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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Combat sports & self-defence > Boxing
Everybody knows the record the stuff of almanacs, trade magazines and clipping services. A handful know the man. But only Muhammad Ali knows his life as he lived it. The Greatest is Ali's own story.
For six years he worked, traveled and talked with Richard Durham, a writer with a stunning talent, and the result is mesmerizing in its brilliance, drama, humanity and sheer entertainment. This is no documented scrapbook of wins and losses strung together with anecdotes; nor is it a thin potpourri of locker room gags. This book, like Ali who has incited every reaction except indifference goes straight to the place where responses to him have always been the gut.
When the history of the twentieth century is finally recorded, it must include Muhammad Ali. He is "The Greatest."
On bended knee, he leaned over the stricken boxer and counted him out. When he waved the fight over, there was exactly one second to go in the dramatic and brutal world championship bout and Víctor Galíndez had retained his title. But the referee, his shirt stained with the champion’s blood, had cemented his reputation as a cool professional, one destined to become an esteemed figure in world boxing.
South Africa’s own Stanley Christodoulou has officiated an unprecedented 242 world title fights over five decades, some of them among the most iconic in boxing history, and became his nation’s very first inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He rose from humble beginnings, learning his trade in the South African townships of the 1960s, and went on to lead his national boxing board as it sought to shed the racial restrictions of the apartheid era. It was a contribution to his country’s sporting landscape that saw him recognised by the president of the ‘new’ South Africa, Nelson Mandela.
The Life and Times of Stanley Christodoulou is Stanley’s memoir in boxing. It takes the reader to a privileged position, inside the ropes with champions and into the company of boxing legends.
As well as looking at the training environment Kandhola focuses on
three established figures in boxing: Julius Francis, a four-times
British Heavyweight and Commonwealth champion, who Kandhola first
photographed in 2000 just before his fight with Mike Tyson; Robert
McCracken, who won the British Light Middleweight title in 1994 and
the Commonwealth title in 1995 - currently McCracken is Performance
Director for the British Olympic team, and personal coach to Carl
Froch; and Howard 'Clakka' Clarke who fought at Madison Square
Garden for the IBF Light Middleweight Title - he lost, after which
his career took a significant nose-dive with him winning only one
fight out of his next seventy. He retired in 2007.
Nothing to lose...When nineteen-year-old Tommy Carter throws away a
promising career as a professional boxer to work for local villain
Davey Abbott, everyone thinks he's made a huge mistake - collecting
debts and working in strip clubs is no life for a young lad just
starting out in life. Everything to gain. A brutal fighter, Tommy
quickly earns a reputation for himself - feared and respected by
everyone - and becomes Davey's trusted right-hand man. But when
Davey is murdered Tommy is shocked to learn that Davey has left his
business empire to him - Tommy's the boss now. No one believes
Tommy will succeed. But there is only one rule Tommy lives
by...always back the underdog. Because Tommy is on the way up. This
book was previously published as Barking Boy. Another gripping
gangland read by Kerry Kaya. Perfect for fans of Kimberley
Chambers, Martina Cole, Heather Atkinson and Caz Finlay.
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