This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Boxing is a traditional sport in many ways, characterized by continuities in the form of practices and regulations and heavy with legends and heroes reflecting its traditional/historical values. Associations with class, hegemonic masculinity and racialized inclusions/exclusions, however, sit alongside developments such as women's boxing and involvement in Mixed Martial Arts. This book will be the first to use boxing as a vehicle for exploring social, cultural and political change in a global context. It will consider to what degree and in what ways boxing reflects social transformations, and whether and how it contributes to those transformations. In exploring the relationship it will provide new ways of thinking critically about the everyday.

In the second round of a defense of his IBF super featherweight world championship, Tony "The Tiger" Lopez felt the elbow of challenger John Molina slam into his eye. The impact of the accidental shot shattered his orbital bone and jammed Lopez's eyeball back into its socket. Swelling immediately sealed the eye, a problem made worse when, in the next round, Molina opened a cut over Lopez's other eye. The notoriously gritty champ fought seven more rounds that night in Sacramento before losing his title by TKO -- a story typical of those you'll read in "A Puncher's Chance: Amazing Tales from The Ringside Boxing Show." This is the first of a series of books chronicling the strange-but-true lives of some of the greatest boxers and boxing personalities of all time -- yarns spun in their own words during live interviews on The Ringside Boxing Show, a weekly radio program that originates from Monterey, California and streams worldwide. Prepare to be astonished by more than a dozen of the most remarkable and improbable stories ever told about the brutal and astonishing sport known as "The Sweet Science."