Wednesday 26 November 2014

Boxiana Vol. 1: Try before you buy!

Boxiana Volume 1- cover illustration by Trevor Von Eeden

Boxiana: Volume 1 is available NOW through Troubador PublishingAmazon in the UKAmazon in the USA and all good traditional and online booksellers.

However you can gain a flavour of each chapter of the book beforehand by clicking on the links below to access the openings of all 12 chapters of Boxiana: Volume 1. Links to some exclusive online extras connected with the book are also listed below.

Hopefully you will like what you read and be persuaded to buy the paperback or ebook version!


Meet some of our contributors:

Boxiana: Volume 1 is available NOW through Troubador PublishingAmazon in the UKAmazon in the USA and all good traditional and online booksellers.

FURTHER INFORMATION:
An anthology of new boxing writing Boxiana: Volume 1 is available in both paperback book and eBook formats. Boxiana editor Luke G. Williams said: “In a world dominated by 140 character limits and the 24-hour news cycle, brevity and superficiality have become de rigueur. Boxiana takes a different approach; by using long-form journalism to take an in-depth look at boxing’s past, present and future, we are hoping that Boxiana will become a vital new voice in sports writing.”

In Volume 1:
Trevor Von Eeden, author of graphic novel The Original Johnson, analyses the significance of Jack Johnson; Mario Mungia tries his hand at amateur boxing; Ben Williams uncovers his grandfather’s bare-knuckle career; James Hernandez catches up with Jon Thaxton; Matthew Ogborn ponders boxers and retirement; rising light heavyweight Chris Hobbs recounts his life in the military and the ring; Rowland Stone recalls a heady night in 1992; Corey Quincy attempts to solve the Wladimir Klitschko conundrum and Luke G. Williams examines the meteoric rise of Deontay Wilder and the under-rated career of Chris Byrd.

Enquiries / review copies: +44 7958 319765 / lgw007@yahoo.com

Boxiana: Vol. 1 preview: For whom the bell tolls



Boxiana: Volume 1 is available NOW through Troubador PublishingAmazon in the UKAmazon in the USA and all good traditional and online booksellers.

Over the past couple of months, this blog has been featuring a series of exclusive previews of content from Boxiana: Volume 1, which will hopefully whet your appetite and persuade you to buy the full volume, which is available NOW as a paperback book (RRP £9.99) or ebook (RRP £3.99).

Today I'm presenting an extract by Matt Ogborn, in which he looks at the universal questions and dilemmas that all boxers will one day face 
...

Round 11
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
Matthew Ogborn examines what happens when the applause dies away and a boxer faces retirement …

You’re restless. You know there’s only three minutes left. Three poxy minutes to show the world you can go out on your own terms. You’ve worked too hard since you first had the gloves laced up for battle to let the opposite corner send you out arse first on the canvas. You’ve sweated buckets, spilled blood and spat out teeth. Half of you has had enough, the other half’s pleading for more. Will anything replace that electric feeling when the last bell tolls?

It’s a question that every boxer faces and one that has dominated fan conversation since the first boxing trailblazers. Careers tail off, but legacies can often get stronger if a boxer chooses the right path once the referee lifts up their arm for the final time. Undefeated Joe Calzaghe knows more than most the fine line between the slippery slope of retirement or calling time with a proud legacy intact. The Welshman, who left the fight game with his head held high as a pound-for-pound star, once told Boxing Monthly: “There are certain things you have to let go. That’s the difference - the euphoria, the adrenaline, the buzz of it all. There was no feeling like winning a fight, it’s an amazing feeling. There’s a gap when that’s gone. It’s difficult for any sportsman to make a transition.”

Sadly, boxing is littered with stories of fighters who careered down the wrong track after their last fight like an out-of-control train or were led astray by lowdown vultures out to tear every last scrap off them. We've come to expect the worst. For every heart-warming story of life after hanging up the gloves, we get five heartbreaking ones shoved back in our faces. It sells papers. It shifts magazines. It fuels online discussion. It keeps other ex-pros in dosh discussing it on TV. Dig a bit deeper, though, and you'll find there are a great deal more boxers out there we don’t get to hear about who managed to keep it together and often flourished in retirement.

The spotlight is a funny thing. It can make mere mortals feel like they will live forever. It can turn softly spoken gentlemen into fierce animals with teeth bared. On the flip side it sometimes reduces boxers to jelly, their legs dancing to a different tune entirely. Others cower in the corner, afraid to look up, let alone land a punch of note.

One common thread ties all these fighters together - they've lived, eaten, slept and breathed the sport since childhood and they rarely carve out careers outside it once retirement comes around. Some fitted it in around school, some dropped out altogether to learn the craft, while for some it was the last-chance saloon after those crucial formative years entrenched in bad company. Whether fanaticism, boredom or redemption drove these young fighters, this sport has a habit of getting under your skin.

Fighter, trainer, promoter, pundit or fan, it’s like an itch you can’t stop scratching and outsiders wonder why those actually throwing the punches have a hard time adapting to life when the final curtain drops down in front of them. British boxing is packed to the rafters with fighters from all walks of life that thrived, made peace with or struggled on retirement. Go back the last five years, for starters, and the names of Ricky Hatton, David Haye and Audley Harrison have dominated the boxing media landscape in Blighty. Unfortunately for all three, their legacies have been tarnished by their refusal to deal with or accept the possibility of life outside the ring.


THE FULL ARTICLE APPEARS IN BOXIANA: VOLUME 1

MATTHEW OGBORN is a regular Boxing Monthly contributor and veteran all-round sports journalist down the years for ITV, Perform, SLAM, The Sport Collective, Teletext and Sports.com. He grew up hearing tales about East End boxing from his family, which sparked a lifelong love of pugilism that was boosted by the home-grown heroics of McGuigan, Benn and McKenzie along with the silky skills and warrior mentality exhibited by foreign fighters such as Hearns, Gatti, Ward, Barrera, Morales and Trinidad.


FURTHER INFORMATION:
An anthology of new boxing writing Boxiana: Volume 1 is available in both paperback book and eBook formats. Boxiana editor Luke G. Williams said: “In a world dominated by 140 character limits and the 24-hour news cycle, brevity and superficiality have become de rigueur. Boxiana takes a different approach; by using long-form journalism to take an in-depth look at boxing’s past, present and future, we are hoping that Boxiana will become a vital new voice in sports writing.”

In Volume 1:
Trevor Von Eeden, author of graphic novel The Original Johnson, analyses the significance of Jack Johnson; Mario Mungia tries his hand at amateur boxing; Ben Williams uncovers his grandfather’s bare-knuckle career; James Hernandez catches up with Jon Thaxton; Matthew Ogborn ponders boxers and retirement; rising light heavyweight Chris Hobbs recounts his life in the military and the ring; Rowland Stone recalls a heady night in 1992; Corey Quincy attempts to solve the Wladimir Klitschko conundrum and Luke G. Williams examines the meteoric rise of Deontay Wilder and the under-rated career of Chris Byrd.

Enquiries / review copies: +44 7958 319765 / lgw007@yahoo.com




Boxiana Vol. 1 preview: A boxing afterlife



Boxiana: Volume 1 is available NOW through Troubador PublishingAmazon in the UKAmazon in the USA and all good traditional and online booksellers.

Over the past couple of months, this blog has been featuring a series of exclusive previews of content from Boxiana: Volume 1, which will hopefully whet your appetite and persuade you to buy the full volume, which is available NOW as a paperback book (RRP £9.99) or ebook (RRP £3.99).

Today I'm presenting an extract by James Hernandez, in which he speaks to former British and European lightweight champ Jon Thaxton ...

Round 10
A BOXING AFTERLIFE
Former British and European Lightweight champion Jon Thaxton talks to James Hernandez about his career in and outside of the ring …

Saturday April 9 2005. A significant date in the life of Jon Thaxton. It was the night he was crowned champion of the world, albeit for the lightly regarded WBF version, in his home city of Norwich. The locals, many of whom had seen Norwich City famously beat Manchester United 2-0 that afternoon at Carrow Road, packed out the Norwich Sports Village to see their gladiator make it a memorable sporting double for Norfolk.

With steel-like intensity there would be no stopping Thaxton that night. In just one glance you could see a man so focused, so motivated he had the fight won before the opening bell had sounded. Sitting ringside I could smell the blood of his opponent, Christophe De Busillet, with a distinct metal taste in my mouth as ‘Jono’ threw punch after punch, like relentless North Sea waves pounding against the cliff-tops of Dunkirk.

Every punch was finely executed and detonating on their intended target to perfection. The Norwich boxing fraternity got what they had come for, as they witnessed their local hero make light work of an increasingly sorry-looking Frenchman to win inside four rounds. Jubilant scenes ensued for the triumphant Thaxton and pity for the challenger who returned home to his native shores a beaten soldier.  

Fast forward some eight years later and those same high levels of determination and intensity are still present as I meet up with Jon at Attleborough ABC, 15 miles south west of Norwich. Jon puts in a special appearance for the young hopefuls that hope to follow in the footsteps of Thaxton and make their mark as a professional. His talk is inspiring, engaging and honest as he talks about what it takes to make it: “Hard work and dedication, as there are simply no short cuts to stardom in boxing.”

For 17 years, impressive in itself for such a punishing sport, Norwich’s boxing hero mixed it with the best of them inside the ring. He gave it his all. Blood, sweat and tears were exchanged for the highly coveted Lonsdale belt, which arrived some 14 years after turning professional in 1992. However, there inevitably comes a time when every boxer has had his day - the day when the human body just ceases to perform at its optimum level. It’s every boxer’s worst nightmare; the day they take out the gum shield one last time and call it quits. Many boxers such as Ken Norton and Evander Holyfield can’t let go and carry on way past their best, risking serious injuries for one last payday. Others, like Mike Tyson and Ricky Hatton, through binge drinking and recreational drugs, go off the rails until they find who they are outside of the boxing ring. The day when any successful boxer realises it is over can be one of the most isolated days of a fighter’s life. Once the boxing stops, there is an enormous void to fill.

“That's all they know how and they don't know what else to do,” says Thaxton. “With me, I was very smart as I built a business outside of boxing, through things such as team building, working in schools, motivational workshops. I used my boxing as a tool to get into business.”


THE FULL ARTICLE APPEARS IN BOXIANA: VOLUME 1


JAMES HERNANDEZ became a keen boxing observer while growing up watching the likes of Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank and Naseem Hamed on ITV’s The Big Fight Live. A career in journalism began at his local BBC radio station and has since gone on to cover a wide range of sports and subjects for a variety of outlets. He has covered football from grass roots level to the Premier League and from the world of boxing interviewed amateur boxers all the way through to world champions. James has previously contributed to BoxRec and is a ringside reporter for Boxing News, the world’s oldest fight magazine. You can follow James on Twitter: @BoxingJem


FURTHER INFORMATION:
An anthology of new boxing writing Boxiana: Volume 1 is available in both paperback book and eBook formats. Boxiana editor Luke G. Williams said: “In a world dominated by 140 character limits and the 24-hour news cycle, brevity and superficiality have become de rigueur. Boxiana takes a different approach; by using long-form journalism to take an in-depth look at boxing’s past, present and future, we are hoping that Boxiana will become a vital new voice in sports writing.”

In Volume 1:
Trevor Von Eeden, author of graphic novel The Original Johnson, analyses the significance of Jack Johnson; Mario Mungia tries his hand at amateur boxing; Ben Williams uncovers his grandfather’s bare-knuckle career; James Hernandez catches up with Jon Thaxton; Matthew Ogborn ponders boxers and retirement; rising light heavyweight Chris Hobbs recounts his life in the military and the ring; Rowland Stone recalls a heady night in 1992; Corey Quincy attempts to solve the Wladimir Klitschko conundrum and Luke G. Williams examines the meteoric rise of Deontay Wilder and the under-rated career of Chris Byrd.

Enquiries / review copies: +44 7958 319765 / lgw007@yahoo.com