A Geek Review: The Arc of Boxing, by Mike Silver

'This eye-opening book argues that boxing ain't what it used to be. Argue back if you want, but not before considering Silver's opinions and the facts. A must-read for all fight fans."
-- Steve Farhood

I bought 'The Arc of Boxing' (by Mike Silver, published by McFarland Company) because of reviews saying just that. So it's already been given quite a bit of attention by writers more qualified than myself. On top of that, the book is now almost two years old.

So why am I adding another review to the pile?

It's not because I want to argue with Mike Silver. I agree with many of his basic premises more than I disagree. It's because the manner in which he chose to present his opinions and his interpretation of the facts leaves a whole lot to be desired.

There is plenty to say about 'The Arc of Boxing', both good and bad, but the good has been said by everyone. If I am harping on the bad it is because all the glowing reviews out there are very misleading if one is not prepared for the flip-side.

Mr. Silver's base position is that the best fighters of today are not greater than the best fighters of the period he considers 'Boxing's Golden Age.' I agree with this position. The problem is the book's fundamental lack of what any college professor grading a paper would call 'good scholarship.'

Every review I read raved about the book's intellectual value. Whether they agreed or disagreed with the book, they said it was well written and it was logically argued. I didn't find that to be the case.

The book is not researched or written credibly. Plenty of genuine experts were interviewed as part of the process of compiling the book. Their positions are clearly honest and there is clearly a significant base of knowledge to support their positions. They should not be criticized for their opinions, though there may be room for disagreement.

Mr. Silver's writing style and presentation of their views call for more scrutiny.

In the area of opinion, even expert opinion, there is always room for disagreement. Mr. Silver has lined up experts who agree with most or all of his points, given the most space to those expert statements most strongly in agreement with his views, and failed to include proper context so that many statements are made to appear to more strongly support his own position than may actually be the case. How something is said and the circumstances in which it is said are often as important as the words themselves. Mr. Silver is guilty of an omission serious scholars must avoid. He includes the statements of his interviewees, but not the questions he asked them. Instead he presents his arguments, and then presents the statements experts made during his conversations that best support his arguments. He omits his side of the conversations and presents the other side through his own editorial lens.

Scholarship is not democratic. The most votes don't change the facts or make one opinion better than another. The point of scholarship is to establish a significant claim of fact or an authoritative argument in favor of an opinion.

Mr. Silver does neither. His scholarly style is closer to that of Anne Coulter. He compiles argument and evidence in support of his views, ignores counter-evidence and arguments, and attacks those with whom he disagrees as 'faux-experts' rather than giving their statements legitimate attention and proper response. The term is used repeatedly and in a context that can only be described as derisive and insulting.

Who are these 'faux-experts'? Other than the HBO broadcast team and 'The Ring' Magazine, it's hard to know for certain. A few names are given here and there. Larry Merchant and Kevin Iole are specifically criticized. Both men have been worthy of criticism. Yet are their views so ridiculous and their credentials so slender that their expertise should be dismissed out of hand?

More often, however, the 'faux-experts' are left anonymous and 'they' are assailed in classic literary McCarthyism. Specific statements with proper attribution are rarely made when the phrase is thrown out. Instead a particular opinion is ridiculed out of hand. A favorite literary device is the statement that fighter X 'would be a very good 6 or 8 round clubfighter in the 1940s or 1950s.' Are we to believe that anyone who posits a particular fighter X as 'great' is then a faux-expert?

If we are, it poses a problem for Mr. Silver. While much of his time and most of his space are reserved for names less recognizable to younger readers, his 'big guns' are Freddie Roach, Teddy Atlas, and Emmanuel Steward. Atlas and Steward both work as boxing analysts and are very respected in the field. Over the course of their work as analysts they have posited some of the very men Mr. Silver derides as club-fighters (Pernell Whittaker, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Bernard Hopkins all come to mind) as being 'great.' Are they to be considered faux-experts because they share positions advocated by 'the faux-experts'? If so, why should we give weight to their statements in Mr. Silver's book, supporting his arguments? If they are genuine authorities should Mr. Silver not then give a bit of thought to the idea that others who agree with them in areas where he does not might also be something other than morons?

There is a trickier net in which Mr. Silver winds himself. Chapter 6 is headed by a quote by Joe Frazier. Chapter 9 is headed by two quotes, the first from 'The Ring' Magazine, attributing the magazine but not the writer. The chapter 6 quote is clearly intended to buttress Mr. Silver's arguments, while the Chapter 9 quote is clearly cast in the light of the foolish crowing of 'faux-experts.'

Except there is an asterisk next to the Frazier quote from Chapter 6 that bears scrutiny.

The asterisk leads to a note: the quote is not directly from Frazier, but from his book 'Box Like The Pros.' As many experts in various fields who are not themselves expert writers are wont to do, Joe Frazier had a co-author who helped with the technical side of writing his book. The identity of said co-author? William Dettloff, the senior writer of 'The Ring'... not only currently, but also at the time the quote cited in chapter 9 was made. Is Mr. Dettloff then a 'faux-expert' or the real thing? He is a key staff member of a publication Mr. Silver indirectly condemns as a source of misinformation, yet he is the co-author of a book Mr. Silver feels comfortable citing in support of his own argument.

A close reading of the text leads away from the idea of 'real experts' and 'faux-experts' and toward the subjectivity of the definition of expertise. Any statement that supports Mr. Silver's views is considered the legitimate wisdom of experts and contrary views are the babble of the ill-informed... even if the sources of wisdom and babble are the same. A difficult net from which to cut one's self free, and Mr. Silver never succeeds in doing so and he does not even appear to be aware that he needs to try.

I want to re-iterate something very important: I agree with Mr. Silver on what is, perhaps, his most important point. The changes in the sport of boxing between the 1950s and today have certainly made it difficult for fighters to reach their full potential, as technical fundamentals become more and more scarce and matchmaking has become as important to the winning and losing of a fight as the contest inside the ropes itself. This is, to risk putting myself out on a risky limb, as near as incontrovertible fact as such statements can be: less frequent competition against inferior opposition will not allow a fighter to sharpen their skills to the utmost.

Yet Mr. Silver goes beyond this basic fact in making his arguments, in many cases too far, and his attempt to support his final thesis is slip-shod. All he has to offer is an impressive array of names that agree with his various statements. The context in which the 'authoritative' opinions of the 'real' experts is presented is point by point and in isolation. There is no context to demonstrate that every one of Mr. Silver's sources agrees with his thesis en toto. It is a safe assumption that some of them do. It is an equally safe assumption that those still making a living in boxing, who have made statements identical to those of the 'faux-experts', do not.

The biggest disappointment of this book is that it could have been a good book and it isn't. It could have covered more boxing history and spent less time advancing theses and collecting impressive names and quotes in support of them. It could have directly engaged dissenting views instead of creating a straw man ('faux-experts') to indirectly smear boxing broadcasters, journalists, and historians. It could have given, in many cases, less credence to dogma, mythology, and prejudice. Finally, and this is what I personally consider the most scathing complaint, Mr. Silver could have actually written more and transcribed less.

It's painful when one has to stand up and tell those with whom one agrees that they are full of it. Unfortunately that is the only scholarly response to Mr. Silver's book, even if one agrees with his basic point.