Sporting Blood: Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing: Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing

This is powerful writing. Enjoy it."―Thomas Hauser, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee

“Carlos Acevedo is the most original, perceptive, and best new writer in boxing. Sporting Blood is a vivid and gripping collection.”―Donald McRae, writer for The Guardian and author of Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing

Boxing’s literary tradition is perhaps the richest in sports. From A. J. Liebling to Donald McRae, the sweet science has consistently inspired great sportswriting. The work of Carlos Acevedo stands firmly in that honored tradition.

The essays that make up Sporting Blood include Acevedo’s moving meditation on Muhammad Ali; his penetrating look at Ali’s fearsome rival, the enigmatic heavyweight Charles “Sonny” Liston; and his profile of Mike Tyson, which brilliantly conjures the Boy King’s late 1980s reign of terror. Acevedo offers many other unforgettable tales from boxing’s dark side, featuring Jack Johnson, Joe Frazier, Roberto Duran, Aaron Pryor, Johnny Tapia, Evander Holyfield, Jake LaMotta, and more.

Sporting Blood is ultimately a poetic throwback, an uncanny book that evokes journalism’s golden age and places Acevedo not only among the best sportswriters of this generation, but of any other as well.