Hangin' Tough
Boxing Fan, Big-Fight Analyst, Tactician & Historian
Hangin’ Tough is a knowledgeable essay collection that analyzes some of the biggest questions about boxing with aplomb.
Jawed Akrim’s insightful essay collection Hangin’ Tough covers boxing world debates and discussions with humor.
The book answers questions about boxing, and boxers, that were first posed by strangers on the question-and-answer website Quora: What made Mike Tyson so dominant? How would Rocky Balboa fare against real-life boxers? How do Rocky’s opponents rank? Who was the hardest-hitting boxer, and who was the most fearless fighter? Its analyses are thorough, even when its impetuses are hypothetical (as with questions of how fights between boxers of different eras would have turned out), and it progresses according to a thematic arrangement.
In the end, though, the questions are mere jumping-off points for the collection, which delights in tackling a wide variety of boxing-related matters, from the basics of the sport (like ring IQs) to heated fan debates. Its language is direct and supported by data, anecdotes, and testimonials of varying persuasive power. Bullet points are used to explicate the reasoning behind the answers too, lending credence to some of its speculative claims, such as that Mike Tyson would be likely to defeat Muhammad Ali in a street fight. Still, this is a text whose takeaways are too often based in opinion, even when they strive to sound more based in scholarship than they are hot takes; the fervency of its convictions is clear throughout.
Though most of the essays center on boxing, there’s also some coverage of mixed martial arts, steroids, and other subjects. The book loses its way by indulging in tertiary what-ifs, as when it questions what would have happened if Bruce Lee and Arnold Schwarzenegger had fought. Its humor holds interest through such discursions, though, as when it describes Earnie Shavers as a “notoriously concussive puncher” and “the one historical boxer I would back to KO a horse, let alone another pro boxer.”
Lively expressions of incredulity help to personalize the essays too, as when Akrim marvels that that Ivan Drago’s punching power in Rocky IV was 2,000 PSI, which “inevitably means he ruptures his fist and has one broken hand.” In comparison, the book’s last chapter is lackluster, covering punches, combos, and special moves without a true sense of finality. It ends with a random question about Donovan “Razor” Ruddock’s smash punch to feed public curiosity about boxing, but this feels cursory.
Hangin’ Tough is a knowledgeable essay collection that analyzes some of the biggest questions about boxing with aplomb.
Reviewed by
Joseph S. Pete
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
