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The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing
Originally published in 1986 (McGraw-Hill), The Black Lights was the first book that fully explored the sport and business of professional boxing. Upon joining the training camp of superlightweight Billy Costello, Thomas Hauser was given unprecedented access to the fighter, his manager, and trainer as well as to the real heavyweights of the boxing world, promoter Don King, and World Boxing Council president Jose Sulaiman. The result, according to Playboy in their review of the original, is a book that "explains why fighters fight, what they go through to win, and how they feel when they lose. It is a great book." In this gracefully written, fast-paced narrative, the author slips quietly into the background and gives us a firsthand look at a business that is often cruel and exploitative and a sport that is at once violent and beautiful. As the San Francisco Chronicle points out, The Black Lights provides ammunition for both sides in the debate over boxing: "Hauser has written what is clearly the most complete and fairminded work on the subject to date." In an age when the controversy surrounding the evils and merits of boxing still rages, this classic account is more timely than ever.
- GenresSportsNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2000
About the author
Thomas Hauser
104 books34 followersThomas Hauser (b. 1946) is the author of forty-two books on subjects ranging from professional boxing to Beethoven. His first work, Missing, was made into an Academy Award–winning film. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times earned numerous awards for its author, including the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 10, 2008
If you only have the mental space for one book on boxing, this is it.
It perfectly encapsulates everything that is fascinating and repellent about the Sweet Science- the primal appeal of direct physical combat, the sleazy machinations of the business side (it delivers an indelible portrait of Don King, among others), and the Hauser's prose is compulsively readable.
For boxing aficionados, it captures the sport at a critical crossroads as it transformed from a mainstream sport with mainstream network television coverage to a niche, almost underground affair available only on pay cable and financially fueled by make-or-break Pay Per View cards.
It perfectly encapsulates everything that is fascinating and repellent about the Sweet Science- the primal appeal of direct physical combat, the sleazy machinations of the business side (it delivers an indelible portrait of Don King, among others), and the Hauser's prose is compulsively readable.
For boxing aficionados, it captures the sport at a critical crossroads as it transformed from a mainstream sport with mainstream network television coverage to a niche, almost underground affair available only on pay cable and financially fueled by make-or-break Pay Per View cards.
December 2, 2015
Boxing is a business that masquerades as a sport. I've read many books about boxing, the sport, however, I read few, if any, books about boxing, the business. I now know why. It's because Thomas Hauser wrote the perfect book about boxing, the business in 1984.
On the outside, The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing is a book about an overachieving super lightweight from Kingston, New York named Billy Costello. Hauser shadows the boxer and the folks in his camp -- mainly manager Mike Jones and trainer Victor Valle -- as he prepares to make a title defense against Saoul Mamby.
The story of Costello's camp for the Mamby fight is mostly told in the last quarter of the book. Instead of focusing on that fight, What Hauser does is put into context what it means for a fighter, who isn't a Sugar Ray Leonard level type of star, to be fighting for a title,
The majority of the book is the ins and outs of the business. And we see all the sleazy characters represented, from the promoters to the managers to the CEOs of the various sanctioning belt organizations to the suits at the TV networks.
One of the few complaints I had while reading the book was that Costello was a thin character. By the end I realized this was done purposely. Costello the boxer wasn't vital to the story. You could have plugged in a Edwin Rosario and the book would have still worked.
Business was what was vital to this book.
On the outside, The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing is a book about an overachieving super lightweight from Kingston, New York named Billy Costello. Hauser shadows the boxer and the folks in his camp -- mainly manager Mike Jones and trainer Victor Valle -- as he prepares to make a title defense against Saoul Mamby.
The story of Costello's camp for the Mamby fight is mostly told in the last quarter of the book. Instead of focusing on that fight, What Hauser does is put into context what it means for a fighter, who isn't a Sugar Ray Leonard level type of star, to be fighting for a title,
The majority of the book is the ins and outs of the business. And we see all the sleazy characters represented, from the promoters to the managers to the CEOs of the various sanctioning belt organizations to the suits at the TV networks.
One of the few complaints I had while reading the book was that Costello was a thin character. By the end I realized this was done purposely. Costello the boxer wasn't vital to the story. You could have plugged in a Edwin Rosario and the book would have still worked.
Business was what was vital to this book.
November 6, 2017
Sombre and majestic, this absorbing masterpiece captures boxing in the doldrums, a once great empire reduced to rubble and dust.
After the tragic death of Kim Duk-koo boxing was a sport under siege in the early eighties. The balletic grace and beauty of Muhammad Ali was now a thing of the past: boxing’s most celebrated champion was slowly being reduced to its most heart-breaking casualty and the natural successor to his throne, the almost equally charismatic Sugar Ray Leonard, had retired with a detached retina. The sweet science had been drained from the sport and in its place was the unrelenting savagery of Pryor’s violent knockout of Alex Arguello and the senseless beating of Tex Cobb at the hands of Larry Holmes. Under the Machiavellian Don King boxing was rife with corruption and even the venerable Howard Cossell, the voice of boxing in America and one of its biggest defenders, had turned his back on the sport in disgust. Boxing was on the ropes and struggling to defend itself.
This was the austere world that Hauser captured so brilliantly and completely when he joined the camp of the super lightweight champion Billy Costello, in training to defend his title. With unprecedented access to Costello and his inner circle, Hauser shines a light on the trials and tribulations of life as a professional boxer, and the tangled web of politics involved in making a fight. In many ways Costello was a strange choice of subject, a boxer that would be largely forgotten if not for this book and not the most charismatic of men or fighters. But it’s his blue-collar, workman- like approach to his sport, and everyman appeal, that makes this book so engaging. There have been plenty of books about the superstars of boxing; this is a book about a fighter simply trying to make a living and the harsh realities of his chosen trade. It is incisive and insightful, capturing all the backstage drama of managers, promoters, and Network executives: the meetings and frantic phone calls, the volatile personalities and fragile egos, the haggling over purses and increasingly fraught negotiations, the threats, accusations, and the spectacular falling outs. The portrait of Don King and his step son is as withering as it is fascinating, and a master class of forensic journalism. Few books have illustrated more vividly that for a boxer the easiest part of his job is under the bright lights of the ring. Everything else is uncertainty and shadows.
After the tragic death of Kim Duk-koo boxing was a sport under siege in the early eighties. The balletic grace and beauty of Muhammad Ali was now a thing of the past: boxing’s most celebrated champion was slowly being reduced to its most heart-breaking casualty and the natural successor to his throne, the almost equally charismatic Sugar Ray Leonard, had retired with a detached retina. The sweet science had been drained from the sport and in its place was the unrelenting savagery of Pryor’s violent knockout of Alex Arguello and the senseless beating of Tex Cobb at the hands of Larry Holmes. Under the Machiavellian Don King boxing was rife with corruption and even the venerable Howard Cossell, the voice of boxing in America and one of its biggest defenders, had turned his back on the sport in disgust. Boxing was on the ropes and struggling to defend itself.
This was the austere world that Hauser captured so brilliantly and completely when he joined the camp of the super lightweight champion Billy Costello, in training to defend his title. With unprecedented access to Costello and his inner circle, Hauser shines a light on the trials and tribulations of life as a professional boxer, and the tangled web of politics involved in making a fight. In many ways Costello was a strange choice of subject, a boxer that would be largely forgotten if not for this book and not the most charismatic of men or fighters. But it’s his blue-collar, workman- like approach to his sport, and everyman appeal, that makes this book so engaging. There have been plenty of books about the superstars of boxing; this is a book about a fighter simply trying to make a living and the harsh realities of his chosen trade. It is incisive and insightful, capturing all the backstage drama of managers, promoters, and Network executives: the meetings and frantic phone calls, the volatile personalities and fragile egos, the haggling over purses and increasingly fraught negotiations, the threats, accusations, and the spectacular falling outs. The portrait of Don King and his step son is as withering as it is fascinating, and a master class of forensic journalism. Few books have illustrated more vividly that for a boxer the easiest part of his job is under the bright lights of the ring. Everything else is uncertainty and shadows.
July 11, 2016
I haven't read every book about boxing, so I'm not qualified to say whether or not Hauser's "The Black Lights" is the best book ever written on the subject. I feel confident saying it is the best book I've ever read about boxing, though.
Some books about boxing, like Schulberg's "The Harder they fall," are about the business of boxing; other books are about the combat itself, like Mailer's "The Fight." Then there are the books like Oates' "On Boxing," which are more philosophical treatises, psychological profiles. Hauser's book is unique in that it combines all of these different subgenre studies of the Sweet Science into something new, and frankly, superior to anything else I've read on the subject.
The book follows the fortunes of WBC champ Billy Costello, an earnest, shy fighter who had the misfortune to be fighting out of the same stable as heavyweight perennial contender Gerry Cooney when the "great white hope" was garnering all of the press in the world and then some (much to the chagrin of champion, Larry Holmes). This book is high drama, compulsively readable from start to finish. The profiles of Don King and Bob Arum were my favorite, and I frankly admired Hauser's ability to keep an even hand and hear all sides of the story in a sport where everything is so contentious (and violent). The behind-the-scenes machinations of the sport-the insane wrangling it takes to get a fight made- are as fascinating and entertaining as the action described in the ring. Highest recommendation.
Some books about boxing, like Schulberg's "The Harder they fall," are about the business of boxing; other books are about the combat itself, like Mailer's "The Fight." Then there are the books like Oates' "On Boxing," which are more philosophical treatises, psychological profiles. Hauser's book is unique in that it combines all of these different subgenre studies of the Sweet Science into something new, and frankly, superior to anything else I've read on the subject.
The book follows the fortunes of WBC champ Billy Costello, an earnest, shy fighter who had the misfortune to be fighting out of the same stable as heavyweight perennial contender Gerry Cooney when the "great white hope" was garnering all of the press in the world and then some (much to the chagrin of champion, Larry Holmes). This book is high drama, compulsively readable from start to finish. The profiles of Don King and Bob Arum were my favorite, and I frankly admired Hauser's ability to keep an even hand and hear all sides of the story in a sport where everything is so contentious (and violent). The behind-the-scenes machinations of the sport-the insane wrangling it takes to get a fight made- are as fascinating and entertaining as the action described in the ring. Highest recommendation.
October 4, 2007
This, along with The Sweet Science by AJ Liebling, is my favorite boxing book. He follows the story of a contender for the superlightweight title and gives a great view of the world of professional boxing - not just the life of a fighter, but how fights get arranged and the role that TV and promoters play in it. Which, now that I read it, sounds really dry. But it's not. If you want to learn more about boxing this is a great first book, and if you are already knowledgeable - well, it's still a great book.
May 12, 2017
En av de beste bøkene om boksing.
November 11, 2023
One of the best boxing books ever written. Takes you inside the crazy life of a championship fighter, and explains the nuances that shouldn’t make sense but have become part of the sport.
July 2, 2008
The Black lights takes you for an inside look in the world of professional boxing. It exposes many of boxing's up and downs. It takes you into the mind of a professional boxer as he trains, looks for fights and earn some dough. I would easily recommend it to anyone who loves professional boxing.
March 10, 2014
Hauser's later work is mostly crap, but this account of Billy Costello's preparation for his fight with Saoul Mamby is one of the best bits of serious boxing reportage available--far superior to works by Plimpton and Mailer, to be sure.
March 27, 2015
Got to love yourself a boxing book. Great characters hustling for a fight.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews