Boxing, a very physical sport which consist of two men or women(nowadays) fight and attempt to knock on another down for 10 seconds, is a very controversial sport among critics due to the number of health risks that can happen to due to the violence of the sport. Norman Cousins, a journalist from The New York Evening Post wrote about the incident and bashed everyone from the boxers to the fans involved. He criticized the sport and described it as a barbaric and uncivilized sport for killers. This opinion seems completely inaccurate when reading “In Defence of Cassius Clay” by Floyd Patterson, a former boxing world champion.
The main difference between the authors is the obvious backgrounds that they have. Cousins is a journalist while Patterson is a boxer himself. With Cousins being a journalist it is his job to get the audience to read his article and react to it, therefore most of the material in the article must be exaggerated in order draw the audience. Patterson on the
…show more content…
He also mentions that all the trash talking done is only done to sell tickets to the fight they are participating in. He gave an example of a time that Clay stormed to his house with a handful of carrots while calling him rabbit. He mentioned that he could see the embarrassment in Clay’s eyes as he took the carrots. Other than those occurrences Patterson states that they would make deals to go on a boxing tour around the world for a little extra money. Contrarily Cousins perceives these as actual legitimate threats made by the boxers. This lines up with exactly what Patterson stated. Cousins,an audience member, is taking all these threats as real; therefore he is interested in the fight, although he might not actually go and watch the fight. The trash talking caught his attention and might cause him to go to one of these fights to see and publicate the scene that plays