Facing Ali: 15 Fighters 15 Stories

I’m not what you would call a boxing fan. As a matter of fact, I can’t tell you the last boxing match I watched. I don’t know who the current heavy weight champion is or if once, big name boxers like Oscar De La Hoya and Lennox Lewis still fight.

But there is something I enjoy immensely about old time boxing, a time when battles were fought hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from places like the MGM Grand or Caesars Palace.

I’m talking years before George Foreman started making countertop grills and Iron Mike Tyson started biting off his opponent’s ears.

There is a great nostalgia of the golden age of boxing and it is captured perfectly in “Facing Ali: 15 Fighters 15 Stories” by Stephen Brunt.

Everyone knows who Muhammad Ali is and the story behind him. How he was once known as an Olympic gold medalist and young up-and–comer from Louisville, Kentucky, named Cassius Clay who changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam.

This book takes you through an oral history of more than a bakers dozen of some of the best fights of Ali’s career, told through the eyes of the boxers who fought against him.

This unique perspective gave observations and assertions from many of the fighters whose careers were advanced because of their bouts with Ali. It goes beyond the ring and describes what life was like before and after boxers stepped into the ring to fight what many believe is the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.

Some are bittersweet, rags to riches and back to rags stories. Others show how careers can take off after fighting Ali.

Oral history is one of my favorite ways to tell a story and this book does not disappoint. Brunt has mastered the art of storytelling through this genre, which is one of my personal favorites.

Allowing people to tell their unabridged side of the story and see it side-by-side with other people who witnessed the same event is one of the most honest ways of tell a story. No matter what happens, each person can see the same event from a different angle.

It’s amazing to believe how great of a story you can get when the main character of the book never utters a word (no pun intended).

I thought the book was interesting in the fact that it did not cover the Rumble in the Jungle, which to many is one of the greatest boxing matches of all time.

I also liked that the book is not overflowing with statistical information. Instead, Brunt’s visual description painted an extraordinarily vivid picture for the reader.