And in this corner...

This date in 1937:  Ernest Hemingway tore open his shirt in Max Perkins's office at Scribner's to display his luxuriant mound of chest hair, and then punched Max Eastman in the nose.

The previous year, Modernist poet Wallace Stevens ("The Emperor of Ice Cream," "The Man with the Blue Guitar," etc.) declared to friends at a Key West bar "I wish I had Hemingway here right now.  I'd knock him out with a single punch."  Unfortunately for Wally, Hemingway just then did appear at the door.  Stevens threw his one punch and broke his hand on Hem's jaw.

That Wallace Stevens should have initiated a brawl with Ernest Hemingway seems as incongruous as Woody Allen picking a fight with Mel Gibson (or, to put it in Canadian literary terms, John Ralston Saul swinging at Jim Christy).

Meanwhile, for those wishing more on Hemingway the Pugilist, the critic in this corner, wearing purple polka dot trunks and weighing in at 475 pounds, recommends "Shadow Box" by George Plimpton.