Pound for Pound : A Biography of Sugar Ray Robinson

Rating:
Summary: Tells the story but lacks the poetry
Review: I'll say it up front that Herb Boyd is a good writer but not a great one and that Walker Smith (aka Sugar Ray Robinson) awaits a writer of the stature of Ralph Ellison or Richard Wright or Langston Hughes or Norman Mailer to put the poetry into the story that is this one. On the other hand, this is the first bio I've read of the man I've admired for the past fifty years. Now that I've discovered he had faults - for a professional boxer to lay a finger on a woman is despicable but Miles Davis did it and, hey, is it forgiveable because he was no pro? - it is like finding out your mother used to spit. Nevertheless, I can't help but see him, faults and all, as one of the all time American greats up there with Miles Davis, Bojangles Robinson, Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King. He was so beautiful, so graceful, so strong such an artist of the boxing craft one feels happy to have lived in the same time as he. He never lost an amateur fight and out 175 professional bouts was beaten 19 times. He had a punch so hard that it knocked Rocky Graziano's mouthpiece into the crowd (p.137) He was so beautiful, no actor alive will be able to play his part. Did his grace come from his feeling for music (drumming) and dancing (he did take some lessons but was naturally good at it)? He was incredibly generous in supporting charities especially those associated with cancer. He was cool enough to own a Pink (PINK I TELL YOU) Pink Cadillac and all of this against a backdrop, and this cannot be ignored, of economic and social racism of the most vicious kind. The joy of the man comes through as does the power and character and beauty of his long time partner Edna May Robinson and the resilience and strength of his mother. Buy the book. In hardcover. And treasure it.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book but a step off
Review: the Book&story was on Point,but the Writer came up a bit short. Sugar Ray Robinson is One of the Greatest fighters ever. you can Name anyone in any Weight class&His Name deserves to be mentioned alongside anyone. alot of Good details&whatnot in the Book but the Writer is missing a beat here that keeps this Book from being Great. still worth reading.