Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
The media generally portrays professional prizefighters as having lower intelligence due to lack of education and absorbing too many punches to the head.
Having interviewed hundreds of world class boxers and champions for thirty years, I learned this perception to be inaccurate. Despite a lack of college education, many fighters are extremely bright, quick-witted and smarter than given credit for. Bernard Hopkins is one of the sharpest, most intriguing public speakers I’ve ever encountered. Andrew Golota has a lighting quick wit. Mike Tyson is borderline genius on the subjects of boxing and even tennis. Muhammad Ali was not only a great fighter but also an entertainer with infinite personality who could go on a live TV show, make an audience laugh and then recite one of his own poems a minute long, without skipping a beat.
Fighters have to have super efficient brains to be able to make instant, flash decisions about what punches to use and how to defend themselves in the heat of battle. The best fighters also employ mind game tactics and bluffs to trick opponents. This quick thinking process of top fighters, who establish physical and mental supremacy over the world, certainly transfers outside the ring also.
The famous writer Norman Mailer discussed this topic about the intelligence of fighters. He qualified as an expert as he covered the sport for decades and also even trained for a year with Jose Torres, the former Light Heavyweight champion turned writer.
“I trained all summer long with Jose,” Mailer revealed. “He’s a very intelligent fellow, a very good writer. I told him, I can teach you a little about writing, you can teach me how to box. Maybe we can improve each other.”
Their early 70s collaboration was a success. Mailer learned how to box and spar with high level opposition. And Torres went on to become an accomplished and respected magazine writer and author of several books – he co-authored Sting Like A Bee with Muhammad Ali and later Fire & Fear: The Inside Story Of Mike Tyson. Torres also had columns in The New York Post, Village Voice, El Diario La Prensa.
Mailer disagreed with the notion that fighters aren’t very intelligent and he explained the reasons why they are misportrayed by media. “I think it’s a fault of sportswriters. I think some writers are generally punchier than the fighters for a simple reason. They get their adrenaline roused by seeing athletic contests all the time. Some writers were athletes when they were younger, some weren’t. They go out and get their adrenaline going and they drink and that makes them punchy. What these sportswriters can’t bear is these boxers are out in the ring and they’re good… if they’re fine athletes and they are intelligent too, it’s too much for a sportswriter. Sportswriters are punchy, they never get a quote straight. They always make a fighter look like a curious creature.”
Jose Torres won the Light Heavyweight title in 1965 from Willie Pastrano, made three title defenses before losing to Dick Tiger.
Mailer authored the classic book The Fight about the 1974 Ali vs. Foreman superfight in Zaire.
