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Andrew Rihn

@andrewrihn.bsky.social

230 followers 220 following 420 posts

Multi-genre boxing writer Author of Revelation: An Apocalypse in Fifty-Eight Fights Prose poetry reader for Pithead Chapel https://linktr.ee/AndrewRihn

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · May 19

When Jack London arrived in Reno to cover the big fight, he bore a black eye from a barroom brawl.

The story behind that shiner, the ensuing court battle, his grudge with the judge, and how Jack London re-wrote it all into a story of "fantastic revenge."

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/05/jack...

Jack London’s Fantastic Revenge | The Saturday Evening Post

In his short story “The Benefit of the Doubt,” Jack London turned truth into fiction, and then some.

www.saturdayeveningpost.com

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 4h

I think the last thing was a book review (of Declan Ryan’s poetry collection Crisis Actor) for Heavy Feather Review.

Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 6h

Thank you - there are actually some lines from a poem titled “Fighting Heart” that are engraved on a plaque there.

I’ll have some more Johnny Kilbane stuff in the next week or two.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 14h

Irish Bob Murphy and Harry Matthews. The two fought on March 1951, with Matthews winning on points.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 18h

Issue 7 of The Spit Bucket is now available to download for free! Visual art, poetry, and prose - including photo and essay from myself.

writersonboxing.com/the-spit-buc...

The Spit Bucket – a boxing fanzine

The Spit Bucket is a zine celebrating the wonderful responses made by artists to the sport of boxing. We welcome submissions from prose writers, poets and visual artists of all forms. See below for…

writersonboxing.com

Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 19h

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Reposted by Andrew Rihn

Walter Chaw @mangiotto.bsky.social · 2d

Showing my Film History class THE GENERAL (1926) followed by MAD MAX FURY ROAD (2017).

a man is hanging from a rope in the desert while wearing a hat .

ALT: a man is hanging from a rope in the desert while wearing a hat .

media.tenor.com

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

That’s an amazing pairing!

Reposted by Andrew Rihn

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 2d

Every senator who voted to confirm RFK, Jr. should get kicked in the stomach every single time he makes the news.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s latest book of poetry is a finalist for the National Book Award, so here’s a throwback to their awesome collection Apocalyptic Swing, featuring some boxing-related poems

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

Great piece, so needed in our collective memory.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

And lastly, The Thinker was often featured in the tv show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (one of my favorites). Here's a shot of Dobie holding a poster of his friend, Maynard, dressed as a boxer.

It's absolutely the most "This is me" vibe I've ever seen.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

I like to compare The Thinker to the Boxer of Quirinal (or Boxer at Rest), although Rodin created it before the Boxer was rediscovered in 1885.

Here is the Boxer of Quirinal being examined (intimidated?) by heavyweight Deontay Wilder, part of the build-up for Wilder-Fury II.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

The museum now displays the statue with its exploded base.

I wrote about this exploded casting for the Cleveland Review of Books:

clereviewofbooks.com/on-bellows-a...

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

In 1970, an original casting of The Thinker was blown up in Cleveland, OH. On the plinth, the words "off the ruling class" were spray painted, a fact kept from the public for years by the police.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

The statue became widely recognized. Edvard Munch painted it. Boxing heavyweight Primo Carnera posed as it. And Charlie Chaplin featured a manipulated version in his indomitable satire The Great Dictator.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

The figure was based on French wrestler and boxer Jean Baud.

Rodin loved the work. He had it enlarged, cast six feet tall, the heroic scale we're used to seeing. He later requested it be used as his headstone.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

Rodin's most enduring sculpture, The Thinker has an unusual backstory.

We're used to seeing it large and alone, but originally, it was known as The Poet, created as a small of a doorway depicting Dante's Divine Comedy, known as The Gates of Hell.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 2d

Jack Dempsey depicted as Rodin's sculpture The Thinker, 1926

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Reposted by Andrew Rihn

Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 2d

40 years ago, Philadelphia police & authorities waged war on a local community, including dropping a bomb that started a fire that destroyed an entire neighborhood. Remembering that tragedy reminds us of the eternal cost of "war from within."🗃️

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/10/cons...

Considering History: The MOVE Bombing and “the War from Within” | The Saturday Evening Post

The 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia lays bare the horrific and inevitable tragedies whenever we wage war from within.

www.saturdayeveningpost.com

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 4d

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 5d

It is shocking to see how similar boxing coverage from a century ago is to today. Article after article on boxer pay and who gets what percentage of the gate.

Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 5d

Jack Dempsey
The Boston Globe
Sep 9, 1926

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Reposted by Andrew Rihn

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 5d

Seconds out! Round one!

THE DEVIL'S DANCE FLOOR

This isn't an official announcement from Duckworth. It's a page from my agent's newsletter and book fair rights catalogue, which is public. So, a tiny-text soft launch? Details subject to change.

A lot of thank yous and less Disney, to come.

🐻🥊👊🏾👊🏻🦁🍺

Page from literary agency Curious Minds rights guide for Frankfurt Book Fair etc. Alongside a photo of me looking slightly drunk and a lot hostile, it says, in tiny font:

NEW DEALS
AGENT - Eli Keren
PUBLISHER - Duckworth
PUBLICATION - Spring 2027
STATUS - Manuscript due April 2026
LENGTH - 80,000 words
RIGHTS SOLD
World English (Duckworth)
The Devil’s Dance Floor
Late-Victorian London and the Last Bareknuckle Boys
SARAH ELIZABETH COX
An 1880s’ group biography of the last of Britain’s
bareknuckle boxers from the historical consultant behind
A Thousand Blows (Disney+/Hulu)
THE DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR is the first popular book from Sarah Elizabeth Cox,
the historical consultant behind Steven Knight’s television series A Thousand Blows
and author of the historical blog ‘Grappling with History’.
A group biography of Victorian boxers, THE DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR is a cultural
history that does far more than recount the true story behind the fictionalized
version now streaming. Taking a narrative approach, Cox charts the decline of
bareknuckle boxing over the 1880s, and, in doing so, explores subjects ranging
from policing and healthcare to the press and entertainment – all while offering a
personal-scale view of the melting point of Victorian London (think Hallie
Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper but
with a lot more getting punched in the face).
The subjects themselves hail from as far afield as London’s East End and the North
to the United States and the Caribbean. Each has a unique story to tell and reveals
something not only about our shared history but also about the world we live in
today.
Sarah Elizabeth Cox was a historical consultant on season one and two of Steven Knight's
1880s’ boxing and crime TV drama A Thousand Blows. She researches biographies of
Victorian and Edwardian boxers and wrestlers for her website ‘Grappling with History’ and
works as the British Science Association’…

1888 portrait of boxer Hezekiah Moscow, a slim Black or Black/East Asian mixed heritage man, taken by Harry Carpenter. He is shirtless, fists raised, wearing white tights and a chequered sash at the waist. There are painted palms on the studio backdrop.

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Andrew Rihn @andrewrihn.bsky.social · 5d

GREAT title!!

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Reposted by Andrew Rihn

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 5d

I'm writing this book partly, mostly, for readers who aren't already into boxing 🥊

The Devil's Dance Floor is about pugilists, pressmen, policemen, and Alf Ball's pet puma. Murder, madness, Jem Smith's tight tights. We got wives. Bald bears. A Victorian epidemic of discarded orange peel! Smallpox!

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 5d

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