It was just another fight week for Marty Corwin, well, with a twist.

In New York City to handle production for the Keyshawn Davis-Denys Berinchyk card at Madison Square Garden’s Theater, the boxing lifer had plenty on his plate, as usual.

“Tomorrow is the press conference,” said Corwin on February 11. “Thursday is the weigh-in, and I have to set up all day Thursday, as well. Friday is show day, so I do what's called the world feed, which means that I produce and direct a show that's going to however many countries are taking this week's show. I don't have the transmission list yet, but it’s usually 40 to 50 countries. And we do a different separate feed from what ESPN puts out because they go to commercials and they put their announcers on camera. We can't do any of that for foreign broadcasters. So we do our own show, which is fully produced and goes to a lot of people.”

It's an essential – and usually thankless job – to be a producer for a sporting event. If everything goes as planned, it was supposed to. If something goes awry, then you get a call from the boss, and for decades, Corwin’s boss has been either Don King or Bob Arum. And now we have the twist, because while Corwin had his normal workload for Top Rank, he also fit in some interviews to promote his book, “Arum and King: Six Decades of Boxing Gold,” an insider’s look not only at the history of two of the sport’s greatest promoters, but of boxing production and, in a lot of ways, the sport itself.

That’s a lot to fit into 232 pages, but Corwin has pulled it off with style, so when we chatted, he wasn’t nervous about publication day.

“I’ve got the perfect excuse if people say it's not really the greatest book. I could say it was my first.”

Corwin laughs, not bothered by the multitasking. And that’s the laugh of experience, of being in the trenches putting together some of the biggest events in the business when the pressure is at its highest. As the phrase goes, if you know, you know, and those who have been in this boxing bubble for any length of time will read Corwin’s stories and nod their head. If you’ve watched from the outside, you’ll be fascinated to know what goes on behind the scenes when the work’s being done – and when folks are off the clock. A barroom brawl in England was a particularly interesting read. No spoilers, just check it out.

And if you want to know Corwin’s bonafides, just realize that being in this business at the highest level for over thirty years is rare, and it means that he knows what he’s talking about. And while it would have been easy to simply write up the backstories of King and Arum, Corwin goes deep into the changing world of television production, which is fascinating and education in and of itself. As for the men on the marquee, he tells those stories of polar opposites who share a spartan work ethic that has allowed them to still be viable in their 90s. That’s a feat, and seeing them up close and personal has allowed Corwin to let us behind the curtain to see what was really happening beyond press conferences and media appearances. Those looks, a ton of great stories, and the tales of King and Arum, were big selling points when Corwin was looking for a publisher.

“Rowman & Littlefield, they've done boxing books before, and they said to me, ‘We don't really buy boxing books anymore because they're very hard to sell, but we liked yours because it was different,’” Corwin recalled. “‘We'd never seen a boxing book from the perspective of the producer of the TV producer.’ So when people ask me about the book, I tell them there's something for different people in this book. If you're a boxing nut, there is all the history of some of the great fights, some of the Leonard-Duran series and the Ali fights. And some big stories you may not remember in ’79, when Bob Arum brought “Big” John Tate to South Africa to fight Gerrie Coetzee. That was a great story. 80,000 people and it was the first time ever they suspended apartheid at an event because Bob negotiated that. So there's those kinds of stories for the real boxing purists, but there's also things you might not have known. How many people remember that Bob promoted Evel Knievel's Snake River jump?”

Not me, but it does show the depth of reporting and recollection on display here. And in a marketplace where boxing books typically don’t sell well, Corwin has a hit here that will stand nicely with upcoming books from Mark Kriegel, Donald McRae, Charles Farrell, Dave Wedge, Don Stradley and Robert Anasi, which makes this one of the best years for the literary end of the sweet science in some time.

“I actually started the book under very different premises,” said Corwin. “It wasn't even really a book at first. I was seeking to put down some of the stories of what's been going on in the last 30-something years of my life, which I was going to share with friends. Some of the stories about traveling around the world, me and the Colonel (Bob Sheridan), all these crazy things that have happened on the road. I wanted to put the stories down before I forgot them.”

A friend, who happened to be a college English professor, read what Corwin put down and told him he should have it published. He did, and here it is, and now Corwin has to get back to work on the Davis-Berinchyk card, to make sure he doesn’t get a second loss pinned on his record.

“In 32 years of doing boxing, going back to my start with Don King, I lost exactly one fight,” he said. “Not a show, but one fight within a show. When we had a major power hit in Philadelphia, the generator crashed and there was no backup for that particular show. That is the only loss I've suffered. I’ve come close in other times, but that's the only loss I've suffered in 32 years.”