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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Combat sports & self-defence > Boxing
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.
Pulitzer prize nominee and William Hill award-winning writer Thomas
Hauser's tribute to Ali, the greatest sporting icon the world has
ever seen. Few global personalities have commanded an
all-encompassing sporting and cultural audience like Muhammad Ali.
Many have tried to interpret in words his impact and legacy. Now,
Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest allows us to more fully
appreciate the truth and understand both the man and the ways in
which he helped recalibrate how the world perceives its
transcendent figures. In this companion volume to his seminal
biography of Ali, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Hauser
provides an updated retrospective of Ali's life. Relying on
personal insights, interviews with close associates and other
contemporaries of Ali, and memories gathered over the course of
decades on the cutting edge of boxing journalism, Hauser explores
Ali in detail inside and outside the ring. Muhammad Ali has
attained mythical status. But in recent years, he has been
subjected to an image makeover by corporate America as it seeks to
homogenise the electrifying nature of his persona. Hauser argues
that there has been a deliberate distortion of what Ali believed,
said, and stood for, and that making Ali more presentable for
advertising purposes by sanitising his legacy is a disservice to
history and to Ali himself. Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest
strips away the revisionism to reveal the true Ali, and, through
Hauser's assembled writing and hitherto unpublished essays,
recounts the life journey of a man universally recognised as a
unique and treasured world icon.
Miami, 1963. A young boy from Louisville, Kentucky, is on the path
to becoming the greatest sportsman of all time. Cassius Clay is
training in the 5th Street Gym for his heavyweight title clash
against the formidable Sonny Liston. He is beginning to embrace the
ideas and attitudes of Black Power, and firebrand preacher Malcolm
X will soon become his spiritual adviser. Thus Cassius Clay will
become 'Cassius X' as he awaits his induction into the Nation of
Islam. Cassius also befriends the legendary soul singer Sam Cooke,
falls in love with soul singer Dee Dee Sharp and becomes a
remarkable witness to the first days of soul music. As with his
award-winning soul trilogy, Stuart Cosgrove's intensive research
and sweeping storytelling shines a new light on how black music lit
up the sixties against a backdrop of social and political turmoil -
and how Cassius Clay made his remarkable transformation into
Muhammad Ali.
Aged fifty, on a whim, Marion Dunn joined a boxing gym. Training to
improve fitness quickly became something of an addiction, and then
a source of transformation. This is her myth-busting tale of four
years of slogging in an amateur boxing gym in northern England.
Marion's story is one of a developing love affair with the 'sweet
science'. It's also about obsession, hard work, companionship and
occasional bravery. But The Boxing Diaries is not just a story of
hard graft. It's a revealing account of life in the amateur boxing
gym: its idiosyncratic inhabitants, non-judgmental spirit,
dedicated coaches and respect for all comers, irrespective of age
or gender - provided their commitment to training is total. From
the sweat and toil in draughty halls, Marion takes us through the
years of preparation before she is finally ready to spar in the
ring. Every micro-improvement, every emotion is laid bare, and
along the way she considers the influences and events that might
have ignited her passion for the sport in the first place. Warning:
this is a knockout memoir that could make you want to start
swinging punches, too.
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.
One of the most talked-about and bestselling books of last year,
this is the no-holds-barred autobiography of a sporting legend
driven to the brink of self-destruction The bestseller that has
everyone talking. In this, his first, autobiography, 'Iron' Mike
Tyson pulls no punches and lays bare the story of his remarkable
life and career. Co-written with Larry Sloman, author of Antony
Keidis's best-selling memoir 'Scar Tissue', this is a visceral, and
unputdown-able story of a man born and raised to brutality, who
reached the heights of stardom before falling to crime, substance
abuse and infamy. Full of all the controversy and complexity that
you would expect from a man who delighted as much as he shocked,
this is a book that will surprise and reveals a fascinating
character beneath the exterior of violence. If you think you know
all about Mike Tyson, read this book and think again.
Two of the most prominent and celebrated athletes in the world,
Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard came together to
contest the $100million SuperFight on April 6, 1987 at Caesars
Palace in Las Vegas. From Frank Sinatra to U2, Joan Collins to
Whoopi Goldberg, the stars were drawn to ringside by the huge
box-office appeal of the blue-collar, dominant world middleweight
champion facing his nemesis, the charismatic and flamboyant Sugar
Ray, who was coming out of virtually five years of retirement.
Drawing on his deep reservoir of nerve, outstanding technique and a
strategy which Budd Schulberg - who provided Marlon Brando with the
immortal line, 'I coulda been a contender' - called a compound
optical illusion, Leonard won on points. It was boxing's greatest
comeback, but to this day the judges' decision remains bitterly
contested and not merely by the protagonists. But the story of The
SuperFight is much more than the story of the fight, for it details
two remarkable lives, the demons that drove both men and the
formidable challenges they overcame inside and outside the ring.
Hagler grew up in the Newark, New Jersey ghetto of Central Ward,
where a riot/rebellion rooted in racism claimed the lives of 26
people, injured 1,000 more and, to the young teenager, was "like
the end of the world". Fuelled by anger, he climbed to the top of
his domain and ruled for seven years as champion, one of the most
accomplished in boxing's annals. Leonard was an Olympic gold
medallist and all-American hero whose career was cut short by a
detached retina after he became the world welterweight king. He was
Muhammad Ali's gifted and anointed successor but he succumbed to
alcohol and drug abuse and for years was tormented by a secret -
the sexual abuse he endured as an amateur boxer by a trusted coach.
As provocative and polarising in its own way as Ali's defining
rivalry with Joe Frazier, this is the story of The SuperFight, of
Marvin Hagler and Ray Leonard and a fierce fire that still burns.
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