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Hemingway was a boxing guy...A man's man who - over a bottle of scotch - could take in a prizefight as he jotted all gory bits in his Moleskine. Then he'd turn it all into a kick-ass short story. In fact, he loved the sport so much that he set up a ring in his yard and paid local fighters to box with him.
It's no shock that boxing showed up in some of his work.
Need proof? In "A Moveable Feast," Papa H’s memoir of 1920’s Paris, he waxes about teaching Ezra Pound (one of many American expatriate writers in Paris at the time) how to throw down.
In "Men Without Women" (great title), he writes of an aging champion fending off his young challenger.
In his short story "In Our Time" Hemingway writes of The Battler. The title character had been a champion until punishment in the ring -- and the heartache of a dissolved marriage outside of it -- led him to dementia and a hobo’s existence.
This brings me to this month's GQ... Writer Andrew Corsello spotlights Manny "Pac-Man" Pacquiao -- one of the fight's game most enigmatic pugilists. It's a piece that would make former journalist Hemingway proud.
Writer Corsello asks: What do you get when you cross Muhammad Ali, Sly Stallone, Vaclav Havel, Michael Vick, Che Guevara, & Clay Aiken? Manny Pacquiao…
Here's a link to the piece.
When you're finished, you'll almost feel papa H smiling down upon you.
