“Writing About Boxers Is His Passion” – New Article From South Charlotte News

As a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1980s, Christian Giudice went with his father, Jim, to see boxing matches in Atlantic City.

“At that age, I didn’t really understand it, but I knew I was seeing something that a lot of kids my age weren’t exposed to,” said Giudice, 38, who lives in south Charlotte with his wife, Tair.

In time, Giudice began to grasp strategy.

“There was nothing, to me, like going to see a fight,” he said.

But watching fights later proved to be more than a hobby. Giudice was a sports reporter for The Gloucester County Times in Woodbury, N.J., when a realization hit.

“I was at an age where, if I was ever going to write a book about boxing, this was the time,” he said.

If it didn’t work, he figured, he could always get his newspaper job back, and he could earn a living freelancing and substitute teaching while pursuing the book.

He cultivated contacts in Panama, where boxer Roberto Duran lived, and began traveling there.

“Roberto Duran, he was one of my favorites when I was growing up,” Giudice said.

He tried to win Duran’s trust to interview him, but was repeatedly turned away. A language barrier stood in the way.

“The only way this is going to happen is if I go home and learn Spanish,” Giudice said he told himself.

He threw himself into studying Spanish, spending six or seven hours a day, five days a week, over several months.

He landed the interviews, and “Hands of Stone: The Life and Legend of Roberto Duran,” was published in 2006 by Milo Books in the United Kingdom. It sold almost 25,000 copies, many of them in the U.K., where boxing is popular.

Giudice’s latest project is a book on boxer Alexis Arguello of Nicaragua.

“Beloved Warrior: The Rise and Fall of Alexis Arguello” was released in 2012 by Potomac Books.

Arguello, who also was mayor of Managua, Nicaragua, was “just an amazing fighter” and “always a gentleman,” Giudice said.

Arguello died in 2009. Questions remain about Arguello’s death.

“Few people in Nicaragua will really, truly talk on record about it, for fear of repercussions,” said Giudice.

Giudice holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Villanova University and a master’s degree in journalism from Temple University. He teaches English at Parkwood High School in Monroe, using his writing experiences to impart lessons in perseverance to students.

Working with publishers had its challenges.

“I can’t worry about what they don’t like, but I can improve upon what I think I need to do,” he said.

He impresses on students not to take rejection personally, but to persist anyway.

And he never tries to force an interest in boxing.

“There’s no real middle ground,” he said, either you like boxing or you don’t.

Elizabeth Britton, who works at Starbucks at Promenade on Providence, knew Giudice before he wrote two books. Britton, 25, is from Haddonfield, N.J., the same small town as Giudice. People don’t usually stray far, she said.

Giudice was her substitute teacher in middle school and high school there. So Britton was surprised to cross paths with him when he walked into her Charlotte store.

“It took me awhile to stop calling him Mr. Giudice,” she said.