Muhammad Ali in Ireland and trying to manage Mitch 'Blood' Green
🥊Two great boxing books reviewed - All Sports Books #4 of 2025
When I published the list of sports books coming in 2025, it was clear that this would be the year of great boxing books. I’ll be reviewing Don McRae’s upcoming final boxing book next edition (as part of a wider post on his four boxing books).
I also had a short piece of boxing writing published myself recently which you can check out in Issue 5 of The Spit Bucket.
This time I look at a re-issued and updated classic Irish sports book and another gem from boxing specialists Hamilcar Publications.
The Big Fight: When Ali Conquered Ireland by Dave Hannigan
For nearly 20 years, Dave Hannigan has been Ireland’s sportswriter in residence in the United States. First with the Sunday Tribune through to his ongoing America at Large column in the Irish Times, Hannigan’s articles are a must read for Irish sports fans. Hannigan was also among the first Irish journalists to call out Conor McGregor’s antics while he was at the height of his fame.
Originally published in 2002, The Big Fight, chronicles a week that Muhammad Ali spent in Dublin and his fight with fight Al “Blue” Lewis in Croke Park in July 1972. In this update and republished version, Hannigan tells the story of Ali in Ireland through the experiences of those who saw, met and interacted with him in Dublin.
At the time, Ali was on the comeback trail following his first fight, and loss, to Joe Frazier. Given his long layoff while he refused to be drafted into the U.S. Army, it was unclear whether Ali would ever be the same fighter he once was. He was still just 30 years of age however and it would turn out that his biggest days remained ahead of him. He was, and would remain for a long time, the single biggest and best-known figure in world sport.
Ali’s magic and charisma mixed quite well with Ireland and our appreciation for any rebel genius. It is hard to imagine any figure capturing quite the same attention and affection that Ali did – perhaps only the reception achieved years later by another famous African-American with distant Irish heritage, Barack Obama, compares.
Some of the characters and anecdotes are quintessentially Irish – thousands jumping the wall at the stadium to get into the fight free, old ladies inviting Ali in for cups of tea and the sheer excitement of a global celebrity being in little ole Dublin. Ali took great delight in being invited to meet the Taoiseach, noting that Western countries usually didn’t invite him to meet the political leader.
This book is a joyous, uplifting and entertaining read. It is full of fun and brilliant anecdotes that capture the people, the time and the place. It’s surreal to imagine the most famous black man in the world walking through Dublin at a time when any scale of immigration was in the very distant future. Hannigan captures a clear sense of a particular time in Dublin with the Troubles never far from anyone’s mind.
Those who spoke to Hannigan clearly cherished the memories of their interactions with Ali. In particular, the book will make you want to seek out Paddy Monaghan’s own book – a London-born Irishman adopted into Ali’s entourage like so many other strays. Hannigan also tells the fascinating stories of the promoters, Harold Conrod and Butty Sugrue, and Ali’s opponent in the fight, the reformed Al “Blue” Lewis whose own life story is fascinating.
There are some interesting thoughts on what impact Ireland may have had on Ali – did the love of an almost entirely white country help Ali to see that not all whites were “devils”? Ali was clearly interested in the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the idea of the Irish as an oppressed people. It couldn’t have hurt at least!
The Big Fight is part of a trilogy of Ali books from Hannigan. In Drama in the Bahamas (2016) he revisits Ali’s final fight. This is a grimmer, less joyful, tale that captures a fighter unable to say goodbye to the fame and adulation. Hannigan’s later Ali book Fifteen Rounds in the Wilderness documents Ali’s public life during the period between the end of his boxing career and the moment in Atlanta when, fragile and shaking, he lit the Olympic flame reminding the world of his incomparable courage. It’s a powerful, fascinating, funny and heartbreaking book.
The Legend of Mitch "Blood" Green and Other Boxing Essays (out on March 25) by Charles Farrell
“Mitch ‘Blood’ Green is a semi-mythical figure in boxing. The first man to last 12 rounds against a young Mike Tyson, Green’s reputation grew bigger than his ring achievements. For a brief period, Charles Farrell managed him - despite the warnings of basically everybody - and learned first hand how the greatest barrier to achieving success was Green himself. As frustrating as he is fascinating, Green is a unique character and the title essay leaves you intrigued, destined to watch as much of Green as you can find on YouTube, and relieved you don’t have to try and deal with him in or out of the ring!
This collection of essays on Green, Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor and more is yet another piece great boxing writing from Hamilcar Publications. Charles Farrell is that rare insider who can write as beautifully about the ugly side of sport as he can about boxing itself. No-nonsense honesty combined with wonderful turns of phrase.
Farrell’s writing style has echoes of Rendall’s masterpiece This Bloody Mary Is The Last Thing I Own in the quality of storytelling and the melancholy reflection (in the first essay at least) on the author’s own time in boxing.
A former fixer of boxing matches, one could be forgiven for asking whether Farrell is a reliable narrator as he throws out allegations seemingly at random about which huge fights were fixed. Regardless, of whether he’s on the level about everything, I found the boxing analysis fascinating (especially on Mayweather), the character reflections entertaining and the book overall a joy to read.