Mike Tyson Amazon Kindle Singles Interview With Excerpt Via Deadspin

My friend Alex Belth gave a little write up on the Kindle Series Interview I did with Mike Tyson for Amazon HERE.

Mike Tyson Interview for Amazon's Kindle Singles Seires

New interview I conducted with Mike Tyson last week in his suite at the Ritz-Carlton. A lot of interesting material covered. Have a read of the interview here. http://

Book Review For "A Cuban Boxer's Journey" Courtesy of Boxiana and Podcast With Newstalk

Here's a review from Boxiana's Luke G. Williams for A Cuban Boxer's Journey: Boxiana.

Talking Teofilo Stevenson and Guillermo Rigondeaux with the thoughtful Ger Gilroy of Ireland's Newstalk Radio: podcast.

"The Domino Diaries" To Be Released June 9th, 2015...

Pleased to announce "The Domino Diaries" availability and release June 9th, 2015 from Picador USA in hardcover. You can pre-order the book now here: The Domino Diaries or wherever books are sold that you'd prefer.

Interview with Longform.org's Podcast on Rigondeaux, Fidel Castro, and Cuba Today and Tomorrow

Longform.org just released a podcast I did with them yesterday that you can listen to HERE. Rigondeaux fought last week in Macau (dispatched with his opponent inside of a round) and Brian Campbell over at ESPN wrote a really fine article about his prospects going forward which I was interviewed for: Rigondeaux article. Amazon just included A Cuban Boxer's Journey  on their list of 2014's Best Books So Far, so if you have some spare change lying around that could buy a happy meal... consider my storytelling calories instead.

Interview with Prem Panicker of Yahoo India about A Cuban Boxer's Journey

Yahoo India's wonderful Prem Panicker worked with me on a little interview about A Cuban Boxer's Journey and the writing process. That can be found here. Amazon just selected A Cuban Boxer's Journey as one of their "2014's Best Books So Far."

A podcast I recorded over in Brooklyn with Longform.org should be out next week. Was a real privilege to be included amongst the other wonderful journalists and writers they've interviewed for their series (Evan Wright, Jay Caspian Kang, and Gay Talese's podcasts, to name just a few, make for great listening).

If you haven't had a chance to check out my short film "Ali vs Stevenson: The Greatest Fight That Never Was" please head over to Ring Magazine's write up by the super talented Brian Harty: here.

Happy 4th of July!

HEROES FOR SALE: TEÓFILO STEVENSON, YASIEL PUIG AND THE AGONY OF THE CUBAN ATHLETE

A new longform article and documentary short, focussed on the legendary Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson, can be found here. The story begins in Isla Mujeres, one of the prime human smuggling destinations on earth for Cubans, where Teofilo Stevenson's daughter Helmys comes to visit me to talk about her father. We meet for dinner at the same hotel where Dodger's superstar Yasiel Puig was held captive at machete point after being smuggled out of Cuba.

My new book on Cuban boxers is available for purchase (at about the price of an iced coffee) here:

A Cuban Boxer's Journey: From Castro's Traitor To American Champion

Ring Magazine Interview on Cuba, Cuban Boxers, and Defection

An interview is up that I did with Brian Harty over at The Ring Magazine's website that can be found here: A Cuban Boxer's Journey. We explored the origins of the book, Teofilo Stevenson, Felix Savon, Guillermo Rigondeaux, and the extensive human smuggling ring dealing with Cubans looking for a way off the island. Brian has a review of the book in the magazine out mid-June that's as succinct a take on what the book's about as I could hope to offer prospective readers.

A Cuban Boxer's Journey: From Castro's Traitor To American Champion Excerpt and Release

An excerpt went up on Sports On Earth for A Cuban Boxer's Journey: From Castro's Traitor to American Champion  yesterday in an anticipation for today's release of the book. Amazon's Kindle Singles has selected the book for their series. Ring Magazine will carry a review of the book in their mid-June issue written by the very gifted Brian Harty (if you haven't read his piece on Floyd Mayweather and the dynamics of boxing today I can't recommend his work enough). S.L. Price and I recently did a podcast together on Cuba yesterday, today, and tomorrow you can listen to here. If anything possesses you to approach my book, you're bound to get avalanched a whole lot by Price's brilliant Pitching Around Fidel  . Price's book has just been reissued with an epilogue that explores where A Cuban Boxer's Journey picks up the baton with some of the characters from his story. Price has been a real mentor to me and terribly generous with his time and support so I hope if you haven't read his book you might give it a try. It's one of the most fair, evocative depictions of life in Cuba (not just sport) that I've encountered in trying to research as much as I could for my own work.

Pushing Cuba and boxing related material isn't the easiest sell these days, so I'm very grateful to all the people who've put time and energy into helping my book reach people. I don't think I've brought much to Cuba beyond my own overwhelming confusion but I'm hugely pleased that confusion might be of some value seeking to understand the blur of Cuba tussling in the dirt of history against their powerful neighbor to the north for so long. I tracked down as many voices as I could to weigh in on Cuba and the results only confused me more. Perhaps you'll parse the riddles and poetry far more readily than I was capable. While Cuba's wardrobe has always enthralled the world with cars, cigars, and rum, the island itself and her people were always infinitely more compelling to me. If you toss away attempting to reconcile, what Nabokov once described as "the facts of the fiction" from the "fiction of the facts" you arrive places I've never been before inside my own mind and feelings. That's what I tried to offer with this book.

Next week a new longform article will go live from SBnation exploring the intersection between Yasiel Puig's superstardom in the United States and Teofilo Stevenson's legacy back in Cuba. It's my fourth effort with Glenn Stout, editor extraordinaire, and we're excited with the results. A short film will accompany the piece taking a look at Muhammad Ali and Teofilo Stevenson's great fight that never was. It will be the first time most will see footage from the interview I had with Stevenson back in May of 2011, his last before his death. I'm not sure what to say about that interview. I've sat across from Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Lance Armstrong and been fortunate enough to ask the questions I was most interested in asking but no one I've ever sat with affected me quite like Teofilo Stevenson. It was as close as I'll ever come to sharing a cigarette with Achilles.

So, 5:07 in the morning of the first day of my 35th year, hoping this note finds everyone well and thanks as always for your support. Hoping those kind enough to pick up a copy of the book enjoy what they find and my own obsession with the subject matter offers something of worth in exchange for your generous investment of time. It takes talent to tell a shitty story with Cuba, land of 11 million people living at the extremes, so I'll be hoping, fingers crossed, I fell short on that score with you.

New Podcast With S.L. Price Discussing Cuba and Cuban Athletes Past, Present, Future

New podcast joining the amazing S.L. Price of "Pitching Around Fidel" and Sports Illustrated discussing Cuban athletes and Cuba past, present, future: ow.ly/xlBN4

There's going to be a lot of stuff coming out very soon related A Cuban Boxer's Journey in the next week or so. A review in The Ring, excerpts at Sports On Earth and Deadspin, along with a new short film on Teofilo Stevenson and Muhammad Ali at SBnation complementing a long article contrasting Yasiel Puig and Stevenson's respective decision regarding Cuba's answer to "Sophie's Choice." 

New Story: "Gold In the Mud" About Boxer James Scott's Pipe Dream

New story at SBnation that was a doozy to knock off but hopefully worth the read. Easily one of the most bizarre, compelling story I've heard from the world of boxing in my life. James Scott fought from jail on HBO, CBS, and NBC against the world's best fighters and nearly fought his way not only to a championship from behind maximum security walls but got closer than anyone imagined to getting out of jail too, despite another few decades worth of time remaining on his sentence for armed robbery and later murder. The link to the story is below:

http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2014/3/12/5496096/james-scott-jailhouse-boxer-profile

"A Cuban Boxer's Journey from Traitor to Champion" now available

Pleased to announce that my new book, A Cuban Boxer's Journey from Traitor to Champion: The Guillermo Rigondeaux Story, published by Picador, is finally available for pre-order from Amazon and B&N and will be published on my 35th birthday, June 3rd, 2014.

For a little preview of some of the material inside, check out the most recent ESPN Magazine on the stands, the "Cuba Issue" oddly enough, including a byline I shared with ESPN Mag senior writer Peter Keating on the piece, This Way Out: Inside the high-priced underground economy of smuggling champion boxers.

Brief Amazon description of the book below:

“What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?”

This was the question posed by legendary boxer Teofilo Stevenson in the 1970s, crowned by many as the Muhammad Ali of Cuba, in response to an offer of five million dollars to leave his island to fight Ali. But not all Cubans have come to the same conclusion, let alone with such apparent ease. Guillermo Rigondeaux, the heir to Stevenson’s throne and two-time Olympic champion, sacrificed everything he had in his home country—his wife, his son, his government-subsidized car and house, as well as universal reverence among his fellow citizens—to try to make it in the mecca of big money boxing, the United States of America. But has the chance to make good in America been worth the loss of his national identity and the love of his countrymen? And to what extent has he been corrupted by the promise of untold riches?

In A Cuban Boxer’s Journey from Traitor to Champion, author, filmmaker and journalist Brin-Jonathan Butler chronicles the fascinating and tumultuous career of Rigondeaux—moody, driven, and almost mythically talented––as he attempts to capture the elusive and often punishing American Dream. See how this athlete’s most daunting challenge becomes how he can survive the complex forces outside of the ring.