The most bizarre world championship fight in boxing history was staged on St. Patrick's Day 1923, in war-torn Dublin. The winner in the ring, Mike McTigue, went on to run with gunmen, gangsters and racketeers in Jazz Age New York. A Bloody Canvas: The Mike McTigue Story tells the story of how Michael Francis McTigue left Kilnamona, Co. Clare, to seek fame and fortune in the United States, only for circumstances to bring him back to Dublin where he would win one of the strangest world title fights in boxing history. Set partly against the background of the Irish Civil War, it also tells of a bitterly divided people who managed to set aside their differences for twenty rounds of boxing before the guns started firing and the mines started exploding once more. But primarily, A Bloody Canvas is a biography. It tells how an ageing journeyman fighter found himself to be the right Irishman, in the right place at the right time. This is the saga of an underdog boxer laced with wrenching danger and a panoramic sense of life from late eighteenth-century rural Ireland to the Civil War, to the heady days of the Jazz Age in New York and the desperation of the Great Depression.

These gentlemen do not hesitate to take a serious look at the major fights of today, weigh the important factors, and make a prediction as to how the contest will proceed and who will win. This does not mean they are always correct. Who is? But in addressing how each combatant will fight his adversary, they are usually on target. In selecting the winner, again they are correct an uncanny number of times. So, it is quite interesting to see what they have to say in advance of a match and also in assessing the outcome. Their study of boxing is not limited to the present either. While they focus primarily on boxers after the year 1930, they are well-read and extremely knowledgeable about the old-timers that preceded these men, even as far back a the bare-knuckle fighters. I have experienced some challenging debates with Tom and Frank regarding several men in boxing history and, in some cases, I am hard-pressed to produce a decent argument in response to some of the points they emphasize. I have followed boxing for over 57 years now, ever since I was a child, eight years of age. subject--magazines, books and newspapers (from as far back as 1820). I have read what sportswriters, coaches, athletes, boxers, and fans have to say. In conclusion, I must say that Tom and Frank write with as much authority and in-depth knowledge as anyone I have read and exhibit in their writing the keen observation and analysis that is often lacking in the work of many others. The book makes for a good reader on the subject of boxing with short and easy to read essays that serve to whet the appetite of a boxing fan. Tracy Callis

No one gave James "Buster" Douglas much of a chance when he faced "Iron" Mike Tyson on February 11, 1990, in the Tokyo Dome. Tyson was Godzilla, and Buster wasn't expected to be anything more than a moth for Tyson to swat away, much less Mothra. Douglas had four losses already and 42-1 odds against him in this bout. One reporter, going through Japanese customs, announced he was in town for business. When asked how long he would be working, he laughed and responded "Oh, about a minute." The match lasted longer than that, though. When it was over, it was the greatest upset in boxing history. Buster Douglas was the new heavyweight champion of a shocked, surprised, and stunned world. Here is the inside story of just how the biggest of underdogs, dealing with the recent death of his mother, dethroned the invincible Tyson. John Johnson, Douglas's manager for this slugfest and most of his career, takes the reader into the ring in Tokyo and details the beginning of Douglas's career - how he positioned himself to be the champ - as well as the post-fight fall that started with a loss in his first defense of the title. Johnson and coauthor Bill Long interviewed people who were in the ring, at ringside announcing the match, and in the crowd both covering the bout or just watching it for the expected devastation. Announcers Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Sugar Ray Leonard discuss their memories, and men in both corners detail the in-fight machinations for both Tyson and Douglas. Mike Tyson's loss to Buster Douglas truly rocked the world and threw heavyweight boxing into a tumult that still resonates today.

Originally published in 1915, this is a memoir of Eugene Corri's career as a boxing referee. He refereed all the top fights of the day and speaks at length of both the fights themselves and the boxers who fought them, all of whom he knew well. Well-illustrated with black and white photographs, this is a fascinating glimpse into a vanished era. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents Include - The Lucky-Tub of Memory - The Carpentier-Gunboat Smith Fight - Barbardier Wells, with a Word or Two about Carpentier - Robert Fitzsimmons - Willie Ritchie and Freddy Welsh - Matt Wells, Sereant Basham, and Johnny Summers - Wilde The Wizard - Some Boxing Storeys - More Boxing Storeys - Boxing in the War

Alan Scott Haft provides the first-hand testimony of his father, Harry Haft, a holocaust victim with a singular story of endurance, desperation, and unrequited love. Harry Haft was a sixteen-year-old Polish Jew when he entered a concentration camp in 1944. Forced to fight other Jews in bare-knuckle bouts for the perverse entertainment of SS officers, Harry quickly learned that his own survival depended on his ability to fight and win. Haft details the inhumanity of the ""sport"" in which he must perform in brutal contests for the officers. Ultimately escaping the camp, Haft's experience left him an embittered and pugnacious young man. Determined to find freedom, Haft traveled to America and began a career as a professional boxer, quickly finding success using his sharp instincts and fierce confidence. In a historic battle, Haft fights in a match with Rocky Marciano, the future undefeated heavy-weight champion of the world. Haft's boxing career takes him into the world of such boxing legends as Rocky Graziano, Roland La Starza, and Artie Levine, and he reveals new details about the rampant corruption at all levels of the sport. In sharp contrast to Elie Wiesel's scholarly, pious protagonist in ""Night"", Harry Haft is an embattled survivor, challenging the reader's capacity to understand suffering and find compassion for an antihero whose will to survive threatens his own humanity. Haft's account, at once dispassionate and deeply absorbing, is an extraordinary story and an invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature.

Easily the most enduring of all sports questions is Who was/is the best . . . ? Perhaps in no sport is the question more asked and argued over than in boxing. And in boxing perhaps none is more qualified to answer the question than Bert Randolph Sugar.
In Boxing's Greatest Fighters, not only does the former publisher of Ring Magazine tell us who the best fighters were, he lists them in order.
Could Sugar Ray Robinson have beaten Muhammad Ali? Could Sugar Ray Leonard have beaten Sonny Liston? The answer, most experts agree, would be no. But what if, as Bert Sugar has done here, one were to take all the boxers and reduce them in the minds eye to the same height, the same weight, and the same ring conditions? The answers would be quite different.
And while some fans may express outrage that Rocky Marciano barely makes the top twenty, and Marvin Hagler staggers into the top seventy-five, others will nod eagerly when they read that Harry Greb and Benny Leonard were better than just about anybody.
So whether you read Boxing's Greatest Fighters cover to cover, pick your
favorites at random, or simply browse through the many rare photographs, at
the bell, come out arguing.

He was the first black heavyweight champion in history, the most celebrated-and most reviled-African American of his age. In "Unforgivable Blackness, the prizewinning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex and compelling than the newspaper headlines he inspired could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports-one that had always been the private preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled just to survive, he reveled in his riches and his fame. And at a time when the mere suspicion that a black man had flirted with a white woman could cost him his life, he insisted on sleeping with whomever he pleased, and married three. Because he did so the federal government set out to destroy him, and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. Ward points out that to most whites (and to some African Americans as well) he was seen as a perpetual threat-profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace, and a danger to the natural order of things.
"
Unforgivable Blackness is the first full-scale biography of Johnson in more than twenty years. Accompanied by more than fifty photographs and drawing on a wealth of new material-including Johnson's never-before-published prison memoir-it restores Jack Johnson to his rightful place in the pantheon of American individualists.

"From the Hardcover edition.

Based on the proven training methods of championship fighters and martial arts masters, such as Bruce Lee, this advanced guide will help you develop superior speed and reflexes. Regardless of your martial arts style or method...you cannot apply it successfully unless you can react quickly and respond instantly. Speed is critical for success in competition and self-defense. Razor-sharp reflexes are often the sole difference between winning and losing. J. Barnes, a mixed martial artist with more than 20 years experience, details how to use the innovative Speed Loop[ training system to breakdown and master the 7 keys to martial arts speed for self-defense and mixed martial arts fighting. You can double or triple your speed by using world-class training drills to isolate, transform, and integrate every component of Speed Loop[, including: [Visual Reflexes Improve your ability to spot openings and track movements. Exceptional visual reflexes allow you to recognize, track, distinguish, adapt to, and counter movements with precision and confidence. [Tactile Reflexes - Learn to instantly feel what the opponent is attempting to do by quickly interpreting the direction of his body force. Ninety-five percent of all fights end up in close range. Be prepared! [Auditory Reflexes - It is important to react quickly to what you hear. You can improve your auditory reflexes by enhancing your perceptive listening skills. [Adaptation Speed Learn to instantaneously select the perfect action in response to an attack or opening. Highly developed adaptation speed will allow your reflexes to carry out the movement selection process automatically. [Initiation Speed - It's not how fast you move, but how soon youget there that really counts! Train yourself to make your movements felt before they are seen by developing a flawless poker face and the ability to relax at will. [Movement Speed - Dont be concerned with demonstration speed. Your training should focus on developing the applied speed that will help you overwhelm and subdue an opponent in seconds. [Alteration Speed - Alteration speed involves the ability to quickly change directions in the midst of movement. Through mastery of body mechanics, you can develop the ability to stop your movement instantly]just in case you initiate a wrong move. [Hampering Speed - Speed Hampering is the ability to effectively slow down the opponents reaction time to your attacks. Skill in speed hampering can help compensate for what you may lack in movement speed. By focusing on the maximum development of each individual speed component, your training will be more efficient and effective. This will help you develop superior speed and reflexes in the shortest possible time. Use the proven Speed Loop[ training system found in this acclaimed guide and you will see a significant improvement in your total speed and reflexes.

Iron Mike collects the best writing on the tumultuous fifteen-year career of the most reviled and idolized athlete in the world, Michael Gerard Tyson. Since becoming, at age nineteen, the youngest heavyweight champion in history, Tyson's dramatic rise, fall, and continuing struggle has provoked more passionate writing, both in and out of the sports pages, than that of any other boxer since Muhammad Ali. Iron Mike is about more than boxing. Like no other athlete, Mike Tyson is at the nexus of America's cultural anxieties about race, class, masculinity, violence, and celebrity; like no other athlete his story of high drama and low comedy inspires writers to wrestle with these themes, with Tyson often no more than the occasion for the writer's own preoccupations. And Tyson has provided many such occasions: his rise to the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship at age twenty-one; his rocky marriage to Robin Givens; his controversial conviction for the rape of Desiree Washington; his return to boxing and reclamation of the WBC and WBA belts; his biting of Evander Holyfield. Iron Mike is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a man who, for better and worse, is one of the most recognizable, popular, and defining icons of our time. The book includes selections from Joyce Carol Oates, Pete Hamill, Jose Torres, Pete Dexter, Phil Berger, Christopher Hitchens, Robert Lipsyte, Dave Anderson, Jonathan Yardley, Richard Rodriguez, Katherine Dunn, Budd Schulberg, William Plummer, David Remnick, Keith Botsworth, and others.

Big city boy grabs scholarship to escape L.A. insanity to small-town America. Meets, wins, loses ?

"Personally, I've got a lot invested in reaching my stunning current age, and I'm damned if I'm going to hang on to that youthful crap. (I liked the idea of being a sixty-year-old so much I started claiming that age before I turned fifty-nine.) Parts of it, I don't like--the loss of energy that seems its inevitable accompaniment, for example--but when I consider how I used to boil that energy away as a younger man, and the things I boiled it away on, I am happy to accept a shorter tether and a more reflective way of going at things."


John Jerome, author of such beloved books as Truck and Stone Work, entered his sixty-fifth year with a number of goals in mind: to battle the debilities of age, to master them through understanding when he could not physically defeat them, and to keep a journal of these efforts. As he puts it, "It was time to start planning an endgame."

The result is a warm, compassionate, and honest look at the twelve months that led him to the gateway of old age--a survey of this time of life which ranges from strict physiology to expansive philosophy, from delicate neurosurgery to rough weather on a Canadian canoeing trip, from the despair and isolation of illness to the love and comfort of a sound marriage. The writing, in its clarity, grace, and humor, matches its author's spirit. "The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our time," Jerome reminds us. Reading this wise and funny chronicle of one man's--and everyman's--journey toward citizenship, senior division, will be time well spent, for young and old alike. It is that rare kind of book which comes to life as a companion, and even a friend.


From the Hardcover edition.

Conor McGregor's trainer tells the amazing story of his long road to success in the world's fastest-growing sport Growing up in Dublin, John Kavanagh was a skinny lad who was frequently bullied. As a young man, after suffering a bad beating when he intervened to help a man who was being attacked, he decided he had to learn to defend himself. Before long, he was training fighters in a tiny shed, and promoting the earliest mixed-martial arts events in Ireland. And then, a cocky kid called Conor McGregor walked into his gym ... In Win or Learn, John Kavanagh tells his own remarkable life story - which is at the heart of the story of the extraordinary explosion of MMA in Ireland and globally. Employing the motto 'win or learn', Kavanagh has become a guru to young men and women seeking to master the arts of combat. And as the trainer of the world's most charismatic champion, his gym has become a magnet for talented fighters from all over the globe. Kavanagh's portrait of Conor McGregor - who he has seen in his lowest moments, as well as in his greatest triumphs - is a revelation. What emerges from Win or Learn is a remarkable portrait of ambition, discipline, and persistence in the face of years and years of disappointment. It is a must read for every MMA fan - but also for anyone who wants to understand how to follow a dream and realize a vision. 'For anyone interested in following their dream to the end of the line' Tony Parsons 'It kept me up well past my bedtime' Sean O'Rourke, RTE Radio One 'Remarkable' Irish Times 'Kavanagh is open and honest about his upbringing ... The journey hasn't been easy, but Kavanagh's inbuilt determination has carried him all the way' Irish Examiner

From 1919 to 1927, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to the Roaring '20s. In A Flame of Pure Fire, award-winning and renowned sports writer Roger Kahn, a personal friend of Dempsey's, tells the extraordinary story of a man and a country growing to maturity in a blaze of strength and exuberance. With passion and precision, Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the "Manassa Mauler" but also illustrates how the wild and raucous 1920s shaped Dempsey, and how the champ, in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history. An accomplished and insightful observation on how sports can measure a society's evolution, Roger Kahn finds the heart of America in the story of the most famous athlete of his time, the man John Lardner once called "a flame of pure fire, at last a hero."

"This is a surprising book, a terrific book. It's not about boxing, but about an odd, demanding world in which boxing is the thread, the key to existence. Wiley deftly broadens the delineation of this world and its people. Perceptive reporting is the foundation and perceptive reporting is rare enough. Wiley enhances it with clear, quick writing laced with humor and with a sensitivity that lends brilliance to this impressive work."-Robert W. Creamer, author of Baseball and Other Matters in 1941. "Ralph Wiley, with Serenity, has produced an original book about the ring. . . . He can dig beneath the surface and show us what really happened in a bout: why Thomas Hearns, with too much faith in his powerful right hand, lost to Sugar Ray Leonard in their first match. . . . Or why Roberto Durn was acting out of prudence, not cowardice, when he quit in his second fight against Leonard. . . . Yet the book is not really about boxing. Boxing in Serenity is what T. S. Eliot, speaking of plot, called the meat a burglar brings to distract the watchdog. The book is really about growing up in a world where you had to defend yourself physically to survive."-New York Times. "Wiley's rapport with boxers is profound."-Publisher's Weekly. "Wiley is one writer who really knows his way around a boxing ring. . . . He writes] with passion and understanding about complex, violent men and their oddly redemptive sport."-Booklist. Ralph Wiley is the author or coauthor of several works, most recently Born to Play: The Eric Davis Story.

From the daughter of Muhammad Ali comes an intimate portrait of the heavyweight boxing champion and a final love letter from a daughter to her father.

Through audio journals, love letters and cherished memories, Ali's daughter Hana tells the story of a very typical and yet fully-unique family, the rise and fall of her parent’s marriage and the struggles they faced as a family surrounding Ali’s loss to Larry Holmes in 1981.

With the decline of Ali’s voice, his recordings are important to history as they are to his personal legacy. At Home with Muhammad Ali offers a candid look at a man who was trying to find his purpose in the world as he realized he was coming to the end of his lucrative sporting career, all the while trying to balance fatherhood and his worldly and political obligations. Additionally, Hana tells of the everyday adventures that the family experienced around the house—with visitors like Michael Jackson and Clint Eastwood dropping by. And for the first time, Hana’s mother Veronica will share her memories of the 12-year relationship with Muhammad.

At Home with Muhammad Ali is a candid and revealing portrait of a legend, a man admired and respected as the greatest sporting icon of our age.

Fifteen previously unpublished boxing pieces written between 1952 and 1963.
Demonstrating A.J. Liebling’s abiding passion for the “sweet science” of boxing, "A Neutral Corner" brings together fifteen previously unpublished pieces written between 1952 and 1963. Antic, clear-eyed, and wildly entertaining, these essays showcase a" The New Yorker" journalist at the top of his form. Here one relives the high drama of the classic Patterson-Johansson championship bout of 1959, and Liebling’s early prescient portrayal of Cassius Clay’s style as a boxer and a poet is not to be missed.
Liebling always finds the human story that makes these essays appealing to aficionados of boxing and prose alike. Alive with a true fan’s reverence for the sport, yet balanced by a true skeptic’s disdain for sentiment, "A Neutral Corner "is an American treasure.

WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD He was the first black heavyweight champion in history (1908-15) and the most celebrated - and most reviled - African American of his age. In Unforgivable Blackness, prize-winning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex than the newspaper headlines could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports - one that had always been the preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if colour did not exist. Because of this, the federal government set out to destroy him and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. As Ward shows, Johnson was seen as a perpetual threat to white and African Americans alike - profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace and a danger to the natural order of things. Unforgivable Blackness is the first full-scale biography of Johnson in more than twenty years. Accompanied by more than fifty photographs and drawing on a wealth of new material - including Johnson's never-before-published prison memoir - it restores Jack Johnson to his rightful place in the pantheon of sporting and social warriors.

Here is Jake LaMotta discussing his career as a hoodlum; Floyd Patterson on growing up in the ghetto; Gunboat Smith on the Jack Johnson era; Jack Dempsey on the Willard fight and the Tunney "long count"; Rocky Graziano on showbiz; and dozens of others--including Sugar Ray Robinson, Willie Pastrano, Jose Torres, Carmen Basilio, Joe Louis, Willie Pep, and Archie Moore--on boxers, racketeers, drugs, payoffs, managers. Including two never-before-published interviews with Roberto Duran and Alexis Arguello, this newly expanded and updated edition of "In This Corner. . . !" is undoubtedly the best one-volume history of boxing ever written.

Opening with Vince Lombardi's last win as coach of the Packers in Super Bowl II and closing with Joe Namath's Super Bowl III guarantee, James Nicholson delivers an original portrait of a sensational closing decade in American culture. Controversies on the field and in the ring reflected broader political and social turmoil in the late-sixties United States. With one of the most contentious presidential elections in US history, the ongoing civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War all storming in the background, Nicholson charts a course through the oddly unsettled waters of American sports in 1968: the Masters golf tournament decided by the strict enforcement of an arcane rule to the detriment of a foreign player; the winner of the Kentucky Derby disqualified for a drug violation; Muhammad Ali waiting in sports exile while he appealed a criminal conviction for draft evasion; an unorthodox rendition of the national anthem at the World Series nearly overshadowing the game it preceded; and the silent gesture at the Mexico City Olympics made by Tommie Smith and John Carlos that shocked the nation

Questions of class and gender in Appalachia have, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election and the runaway success of Hillbilly Elegy, moved to the forefront of national conversations about politics and culture. From Todd Snyder, a first generation college student turned college professor, comes a passionate commentary on these themes in a family memoir set in West Virginia coal country. 12 Rounds in Lo's Gym is the story of the author's father, Mike ""Lo"" Snyder, a fifth generation West Virginia coal miner who opened a series of makeshift boxing gyms with the goal of providing local at-risk youth with the opportunities that eluded his adolescence. Taking these hardscrabble stories as his starting point, Snyder interweaves a history of the region, offering a smart analysis of the costs - both financial and cultural - of an economy built around extractive industries. Part love letter to Appalachia, part rigorous social critique, readers may find 12 Rounds in Lo's Gym - and its narrative of individual and community strength in the face of globalism's headwinds - a welcome corrective to popular narratives that blame those in the region for their troubles.