On the night of 29 April 2017, at Wembley Stadium, Anthony Joshua knocked down and defeated the Ukraine's former world heavyweight champion, Vladimir Klitschko. In doing so, he added the WBA and IBO heavyweight titles to the IBF belt he already held. That bald statement of fact does little justice to what proved to be one of the finest heavyweight contests of all time, in which a brilliant but relatively inexperienced fighter took on, and eventually defeated, one of the finest boxers of his or any other age. It was a twelve-round fight before a record post-War crowd, and for eleven of those rounds it could have gone either way; indeed, in Round 6 it looked as though Joshua was finished when a massive right hand from Klitschko sent him to the canvas.

A vivid and realistic picture of the most controversial sport on Earth, On Boxing is a riveting, electrifying journey through a world of glitter and gore--where heart-soaring triumph and heart-rending tragedy go hand in hand. A magnificent work by a consummate artist.

With clear instruction and expert guidance, this fully illustrated guide to Bagua Zhang teaches all you need to know about this subtle, powerful martial art. There is no other martial art system or style, internal or external, which combines so many fighting techniques in one practice - and expert Master C S Tang provides lucid, detailed descriptions of the entire training system. Bagua is divided into several sets of exercises, and this guide begins by covering the history behind these, and explaining the basic exercises. It goes on to detail the training in more complex practices - including circle walking, single palm change, the eight palm changes, the special weapons of Bagua, and more. Tying into higher spiritual practices of Daoism, this guide not only covers the practical applications of Bagua Zhang, but explores the reasons why it calms the mind, coordinates the body, and develops health.

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** Gypsy Queen to the Gypsy King, Tyson Fury's wife Paris reveals the magical highs and epic lows of life with the Heavyweight Boxing World Champion, as she shares their life story and what keeps them strong through the good times - and the bad. Paris Fury is Tyson's rock, the wife he thanks for all his success. Both from Traveller families, she married him at 19 and is hands-on mother to their six children, as well as at his side through every fight. Always glamorous, strong, grounded, and her own woman. When Tyson's struggles with depression, OCD and alcohol have threatened to overwhelm them, she has held them together, and helped to see Tyson through to the greatest boxing victories. With all her warmth, humour and honesty, she tells her story - from her Traveller childhood, falling in love, making a home and a family, to coming through Tyson's darkest moments. She vividly describes the anguish of their worst times, and what it's like to be at the ringside. And she shows what it takes to balance the fame, the fans and all the sporting pressures alongside everyday family life.

Weighing in with a balance of the visceral and the cerebral, boxing has attracted writers for millennia. Yet few of the writers drawn to it have truly known the sport and most have never been in the ring. Moving beyond the typical sentimentality, romanticism, or cynicism common to writing on boxing, The Bittersweet Science is a collection of essays about boxing by contributors who are not only skilled writers but also have extensive firsthand experience at ringside and in the gym, the corner, and the ring itself. Editors Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra have assembled a roster of fresh voices, ones that expand our understanding of the sport's primal appeal. The contributors to The Bittersweet Science journalists, fiction writers, fight people, and more explore the fight world's many aspects, considering boxing as both craft and business, art form and subculture. From manager Charles Farrell's unsentimental defense of fixing fights to former Gold Glover Sarah Deming's complex profile of young Olympian Claressa Shields, this collection takes us right into the ring and makes us feel the stories of the people who are drawn to or sometimes stuck in the boxing world. We get close-up profiles of marquee attractions like Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr., as well as portraits of rising stars and compelling cornermen, along with first-person, hands-on accounts from fighters' points of view. We are schooled in not only how to hit and be hit, but why and when to throw in the towel. We experience the intimate immediacy of ringside as well as the dim back rooms where the essentials come together. And we learn that for every champion there's a regiment of journeymen, dabblers, and anglers for advantage, for every aspiring fighter, a veteran in painful decline. Collectively, the perspectives in The Bittersweet Science offer a powerful in-depth picture of boxing, bobbing and weaving through the desires, delusions, and dreams of boxers, fans, and the cast of managers, trainers, promoters, and hangers-on who make up life in and around the ring.Contributors: Robert Anasi, Brin-Jonathan Butler, Donovan Craig, Sarah Deming, Michael Ezra, Charles Farrell, Rafael Garcia, Gordon Marino, Louis Moore, Gary Lee Moser, Hamilton Nolan, Gabe Oppenheim, Carlo Rotella, Sam Sheridan, and Carl Weingarten.

The presence of African influence and tradition in the Americas has long been recognized in art, music, language, agriculture, and religion. T. J. Desch Obi explores another cultural continuity that is as old as eighteenth-century slave settlements in South America and as contemporary as hip-hop culture. In this thorough survey of the history of African martial arts techniques, Obi maps the translation of numerous physical combat techniques across three continents and several centuries to illustrate how these practices evolved over time and are still recognizable in American culture today. Some of these art traditions were part of African military training while others were for self-defense and spiritual discipline.Grounded in historical and cultural anthropological methodologies, Obi's investigation traces the influence of well-delineated African traditions on long-observed but misunderstood African and African American cultural activities in North America, Brazil, and the Caribbean. He links the Brazilian martial art capoeira to reports of slave activities recorded in colonial and antebellum North America. Likewise Obi connects images of the kalenda African stick-fighting techniques to the Haitian Revolution. Throughout the study Obi examines the ties between physical mastery of these arts and changing perceptions of honor. Including forty-five illustrations, this rich history of the arrival and dissemination of African martial arts in the Atlantic world offers a new vantage for furthering our understanding of the powerful influence of enslaved populations on our collective social history.

Bartley Gorman was a legend in the brutal world of illegal prize-fighting, and this long-awaited auto-biography, with many unique photographs, lifts the lid on a secret sub-culture.

'If I had to pick a single general martial arts history book in English, I would recommend A Brief History of the Martial Arts by Dr Jonathan Clements' RICHARD BEITLICH, Martial History Team blog From Shaolin warrior monks to the movies of Bruce Lee, a new history of the evolution of East Asian styles of unarmed combat, from Kung Fu to Ninjutsu Folk tales of the Shaolin Temple depict warrior monks with superhuman abilities. Today, dozens of East Asian fighting styles trace their roots back to the Buddhist brawlers of Shaolin, although any quest for the true story soon wanders into a labyrinth of forgeries, secret texts and modern retellings. This new study approaches the martial arts from their origins in military exercises and callisthenics. It examines a rich folklore from old wuxia tales of crime-fighting heroes to modern kung fu movies. Centre stage is given to the stories that martial artists tell themselves about themselves, with accounts (both factual and fictional) of famous practitioners including China's Yim Wing-chun, Wong Fei-hong, and Ip Man, as well as Japanese counterparts such as Kano Jigoro, Itosu Anko and So Doshin. The history of martial arts encompasses secret societies and religious rebels, with intimate glimpses of the histories of China, Korea and Japan, their conflicts and transformations. The book also charts the migration of martial arts to the United States and beyond. Special attention is paid to the turmoil of the twentieth century, the cross-cultural influence of Japanese colonies in Asia, and the post-war rise of martial arts in sport and entertainment - including the legacy of Bruce Lee, the dilemma of the ninja and the global audience for martial arts in fiction.

This collection of parables written by an eighteenth-century samurai is a classic of martial arts literature. The tales are concerned with themes such as perception of conflict, self-transformation, the cultivation of chi (life energy), and understanding yin and yang. Some of the parables seem light and fanciful, but they offer the reader valuable lessons on the fundamental principles of the martial arts; "The Mysterious Technique of the Cat" is iconic.
The "demon" in the title story refers to the mythical tengu, who guard the secrets of swordsmanship. A swordsman travels to Mt. Kurama, famous for being inhabited by tengu, and in a series of conversations he learns about mushin (no-mind), strategy, the transformation of chi, and how the path of the sword leads to the understanding of life itself.
The author, Issai Chozanshi, had a deep understanding of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto, as well as insight into the central role of chi in the universe--points that are succinctly explained in William Scott Wilson's fine introduction and extensive endnotes. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to truly understand the philosophical underpinnings of martial arts, and how these principles relate to our existence.

Growing up in Maplewood, New Jersey the only Black, Muslim-American in hijab, in middle school Ibtihaj discovered fencing, a sport traditionally reserved for the wealthy and elite. Though she would start fencing later than most at 12 years old, she had an undeniable talent-the sort that would soon put her on the international stage. But Ibtihaj saw something more in her Olympic journey: an opportunity to take action, to stand up and make a Muslim-American woman of color impossible to ignore. Ibtihaj's path to Olympic greatness has been marked with hateful opposition and near-debilitating challenges-bigotry from teammates at Duke University and Team USA, death threats, and social hardships as a Muslim-American. In Proud, her exhilarating emergence from young outsider to national hero and outspoken activist is a timeless, uniquely American tale of hard work, determination, and resilience that hasn't been told.

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize In this groundbreaking new book, Thomas Page McBee, a trans man, trains to fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden while struggling to untangle the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. Through his experience of boxing - learning to get hit, and to hit back; wrestling with the camaraderie of the gym; confronting the betrayals and strength of his own body - McBee examines the weight of male violence, the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes and the limitations of conventional masculinity. A wide-ranging exploration of gender in our society, Amateur is ultimately a story of hope, as McBee traces a way forward: a new masculinity, inside the ring and out of it. A graceful and uncompromising exploration of living, fighting and healing, in Amateur we gain insight into the stereotypes and shifting realities of masculinity today through the eyes of a new man.

The first book to focus on the intersection of Western philosophy and the Asian martial arts, Striking Beauty comparatively studies the historical and philosophical traditions of martial arts practice and their ethical value in the modern world. Expanding Western philosophy's global outlook, the book forces a theoretical reckoning with the concerns of Chinese philosophy and the aesthetic and technical dimensions of martial arts practice. Striking Beauty explains the relationship between Asian martial arts and the Chinese philosophical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, in addition to Sunzi's Art of War. It connects martial arts practice to the Western concepts of mind-body dualism and materialism, sports aesthetics, and the ethics of violence. The work ameliorates Western philosophy's hostility toward the body, emphasizing the pleasure of watching and engaging in martial arts, along with their beauty and the ethical problem of their violence.

New Orleans was once one of the hottest cities for pro wrestling because of one man -- Sylvester Ritter, better known as the Junkyard Dog. JYD became a legend in the Big Easy, drawing huge crowds to the Superdome, a feat no other wrestler ever came close to. In 1980, he managed to break one of the final colour barriers in the sport by becoming the first black wrestler to be made the undisputed top star of his promotion. This biography aims to restore JYD to his deserved place in the history books by looking at his famous feuds, the business backstories, and the life of the man outside the ring. The King of New Orleans recounts the story of how an area known for racial injustice became the home of wrestling's most adored African-American idol. A remarkable tale of a man still remembered on the streets of New Orleans and in the hearts of pro wrestling fans.