A luminous account of the most compelling and climactic phase of boxing's long history.For three decades at the end of the twentieth century - throughout boxing's most engrossing era - James Lawton was ringside, covering every significant bout, spending time with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hitman Hearns, Roberto Duran, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield and many other great fighters.Lawton found himself captivated by the sport as he followed it around the world. From a big fight's initial announcement, through the fighters' punishing training regimes, the overblown press conferences and dramatic weigh-ins, up to the bout itself and its savage fall-out - Lawton observed and absorbed it all, grateful for the remarkable access he was afforded. He witnessed Ali screaming in pain for his dressing-room lights to be turned out after a fight; he was there to meet Tyson at the prison gates on his release in 1992; he listened as former champions wept while struggling to find their new place in the world.As part of a small, tight-knit group of sportswriters with the privilege of covering each fight in such intimate detail, Lawton formed lifelong friendships and found himself forever altered by being caught up in the whirlwind of a sport at its most spellbinding.A Ringside Affair brings that brilliant epoch back to life - and puts it in the perspective it deserves. It salutes the epic quality of boxing's last years of glory, retraces arguably the richest inheritance bequeathed to any sport, and speculates on the possibility that we will never see such fighting again. It is part celebration, part lament, but perhaps most of all it is a personal record of some of the most enthralling and challenging days produced by the world's oldest sport.

Prologue1 New York, September 19772 Montreal, June 19803 Las Vegas, October 19804 New Orleans, November 19805 Las Vegas, September 19816 Las Vegas, November 19847 Las Vegas, April 19858 New York, January 19879 Las Vegas, April 198710 Las Vegas, August 198711 Tokyo, March 198812 Seoul, March 198813 Atlantic City, June 198814 Tokyo, February 199015 Las Vegas, October 199016 Indianapolis, February 199217 Las Vegas, November 199218 San Antonio, Texas, September 199319 Indianapolis, March 199520 Sacramento, May 199521 Las Vegas, June 199722 New York, March 199923 Memphis, Tennessee, June 2002EpilogueAcknowledgements