One of boxing’s finest wordsmiths has passed away. 

Colin Hart, who for some five decades was the voice of boxing for The Sun in London, died Saturday at age 89.

Hart was one of the best-connected boxing writers and someone whose work saw him inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013, a rare achievement for a British writer. Hart was also the first British writer to claim the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism from the BWAA two years earlier.

Born in London’s East End, Hart could be colorful, he could be fierce, but he was also fair. He had a gruff voice and had an early love for the sport, learning everything he could about the likes of Ted “Kid” Lewis and Jack “Kid” Berg. 

He was in Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle and had a book’s worth of stories about Muhammad Ali, including one day – after a delayed flight – showing up at Ali’s Deer Lake training camp with his late colleague and great friend Alan Hubbard in the middle of the night.

Upon seeing camp coordinator Gene Kilroy, who went to wake the great champion, they were given an audience with Ali in the middle of the night. 

It is safe to say that Hart had taken some convincing that the Rumble would even take place, between George Foreman, who died yesterday, and Muhammad Ali. Hart was skeptical at best when he first heard of the plans of the audacious Don King.

“There was this weird American with his hair sticking up on end and he called a press conference the day before the Foreman-Ken Norton] fight to announce that Foreman was going to defend his title against Muhammad Ali in Zaire in Kinshasa and the fight would start at 4am local time, to tie in with American television,” Hart recalled. “And we looked at each other and I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I thought, ‘Who is this clown, I’ve never heard so much rubbish in all my life.’ Sure enough, six months later, we were sitting, 4am, ringside in Kinshasa waiting for this fight to start.”

What they saw was, of course, historical, and Hart was a significant part of the Ali journey, and he also recalled once to me how much reverence he had for former heavyweight champion Joe Louis as he made an appearance at a major fight.

“The whole arena stood and applauded and I couldn’t see what the hell they were applauding, it wasn’t an applause, it was a roar,” Hart remembered. “And I stood up to see what was going on and Joe Louis had entered the arena, and was walking to his ringside seat. Talk about the hairs coming up on the back of your head.”

Hart watched his first fight from the balcony of West Ham Baths, aged 10, and the main event was an eight-rounder. He went with his grandmother, who was a friend of Ted “Kid” Lewis. The bug bit Colin hard. 

Hart, after a couple of years of National Service, joined The Herald as a news reporter in 1958, moved to the sports desk in 1962, reported on boxing from 1964 and from 1969 worked for the UK’s biggest newspaper, The Sun, and he never left. 

His first assignment in the USA was the Fight of the Century in Madison Square Garden, between Ali and Joe Frazier.

In one of our many conversations over the years, he interrupted me when I spoke about how long he’d covered the game.

“It’s not a game,” he snapped. “You do not play boxing. It’s a business. Sometimes I’ve written in the paper and they’ve changed my words to fight game and I used to go ballistic. I never use that.”

Colin Hart was a British boxing icon, popular among his peers, and has left an indelible mark on the sport.

Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, is on The Ring ratings panel and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.