A perfect bit of writing.

I'm not much of a boxing fan but I am a fan of good movies and good writing. There is something--at least in the abstract--elemental about one man in pitched battle against another, armed with nothing but his fists, his wits and his guile.

If you're in the market for a good old movie, check out "The Set Up," with the always pitch perfect Robert Ryan. Or "The Harder They Fall," written by the great Budd Schulberg, or the grunting brilliance of Anthony Quinn in "Requiem for a Heavyweight."

Of course if your tastes run more to the literary, you really can't do better than reading something by the "New Yorker" writer A.J. Liebling who wrote "The Sweet Science" in 1956. (Liebling, for the uninitiated once said "I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.")

In any event and the point of this post is a bit of writing I happened upon last night that knocked me to the mat.

In writing about Rocky Marciano's 13th round knock-out of Jersey Joe Walcott, Marciano's "perfect right hand" landed, well, perfectly and Walcott "flowed down like flour out of a chute." You can see the punch and the flour in gorgeous slow motion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9msELiZKyU

You don't have to be a boxing fan to love that. To love great writing.

It's what we do.

Or should.