Origin stories of Mike Tyson, Marvin Hagler, the nWO, and Steve Prefontaine
Boxing, running, and wrestling this week
A mix of books this week with four recent releases covering the early years of Mike Tyson and Marvin Hagler, Steve Prefontaine’s short remarkable life, and pro-wrestling’s Monday Night wars.
Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson by Mark Kriegel
I’ve read a lot about Tyson. And watched a lot about Tyson. I wasn’t exactly looking for another Tyson book. However, any book by Mark Kriegel, author of bios on Namath, Pete Maravich, and Ray Mancini, is an absolute must-read. So this jumped to the top of my to-read pile.
Kriegel is fascinated by the path needed for a fighter to escape the troubled upbringing that Tyson endured. He also sought to examine how Tyson, with his very public flaws, could become a cultural phenomenon in an age when boxing’s status was declining. Examining those two questions and building on his extensive connections in the boxing world, Kriegel has produced a wonderful, compelling, deeply researched account of Tyson's early life and career.
Baddest Man explores how Tyson was formed both as a person and as a character in the public imagination. It questions the simplistic ‘Cus D’Amato as saviour’ narrative that has become the central part of Tyson’s origin story by taking a clear eyed look at the motives of everyone around Tyson in the early days of his career.
It also captures the mystique and fascination that surrounded Tyson, driven by his promoters’ canny tactics of sharing videos of his fights far and wide as well as the compelling nature of Tyson’s in ring power. Kriegel ultimately presents Tyson as a young man in search of parental guidance, eager to find stability he never had, driven to be successful in the ring, but all too often unable to control his impulses on the rare occasions they weren’t indulged by others.
An absolute must read.
🥊Blood & Hate: The Untold Story of Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s Battle for Glory by Dave Wedge
Regular readers will know that I am a huge fan of Hamilcar Publication’s boxing books. Their latest offering is Blood & Hate, a bio of Marvelous Marvin Hagler (yes he changed his legal name to Marvelous Marvin) covering the years up until he became world champion. I’ve read a lot of books on boxing’s Four Kings era but Hagler’s origin story is usually just a small part with the focus on his fights with Hearns, Leonard, and Duran.
Wedge does a great job of telling Hagler’s difficult upbringing and his eventual move to Brockton. Hagler’s story is one of triumph against the odds but its also a story about relationships and the importance of finding the right guidance as you mature. Hagler was lucky to train with the Petrelli brothers who both helped nurture his talent and treat him with decency and fairness (it makes a fascinating comparison with D’Amato and King when reading this just after Baddest Man). Hagler repaid them by declining opportunities to jump to Don King’s stable even though it made it much harder to secure a title shot.
The book also captures the world of boxing as it was at the time as Don King and Bob Arum rose to power. Wedge manages to cover a range of angles, from Rocky Marciano’s celebrity and death to Alan Minter’s far right connections, all in service of the Hagler’s story. It’s the book that Hagler’s talent and achievement deserves.
🏃♂️The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine by Brendan O'Meara
Fifty years after his death, Steve Prefontaine remains an iconic figure in US running. The early face of Nike and the US running boom, the combination of intense charisma, an aggressive running style and a willingness to speak his mind saw Pre become an iconic figure by the time he turned 20. His tragic death in a car accident at just 24 left this legacy fixed as the rebellious and compelling star who shined brighter than any US distance runner has since.
In recent years, a number of documentaries have brought his story back into public consciousness reigniting interest in the legend of Pre. The Front Runner seeks to retell Pre’s story with a focus on the man rather than the myth focusing on his running and the mental strength that propelled him to the Olympics. O’Meara does a great job in showing the human side of Pre - the challenges, the frustrations, the doubt as well as the triumphs and celebrations.
The Front Runner is a pretty comprehensive bio of Pre the athlete. The only gap is, after pulling no punches on the difficulties of his early years, his personal relationships with his family members and girlfriends are left largely unexplored. Nonetheless, this is a comprehensive account of Pre as both an athlete and an icon. It leaves us desperately wondering what could have been had tragedy not struck one rainy evening.
Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Professional Wrestling's New World Order Changed America by Marc Raimondi
I grew up loving WWF. We couldn’t get WCW in Ireland so I missed out on the New World Order storyline that changed pro-wrestling and inspired the WWE attitude era.
Say Hello to the Bad Guys is a fun look back at the Monday night wrestling wars, and the popularity of the nWO and pro-wrestling more generally at the time. Wrestling books can be great fun given the ridiculous lives that most of them live. However typically, books that go beyond an individual wrestler’s life can really struggle to avoid becoming simply a recap of tv storylines. This is a big challenge in this book as there was a constant blending of fact and fiction deliberately to keep fans engaged. Raimondi however has done a great job to keep his eye on the broader story.
Say Hello to the Bad Guys definitely captures the energy and popularity that wrestling had at the time. It’s an origin story of how the sport took a new shift into a grittier product that was started by Eric Bischoff at WCW before ultimately being perfected by Vince McMahon. It’s nostalgic in the right way.
