In The Red Corner

This is John Duncan's account of his year spent in Havana, attempting to arrange a boxing match where professional boxing is illegal. The heat and bureacracy is intercut with portraits of Cuba's boxing legends: Teofilo Stevenson; Benny "Kid" Paret; Black Bill; Angel Espinosa; and Kid Choclolate.

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John Duncan, sports correspondent with the Guardian, needs a change- he leaves his job and moves to Havana, with a deal from Frank Warren to arrange a fight between Mike Tyson and Cuban double Olympic champion Felix Savon, the world's two greatest living heavyweights. However, professional boxing is illegal in Cuba, Castro having banned it in 1961, and Felix Savon had already turned down the $25 million purse offered by Don King to fight Tyson. So John Duncan spent a year negotiating with Cuban bureaucracy in an attempt to pull off the impossible, and arrange a professional fight in the last bastion of Communism, where money does not buy everything.John Duncan's acccount of a year spent in the maelstrom of Havanna's heat and bureacracy is intercut with portraits of Cuba's most famous boxing legends including Teofilo Stevenson, Benny "Kid" Paret, Black Bill, Angel Espinosa and Kid Chocolate. In the Red Corner is a reflection on the noble and often dirty art of boxing, both past and present.