IGX

Teddy Atlas' 14 year old autobiography covering the period up to his acrimonious split with Michael Moorer. It covers Atlas' messed up family life, his relationship with his father and semi-adoptive father (Cus D'Amato), his relationship with Mike Tyson, experiences as a trainer, an up close look at the dirty side of boxing, the struggles of Teddy's friends, the psychological struggles boxers face, Atlas' struggles with his balancing his personal code and his anger problems with his family responsibilities, and his relationship with Moorer.

If you like stories about the dirty side of boxing and NYC before Guliani, you'll like it. Even though Atlas may seem full of himself at times, he's honest enough about his anger and struggles to control it that he never comes across as a white knight.

The best part was his perspective on human weakness, what happens when you don't address it, and ways to overcome it. While he is generally talking about a boxing context, it's applicable to the problems all men and boys face. The overarching theme of the importance of fathers and father figures.

While the book is very good in its own right, I recommend the recently released audio version. Atlas reads it himself and the producer of his podcast asks him a clarifying questions and for updates at the end of each chapter. His commentary on how Foreman overcame the psychological damage he took in losing to Ali and became mentally strong and focused enough to beat Moorer, updates on Sammy Gravano and Michael Moorer, and how Teddy grew up as a husband and father, all add something significant to the original in ways that make the audio version significantly better than the original.

I got almost as much out of it as I did from Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life. Give it a listen.

Foreman-Moorer was an amazingly great thing to see, and I still remember Atlas's cornering. "You let an old car drive slow, and it'll drive all day. Make it go fast and it'll break down. This guy is an old car. Don't let him drive slow."

I felt worse for Atlas than for Moorer, but it was an astounding upset when a 40-year-old fighter was *old*