Pete Carvill is a reporter, writer and editor. He first put on boxing gloves twenty years ago and has only recently taken them off. Here, we ask him some questions about his new book, Death of a Boxer.
Why is the book titled Death of a Boxer?
The title is a conscious reference to a classic sports piece by W. C. Heinz called ‘Death of a Racehorse’, which is about the injury and euthanising of the horse Air Lift in 1949. But what I liked about the title when I came up with it is that it tells you everything and nothing at the same time. There are elements of mystery to it – who died, and how, and when? And I think that the world of boxing, despite losing steam to other sports in recent years, still maintains a classical hold on popular culture.
What does boxing mean to you?
It meant everything to me at one point, but I’m not so sure now, at the age of forty-two. I’ve moved into a more calm, peaceful and gentle period of my life. At the same time, I got everything I have through it. The first stories I ever wrote were about boxing and they got me ‘in the door’ as a B2B reporter. And now the sport has given me my first book. I owe everything to it, but it’s a debt I’m willing to leave unpaid.
What are your frustrations with boxing’s image?
Boxing doesn’t have an image problem. Boxing has a boxing problem. To paraphrase Dana White, it treats every event like a ‘Going Out of Business’ sale. There’s no long-term plan and it spends a lot of time cosying up tothe world’s worst people for its events.
And it’s an anachronism. If it stopped existing tomorrow, I wouldn’t miss it. But if there’s a big fight on somewhere in Germany in the next month or two, I’ll still go. I’m not entirely reformed; nor do I want to be.
And while I may be ambiguous about boxing, I can’t help but still love the fighters. Death of a Boxer is a series of love stories.
What was the most surprising thing you discovered in your research for the book?
It wasn’t so much of a surprise, but I got a lovely reminder of how nice and welcoming everybody in this world is. It’s rare to meet an unpleasant person. And the people who spoke to me often invited me into their homes and lives, and they took a great deal of risk in doing so. And I hope that I’ve repaid it by writing about them with grace.
If you could be a fly on the wall in any of the scenes in the book, which would it be and why?
There’s not much I wasn’t there for! But if I had to pick the best part of writing the book as a moment, I would go with walking out in front of 35,000 people as part of Anthony Yigit’s team on the undercard of Usyk–Dubois in 2023.
Death of a Boxer by Pete Carvill is out 20 February.
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