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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

Book review (a curate’s egg)

I bought Robert Colls’ new book This Sporting Life: Sport & Liberty in England, 1760-1960 about three months ago after both reading a review of it in one of the Sunday newspapers and having it recommended to me by a pal because of my general interest in boxing and its forebear – [...]

October 21, 2020 // 0 Comments

On my way to the bedroom

It is an article of faith on the Rust that, despite my position as boxing correspondent, I am never under an obligation to report on any particular boxing bill or indeed address any issue of the moment relating to the sport. Indeed, if I feel like it, I can either ‘withhold my fire’ in this [...]

August 23, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Professional/W.C Heinz

I can think of many excellent boxing films – Someone up There loves Me, Rocky and Raging Bull – and some great writers and writings on the Noble Art of Boxing, but it’s fiction is harder to find. This is why I enjoyed The Professional.  It’s the story of Eddie Brown [...]

June 19, 2020 // 0 Comments

Tony Zale – hewn of rock

Many years ago I cut my teeth as a boxing hack on alternative boxing publication called Round One. It was comprised of wannabees like me and has beens like Walter Schlumbermayer. Uncle Walt as we called him was as well known and respected as AJ Leibling and to have met him was a considerable [...]

June 5, 2020 // 0 Comments

A HISTORY OF BOXING/DVD

Imagine my surprise when – of all places in my dustbin area – I saw lying around this 2 part DVD produced by Marks and Spencer entitled  A History of Boxing. I had posted on boxing very recently but this enabled me to see footage of the golden age of heavyweight boxing from Joe Louis [...]

March 18, 2020 // 0 Comments

Fight Game stuff

There’s no doubt that professional heavyweight boxing is on the up and those of us interested in the Noble Art are as pleased as anyone about the development because – echoing what they used to say in cricket back in the day (“a strong Yorkshire means a strong England”) – similar [...]

March 15, 2020 // 0 Comments

Youth trumps experience in a scintillating match

In recent weeks I’ve been spending a lot of my time at my father’s place on the south coast, supporting him, his successive residential carers, local council adult car people and sundry others whose jobs (vocations?) touch upon the needs of the elderly. In the nature of these things – as with [...]

January 6, 2020 // 0 Comments

Keeping a close eye on things

Back in the mist of times gone by – along with staples such as Boxing News, Ring Magazine and Boxing Monthly – there used to be a classic resolutely non-mainstream ‘underground’ organ devoted to the fight game produced in London called Round One. This far distant I cannot remember where it [...]

December 8, 2019 // 0 Comments

They should never come back

We all have our heroes. Back in the mists of time one of mine was Nigel Benn or “the Dark Destroyer”, the British sometime WBO middleweight champion and WBC super-middleweight champion who had a pro career record of 42 win (35 knockouts) in 48 fights. Those successful sports stars who prompt [...]

September 27, 2019 // 0 Comments

One that Rusters might have missed

Last weekend’s memorable surfeit of epic world class sport – much of which I missed due to inevitable broadcasting scheduling conflicts and domestic commitments including the hosting of an ill-timed dinner party – will remain long in the memory. After a two-hour drive back from the south [...]

July 16, 2019 // 0 Comments

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