Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Jonathan Rendall's troubled love affair with boxing, his ultimate disenchantment, centres on an association with Colin McMillan who held a version of the world featherweight championship and was, briefly, a cult figure.
If the experience provided Rendall with rare insights, it short-circuited an introduction to the ambivalence that came gradually to some of us who were drawn instinctively to the sport nobody should ever think of as a game.
The romantic notion Rendall had about boxing, first as an expatriate schoolboy in Greece and later when at Oxford University, would be dispelled by exposure to the harsh realities of what the famed American referee, Mills Lane called, "a business that just happens to get on the sports pages."
A fascination with the extraordinary Whitechapel lightweight Jack "Kid" Berg, who spent five years fighting in the United States and was recognised there as the junior welterweight champion, provides Rendall's book with some of its most compelling passages. This is especially true of a search for the great Cuban fighter, Kid Chocolate, who was unbeaten in 162 professional contests when Berg beat him in 1930 at the Polo Grounds in Harlem.
Refusing to acknowledge the passing of time, or as Rendall writes, "under the sincere impression that his boxing and New York days had only just ended," Berg's return to Harlem in his 80th year is poignant.
I was not alone in the opinion that it was loose thinking on Rendall's part to suppose that he could act as McMillan's advisor while continuing as a boxing writer. It led inevitably to conflicts, and Rendall's somewhat melodramatic belief that he was in danger of being beaten up.
When putting that suspicion forward, Rendall gives himself away. A succession of bleak images, the personalising of his despair, indicate a thwarted urge to fictionalise his experiences. As anybody who goes down that road risks unfavourable comparison with Leonard Gardner's classic Fat City and W C Heinz's highly regarded The Professional, if a boxing novel was Rendall's original intention he was wise to back off.
In any case, the book doesn't suffer from the constraints of documented evidence. Known facts about Berg, Kid Chocolate, McMillan and the other figures Rendall encounters add to rather than detract from their presence.
Maybe Rendall had good reason to fear for his life when attempting to expose a shady small-time American promoter, but you have to suspect that the threat only existed in his lively imagination.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments