Boxing Book Review : John E. Oden's 'Life in the Ring'

“I have always believed that boxing is a metaphor for life.” - John E. Oden Life in the Ring, Introduction

Too often in sports we find our heroes don't live up to their sporting images. Legendary careers have been tarnished by personal failures, and what has been won in the ring has very much been lost outside of it.

In Life in the Ring: Lessons & Inspiration from the Sport of Boxing , author John E. Oden expresses the opposite view—that in some way what happens in the ring is a microcosm of what happens outside of it.

Rather than focusing upon a singular boxer, Oden's book spans over most of a century of boxing including the stories of 15 of the most famous boxers in history. Within each boxing story is a real-life parallel and a lesson for us all.

As a white-collar boxer himself, Oden passionately believes in these lessons, and that enthusiasm can be felt in his writing.

The first story mentioned is that of Muhammad Ali and is a story of courage. Though Ali's story should be familiar to most, it will not suffer in the retelling. The rest of the book goes through a list of 14 other great fighters, and the lessons that Oden believes can be learned from them.

At 210 pages and 12 chapters the book equals the distance of a championship bout.

The book is written for a casual audience and should be an easy read even for those relatively unfamiliar with boxing.

For those with a background knowledge of boxing, the book will provide a new perspective on some of the greatest fighters in their greatest moments both inside and outside of the ring.

As a great boxing fan and supporter, Oden holds an extremely high view of boxing. The sport he rightly says is ingrained in our culture and our way of life, as can be shown simply by looking at the host of boxing-related common idioms.

With such a high view of boxing, one might wonder if Oden is pulling his punches when it comes to the darker side of boxing. Admittedly, Oden's view of boxing is decidedly bright, but while he doesn't dwell upon the negative happenings in boxing, he isn't glossing over them.

Boxing exists within the real world of war, racism, and mobsters, and Oden recognizes that. While boxing has occasionally been touched by the negative things in the real world, some boxers have been able to transcend the sport and change the world for the better.

Life in the Ring is a monument to all that is good in boxing, and feels like it's a boxing fan's way of expressing the way he feels about the sport he loves.

To say boxing is a metaphor for life is probably to put Oden's view mildly.

In some ways, a person can be defined by those few short moments inside the ring. Other people believe that the boxer is always less than the man himself. Other times a boxer's legend seems larger than life.

Oden doesn't say it directly, but it seems to me like he might take a middle ground here—that the fighter and the man cannot be separated.

Is Oden successful in illustrating this underlying theme?

You'll have to read the book to form your own opinion, but if you're a boxing fan, you will probably enjoy the read in any case.