Book review: Cushman gives ringside seats to boxing's golden age

Editor's note: Brian Rhodes is an employee at the Southeast Missourian but wrote this review as a representative from the Southeast Missouri State University Press.

The once brilliant luster of professional boxing polished by the likes of Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton has dimmed to a barely noticeable shimmer.

The squared circle's only magical moments in recent memory include a pair of highly anticipated, but underwhelming, Mike Tyson versus Evander Holyfield bouts (including the infamous ear-biting spectacle) and the ill-timed appearance of the "Fan Man" during the Nov. 6, 1993, fight between Holyfield and Riddick Bowe at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Fortunately, acclaimed sportswriter Tom Cushman was ringside for a great era in boxing history and recalls his experiences in "Muhammad Ali and the Greatest Heavyweight Generation," a firsthand history lesson for longtime boxing fans and rookies alike. From the thrilling fights and feuds to the social ramifications of the era, Cushman offers an honest and inside retelling of boxing's last golden age.

In covering boxing for newspapers throughout his career, Cushman went toe-to-toe with a sizable roster of fighters, from the unforgettable like Ali to those lost in mediocrity like Gerry Cooney. Cushman selects a handful of fighters of the era and describes in satisfying detail their often humble (and sometimes criminal) beginnings, their ring prowess (or lack thereof) and their post-pugilist lives. For every champion like George Foreman, who had two successful runs in the ring and parlayed his career as a fighter into a role as spokesman for grills and other products, there were numerous challengers like Ron Stander, who found success on a small scale but whose nose "exploded," according to Cushman, in the third round of a fight with Joe Frazier and left him never quite the same as a fighter. Cushman's recollection of fighters reads like listening to a close friend reminisce about old school chums or teammates, ripe with humorous anecdotes and truths some fighters probably never intended to be shared.

Not so light-hearted, however, are Cushman's criticisms of questionable promoters, the influence of Philadelphia mobsters in the 1950s and '60s, and "the ingrained corruption and manipulation to which boxers historically have been subjected." The author recalls Sonny Liston's second fight with Ali, in which Liston was felled by a suspiciously harmless blow, as well as a potentially fixed decision at the conclusion of a Tyrone Everett-Alfredo Escalara bout.

While Cushman cannot claim to know exactly what happened, he pulls no punches in expressing his belief that something was amiss in both circumstances and how boxing was tarnished by such corruption.

Tom Cushman's "Muhammad Ali and the Greatest Heavyweight Generation" is essential reading for boxing fans young and old, whether to relive a bygone era or to meet some of history's most legendary fighters for the first time. Cushman invokes a knowledge and passion for the sport that brings the last golden age of boxing out of retirement for one more round.

This book review was submitted by the Southeast Missouri State University Press, a small-press publishing house at Southeast. Book reviews from students and workers from the press will occasionally be published in SE Live.