The Sweet Science - A. J. Liebling [6]
All the Heroic transactions recorded within this book thus occurred within the four-and-a-fraction years, June, 1951— September, 1955, and they have a kind of porous unity, like the bound volumes of Boxiana Egan used to get out whenever he figured he had enough magazine pieces about the ring of his day to fill a book. There is as main theme the rise of Marciano, and the falls of everybody who fought him, and there are subplots, like the comeback of Sugar Ray after his downfall before Turpin, and his re-downfall before Maxim, but not his current re-comeback. There is some discussion of the television matter, and there are exploits of minor Heroes like Sandy Saddler, the featherweight champion, and a lot of boys you never heard of. The characters who hold the book, and the whole fabric of the Sweet Science together, are the trainer-seconds, as in Egan’s day.
Egan, to whom I refer so often in this volume, was the greatest writer about the ring who ever lived. Hazlitt was a dilettante who wrote one fight story. Egan was born probably in 1772, and died, certainly, in 1849. He belonged to London, and no man has ever presented a more enthusiastic picture of all aspects of its life except the genteel. He was a hack journalist, a song writer, a conductor of puff-sheets and, I am inclined to suspect, a shakedown man. His work affords internal evidence that he was self-educated; if he wasn’t he had certainly found a funny schoolmaster. In 1812 he got out the first paperbound installment of Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism; from the days of Broughton and Slack to the Heroes of the Present Milling Aera. For years before that he had been writing about boxing for a sporting magazine called the Weekly Despatch. The unparalleled interest in the Sweet Science aroused by the two fights between Tom Cribb, the Champion, and Tom Molineaux, an American Negro, in 1811, inspired Egan to launch a monthly publication confined to milling.
He covered the historical portion of his self-assigned program in his first few numbers, and after that Boxiana became a running chronicle of the Contemporary Milling Aera. As the man with the laurel concession, he became a great figure in the making of matches, the holding of stakes, the decision of disputes, the promotion of banquets, and all the other perquisites of eminence.
“In his particular line, he was the greatest man in England,” a memorialist wrote of him long after his death. “In the event of opposition to his views and opinions, he and those who looked up to him had a mode of enforcing authority which had the efficacy without the tediousness of discussion, and ‘though,’ says one who knew him, ‘in personal strength far from a match for any sturdy opponent, he had a courage and vivacity in action which were very highly estimated both by his friends and foes.’ …
“His peculiar phraseology, and his superior knowledge of the business, soon rendered him eminent beyond all rivalry and competition. He was flattered and petted by pugilists and peers: his patronage and countenance were sought for by all who considered the road to a prizefight the road to reputation and honor. Sixty years ago [that would have been 1809}, his presence was understood to convey respectability on any meeting convened for the furtherance of bull-baiting, cock-fighting, cudgelling, wrestling, boxing, and all that comes within the category of ‘manly sports.’ If he ‘took the chair,’ success was held as certain in the object in question. On the occasions of his presence he was accompanied by a ‘tail,’ if not as numerous, perhaps