“Professional boxing is the only major American sport whose primary, and often murderous, energies are not coyly deflected by such artifacts as balls and pucks.”

A writer’s chance meeting with his idol.

In the ring, Hector “Macho” Camacho was a champ. Out of it, he was a coke-fueled, womanizing wild man, until the appetites that consumed him cost him his life.

The crumbling of an American icon.

“He was, it must be said, a pig. And my heart grew fonder.”

“This is the story of Billy Conn, who won the girl he loved but lost the best fight ever.”

A group of teens allegedly create a violent game with a simple premise: “to knock out a stranger with a single punch.”

A newspaper writer’s attempt to solve the mystery of a homeless man who claims to be a once-famous boxer.

The story of Olympic boxing hopeful Quanitta Underwood, who was sexually abused by her father as a child.

On the late Angelo Dundee, who trained Muhammad Ali.

Live from Kingston for Frazier vs. Foreman.

Manny Pacquiao, possibly the greatest boxer of his era and still in his fighting prime, on the campaign trail for a congressional seat in the remote, untamed Southern province of the Phillipines that spawned him.

The life that he has created almost from scratch over the last two years has been defined at least as much by what Tyson wants to avoid — old haunts, old habits, old temptations and old hangers-on — as by what he wants to embrace.

Searching for Jimmy Robinson, a boxer who fought Muhammad Ali in 1961, then disappeared.

Notes from the Friars Club roast of Don King.

The champ is now a vegan, claims to be broke, and says he feels freer than ever before. “I have this uncanny ability to look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘This is a pig. You are a fucking piece of shit.’”

Muhammad Ali and his followers were the greatest show on earth. Then the show ended, and life went on.