Writers on Fighters: James Baldwin on Patterson vs. Liston
M. Abduh
26 November 2025

“The Fight: Patterson vs. Liston” was originally published in the February 1963 issue of Nugget Magazine & later collected in The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings.

James Baldwin is not known for writing about boxing. Even in his profile of the Patterson-Liston fight, he begins by admitting that he knew little about the “Sweet Science” or the “Cruel Profession”: “I am not an aficionado of the ring,” he said, “and haven’t been since Joe Louis lost his crown.” Still, he masterfully profiled the fighters & their camps, captured the days leading up to the event, & contextualized the cultural significance of the contest. The fight itself, though, gets barely a paragraph. The profile ends—after Liston demolishes Patterson in two minutes—with Baldwin having a drink with a writer who knew plenty about the sweet science: “We started walking through the crowds and A. J. Liebling, behind us, tapped me on the shoulder and we went off to a bar, to mourn the very possible death of boxing, and to have a drink, with love, for Floyd.”

Sixty-three years later, Liston & Patterson are gone. Baldwin, too. Boxing is still dying. We are still mourning.