Donald McRae - All Punched Out
‘Boxing has a perverse way of turning every significant bout I see into something deeply personal. It is as crooked and as destructive as it is magnificent and transformative. While watching boxers risk their lives, I fall for the gory drama once more…’ A passage from The Last Bell: Life, Death and Boxing, by the renowned sportswriter, Donald McRae, who joins us today. Donald is the author of five boxing books, each one more magnificent than the last, but his latest one is set to be the final chapter in a 50-year affair with the sport. I didn’t just say ‘love’ there, because sometimes it’s so much more complicated than that, but it’s certainly a consuming passion. There are still compelling characters within the sport, Rocky stories everywhere when you go looking for them, but it’s also a business beset by problems – from doping to gangsterism, the free press being replaced with yes-men with cameras and the migration from broadcast networks to subscription-only digital stations. We’re also grappling with a future where influencers, on one side, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on the other, hold sway. I’ve no doubt listeners to this show will be more than familiar with the book before this one, In Sunshine or In Shadow, the surreal story of how boxing gave people hope during the darkest days of the Troubles. And we’re delighted to present a conversation with Donald that touches on the fighters who inspired him after a sustained period of grief, covering Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Katie Taylor, Isaac Chamberlain and the rise of Andy Lee as a boxing trainer along with covering the growing Saudi influence and the human rights stories adjacent, MTK, doping and influencer boxing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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