Description:
An odd twist of publishing fate once again has former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes locked with and overshadowed by the presence of Muhammad Ali; David Remnick's superb biography of the Greatest, King of the World, was published at the same time. The image of his former sparring partner--the beloved, quick, and graceful Ali--haunted Holmes throughout his career, which is too bad, because Holmes was a terrifically skilled fighter who could both box and hit. Like so many boxing stories, Holmes's begins on the wrong side of the tracks; he fights himself out and up from there. Straight-ahead, hard-working, cautious at times, and free of attending glitz, Against All Odds mirrors Holmes's style in the ring and out of it. Its strength is its candor. Holmes never could hide his emotions--or his petulance. His autobiography makes clear his respect for Ali, his hatred of Don King, and the angers that raged around his fight with Gerry Cooney. Indeed, rage is a character in itself. "It was the part of me that always scared me a little because I never completely accepted the fact that I had it in me," Holmes writes. Accept it or not, he rode it to the title, and, no small feat, held that title for seven years. --Jeff Silverman
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