E Weiss
Who Killed Davey Moore or Hurricane - Bob Dylan
Rumble in the Jungle - The Fugees
Ali in the Jungle - The Hours
Y'all must have Forgot - Roy Jones Jr
Walk Like a Champion - Kaliphz ft Prince Naseem
Da Mystery of Chessboxin' - Wu-Tang Clan
So You Wanna be a Boxer - Bugsy Malone soundtrack

Didn't even have to include Eye of the Tiger, which seems a shame really. Or the original theme from Rocky, which I do actually love.
First, a bone to pick - the song Ali in the Jungle by The Hours is a decent epic indie stormer, but it's lyrics are silly posturing bollocks. It goes

Everybody gets knocked down
How quick are you going to get up?
Like Ali in the Jungle ...

well, that's defeating the point of the song for starters, for as any fule know, Muhammad Ali was at no point sent to the canvas in his 1974 fight with George Foreman. Furthermore, while, admittedly it was a comeback of sorts and he was probably behind on points at the time of his superb stoppage of Foreman, the mythologised version of the fight that he was battered for 8 rounds, employing the rope-a-dope before suddenly turning it around out of nowhere, doesn't tell the whole story. If you watch the whole thing through, not only do you see that the first few rounds are pretty even and that even after that that Ali was regularly breaking his shackles and worrying Foreman, you also see that the ringside commentators had cottoned on to Ali's plan and it was no big shock to them when it came off. Sport and Myth - it's a bugbear of mine. Sport is Sport -it's real, it doesn't need phony storytellers getting hold of it.
Another egregious example in the above song is the continuation of the chorus

Like Ali in the Jungle
Like Nelson in jail
Like Simpson on the mountain

Hold on a second! You're equating, as a triumph against adversity, a man who came out of jail to lead his country and have a long, prosperous old age to Tommy Simpson, a British cyclist who, on said mountain, died with his body pumped with drugs. Where's the triumph? Where's the vindication? Just bad facts, bad songwriting.
Not a bad song apart from that though.
Another load of bullshit? Hurricane. The film. Made-up, manipulative shite, as, quite possibly, is the whole story. It's a brilliantly written Dylan song, of course, which does more in 8 minutes than the film did in 2 hours, but it plays pretty fast and loose with the truth itself, to the extent he was almost sued by several parties. A cursory investigation of the real story makes the whole thing seem pretty unpalatable.
Anyone still reading after that rant?

I love boxing, unhealthily, I watch it as much as I can, on TV, on youtube, the new, the old, British, American, I've seen plenty of boring fights and a few stunners. It's clearly a grim business with a farcical Championship system, a flawed judging system, lots of hanger-ons and nefarious types, but in the ring, it really does have a purity and fairness rarely matched in other sports
I thought I'd best get this in before Amir Khan's WBA title fight on Saturday. Although Khan is a crossover star, he appears to be highly disliked among British "real fight fans" , which i think is jealous nasty bullshit, but there's a lot of folk gagging for him to be taken dowm a peg or two. I think he's an exciting, potentially brilliant fighter, so i really hope Saturday comes good for him. I've watched nearly all his fights, but the one that really got me back into boxing was Joe Calzaghe, a man who seemed in control practically every second he fought, who could take it easy against bad opponents but then really showed his heart and brain against top quality opponents. Also, I love Calzaghe cos he was impressively unripped - though probably the best athlete in boxing, his biceps, pecs etc were pretty standard, pretty unbulging, yet he would batter these sculpted adonises. His success was built on speed, stamina, brain and bravery.
Ali is the go-to icon for casual fans of boxing, of course, which is fair enough in a way, but other greats whose often sad stories have interested me more are Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Sonny Liston, Tommy Hearns, Gerald McClellan, Jake La Motta (his autobiography, the base for the movie, is a stunning piece of work) James Toney, Sugar Ray Leonard, Eubank, Cotto, Roy Jones himself, who is dazzling, dazzling on youtube.

Along with songs, here's a list of fine boxing books

War, Baby - Kevin Mitchell
Dark Trade - Donald McRae
Night Train - Nick Tosches
King of the World - David Remnick
In Black and White - Donald McRae
Raging Bull - Jake LaMotta
Unforgivable Blackness -Geoffrey C Ward

I'm sure there are plenty more. Thing is, I haven't read as much about boxing as cricket, not yet.

Here's a couple of things, not very good, I'm afraid; one tries to just capture the visceral thrill of watching boxing, one is about the sad trajectory of a usual boxing career. It tends to go up, then down, and usually that's it. It's rarely given the chance to go up then down then up again. Brutal game.

UGLY BUSINESSES
Here is my heart - it beats for you
like a fucking train, fast as your flashing fists
pummelling and crushing a skull hardened
by an ugly life on the edge,
joining
me to the hating, leering faces
baying for gypsy blood
and old knees to give way.

Here is my corrupt heart
finding its level in the cold certainly
of the KO

I wrote it over the course of one round, as you can probably tell

This one is
24-6-1, FORMER COMMONWEALTH TITLE CHALLENGER
It took half an hour to tape up my hands
and they don't snap back the bag like before
when I was the one they were buzzing about,
telling me Don King had sent his best man.
No one gives a fuck about Don King these days
and my dressing room is half a squash court.

This kid's twelve and one, he lost last but one
and I'm a step back the road to a title.
"i'll be the one to get back on the ladder"
I lie to the one paper which cares to ask.
Nothing special, he'll deal with me tonight
and they'll tell him Oscar's been on the phone.