Pugilist

Pugilist (pronounced pyoo-juh-list)

A person who fights with their fists; a boxer, amateur or professional.

1789: From the Latin pugil (boxer, fist-fighter) related to pugnus (a fist), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European roots peuk- (to prick) & pewǵ- (to prick, to punch) and from the Latin root, English picked up the slang term for the journeyman boxer (pug).  Pugil as a descriptor for a boxer was first noted in English in the 1640s but faded from use although in 1962 the pugil stick was introduced by US military as a substitute for rifles in bayonet drills.  Related forms include the noun pugnacity (the act or characteristic of being aggressive or combative), from the Latin pugnacitas, from pugnāx (combative, fond of fighting) and the adjective pugnacious (naturally aggressive or hostile; combative; belligerent; bellicose), from the Latin, a derivative of pugnāx, from pugnō (I fight), from pugnus (a fist).  Pugilist & pugilism are nouns, pugilistic is an adjective and pugilistically and adverb; the noun plural is pugilists.

The heavyweights

Three heavyweights dominated the perception of the sport in the second-half of the twentieth century, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali & Mike Tyson.

Sonny Liston (circa 1932-1970).

Sonny Liston was a thug, something no disqualification for success in the  heavyweight ranks and he’d been undisputed world champion for half a decade when first he fought Muhammad Ali.  Ali was a rank outsider rated by the bookies between 7-8:1 yet beat Liston.  To this day it’s not known if there's any truth in the rumors of Liston’s heavy drinking the night before the bout or throwing the fight for money.  Some find the first-round knock-out of Liston in the return match proof of a conspiracy while claim it suggests Ali was the better fighter and Liston’s best years were over although when he died in 1970, even if no longer quite the formidable fighter of his younger years, he was still a world-rated boxer.

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016).

While understandable, it's unfortunate the popular focus on Muhammad Ali’s flair for publicity, prose and politics has drawn attention from just how good a boxer he was.  Ali was fast, technically almost perfect and possessed a physique close to at least equal in height and reach of most of his opponents although his most under-rated trait was the ability to absorb blows yet remain an attacking force late in matches.  In a career interrupted by bans and suspension, Ali fought in the heavyweight division’s golden age, the finest group of the mid-late century, of whom Ali was "the greatest", not because he was indisputably the best ever heavyweight (among the experts there are various top-ten list though he's in them all) but because he influenced his sport and wider culture like no other.

Mike Tyson (b 1966).

The younger Mike Tyson was ferocious and intimidating and he scared men.  Although not tall by the standards of his profession, he was famous for the power and speed of his punch and it’s really easy to believe there’s no one who could have beaten Tyson the younger.  Boxing analysts tend to disagree, being split on the likely result of Liston v Tyson, largely because of Tyson’s technical flaws but almost as one in finding Ali would have beaten Tyson.  Tyson had a difficult, troubled youth and has admitted that had it not been for boxing, things would likely have worked out worse but had his career been better managed, such was his potential, much more could have been achieved.

Amateur pugilist Lindsay Lohan in pugnacious mode.