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Articles by James Westacott

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About James Westacott

James Westacott, a former City investment banker, acquired his love of the Noble Art as a schoolboy in the 1970s. For many years he attended boxing events in and around London and more recently became a subscriber to the Box Nation satellite/cable channel. His all-time favourite boxer is Carlos Monzon. More Posts

Max Schmelling/ The Good German

In the unlikely event that I would be asked to nominate a Great Life on Matthew Parris ‘ show my choice would be the Black  Uhlan Max Schmelling. In the 1930s thee heavyweight title was a revolving door with Maxie Baer , James J Braddock (. the Cinderella man) jack Sharkey   , joe Louis and Max [...]

March 4, 2026 // 0 Comments

Eubank v McKenna

Last night was something of a rarity: live boxing on free-to -air television. The Noble Art has suffered from satellite coverage and pay-to-view and I cannot be the only disillusioned fan. There was not much sport to watch so I switched on at 9.00pm for the undercard of Belfast Boy Michael Conlon v [...]

March 8, 2025 // 0 Comments

Vingegaard‘s yellow jersey

Le Tour is both a team and individual event. Team because the team leader is dependent on his ‘domestiques’. The Sky team under Dave Brailford – now Ineos Grenadiers – had initially Bradley Wiggins supported by Chris Froome. Froome took over as team leader, winning the yellow jersey [...]

July 20, 2023 // 0 Comments

Great sporting duels

The Tour de France duel between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej  Pogacar – which the former is currently shading by a small lead – has made me recall and share great ones of the past. In boxing one thinks of Ali v Frazier – or before them – the brutal 3 bouts between Tony ‘Man [...]

July 7, 2023 // 0 Comments

Muhammad Ali/Ken BurnsBBC2

Ken Burns, the American documentary maker, is a man much admired on the Rust.    You pretty much know that any documentary by him will be well-researched, non judgmental and have excellent footage and interviews. This 8-parter on arguably the biggest figure in sport ever was no exception. The [...]

April 5, 2022 // 0 Comments

A chance viewing – and something of a conversion to MMA

There are some strange things that one can get up to in the dead of night. On Saturday evening – or to be precise, very early Sunday morning – in line with my normal practice, I awoke, rose, made myself a vat of black expresso coffee and toddled along to my office in order to fire up the [...]

January 24, 2022 // 0 Comments

Thinking the unthinkable

Last week brought media reports of a new study undertaken by Professor Willie Stewart at the University of Glasgow which apparently demonstrates that professional footballers who play in defence for ten to fifteen years are five times more likely to suffer dementia that the general population, [...]

August 5, 2021 // 0 Comments

Brian London

I was sad to learn of the death of Brian London. He epitomised the British post-War heavyweight pug – good but was not good enough. He had a powerful dig – as Ingemar Johanson found out – but was slow and ranked second in the popularity stakes to Henry Cooper. He was a bit of [...]

June 26, 2021 // 0 Comments

It’s complicated (as they say) …

Being the Rust’s contributing editor on the sport of pugilism, I cannot not claim for myself the privilege of being a particular fan of football. However, it seems to me that one of the ironies highlighted by the recent “attempted breakaway” ESL debacle at the pinnacle of European [...]

May 4, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Big Fight

“Back in the day …” as we modern Rusters are wont to say – albeit that the period we’re referencing is so long ago now that even through our rose-tinted spectacles we virtually recall it in black and white – there used to be a London-based boxing magazine that ran a series on [...]

December 13, 2020 // 0 Comments

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