A few miles from New Orleans, at LaSalle's Landing - in what is now the city of Kenner - stands a life-size bronze statue of two men in combat. One of them is the legendary Gypsy Jem Mace, the first Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World and the last of the great bare-knuckle fighters. This is the story of Jem Mace's life. Born in Norfolk in 1931, between his first recorded fight, in October 1855, and his last - at the age of nearly 60 - he became the greatest fighter the world has ever known. But "Gypsy" Jem Mace was far more than a champion boxer: he played the fiddle in street processions in war-wrecked New Orleans; was friends with Wyatt Earp - survivor of the gunfight at the OK Corral (who refereed one of his fights), the author Charles Dickens; controversial actress Adah Mencken (he and Dickens were rivals for her affection); and the great and the good of New York and London high society; he fathered numerous children (the author is his great-great-grandson), and had countless lovers, resulting in many marriages and divorces.Gypsy Jem Mace is not simply a book about boxing, but more a narrative quest to uncover the life of a famous but forgotten ancestor, who died in poverty in 1910. This is a story that deserves to be told, one that will resonate with anyone, young or old, man or woman, who has ever sought to do something special before the light of life starts to dim.

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.

They called him 'Hands of Stone'. In his own words, and for the first time, Roberto Duran tells his unbelievable story in I Am Duran: The Autobiography of Robert Duran. From the mean streets of Panama to the bright lights of Las Vegas, blazing a trail through the golden decade of boxing, Duran, in unflinching form, dispels myths and lays bare the cost of conquering the world. He also returns to the debacle that entered sporting folklore during his rematch with Sugar Ray Leonard, when he uttered the infamous words 'no mas' - no more. Starting life in abject poverty as the illegitimate son of a serving US soldier, Duran quickly realized that his fists could both protect him on the streets and put food on the table. His reputation in and out of the ring travelled the corridors of boxing power on the day, for a bet, he knocked down a horse with a single punch. From his stunning debut in New York to the glorious defeat of Sugar Ray Leonard, the world titles and the chaos that ensued after the No Mas encounter, Duran's explosive life in the ring was matched only by the volatility outside of it, as he lurched from kingmaker to bankruptcy, before the ultimate ending of a bloody comeback and, finally, redemption.

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."