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Henry Armstrong: Boxing's Super Champ is the story of arguably the
most incredible fighter in the history of boxing - told by one of
the few surviving writers to have been around during Armstrong's
unique world championship reign. When Henry had his arm raised on
17 August 1938, after winning a blood-spattered 15-round decision
over Lou Ambers, he became the first boxer to simultaneously hold
world titles at three different weights - and somehow he managed
the feat in an era of just eight weight classes, with no 'junior'
or 'super' divisions. He had entered Madison Square Garden as the
reigning world feather and welterweight champion, and left with the
world lightweight belt strapped around his waist. Now in his 90s,
veteran boxing journalist and author John Jarrett looks back on the
life and career of this ring hero of his youth: a 5ft 51/2in
buzzsaw they nicknamed 'Homicide Hank'. In the 85 years that have
passed since then, nobody has matched Armstrong's amazing
triple-championship feat. It's likely no one ever will.
Benny Leonard was arguably the greatest lightweight champion of all
time. With superb boxing skills and potent punching power, he
fought over 200 times and suffered just five defeats. He spent his
boyhood in a crime-ridden ghetto in Manhattan's Lower East Side,
and was the greatest of a long line of Jewish boxers to emerge from
the slums. Leonard was still only 19 when he knocked out Freddie
Welsh to become world lightweight king in 1917. He defended the
title eight times and retired as undefeated champion in 1925, to
please the only woman he loved, his mother. But the 1929 Wall
Street Crash wiped out his fortune and he was forced to make a
comeback at 35. Leonard fought the best of his era: Johnny Dundee,
Johnny Kilbane, Rocky Kansas, Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis and Lew
Tendler among them. Apart from being a sublime boxer, Benny was a
first-class showman who helped to put boxing on a higher plane. He
died as he lived - in the ring - while refereeing a fight at age
51. This is the definitive account of his remarkable life and
career.
Say hello to the world's only undefeated heavyweight champion, a
guy called Rocky Marciano, who defied physical limitations - `He's
too small, too short, too light, too old.' With just a 67-inch
reach, two left feet and under six feet tall, tough, hard-hitting
Marciano blasted his way to 49 wins, 43 inside the distance. He was
impervious to pain: you could knock him down but you couldn't knock
him out. Marciano KO'd Jersey Joe Walcott in a 1952 thriller to
become world champion. Defending his title five times, he brought
the million-dollar gate back to boxing in 1955 when he crushed
Archie Moore in his final fight. He then criss-crossed America
making public appearances, for cash only. He built a network of
friends, businessmen and Mob guys who willingly paid his way, fed
him, dressed him and flew him around. And that's how he died,
hitching a ride in a plane that crashed in an Iowa cornfield in
1969, on the eve of his 46th birthday. His mantra was, `If you want
to live a full life, then live dangerously.' Rocky did that, all
right!
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This
IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced
typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have
occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor
pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original
artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe
this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing
commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We
appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the
preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Sugar Ray Robinson was boxing royalty. King of the world.
Personality with a punch. Over 25 years he ruled three divisions,
from lightweight to middleweight. As a kid he had danced for
pennies on the streets of Harlem, and he danced again in the ring
from New York and Vegas to Paris and back again. The greatest
pound-for-pound fighter in history. After a brilliant amateur
career he turned professional in 1940 and won his first 40 contests
before Jake LaMotta snapped his streak of 123 fights. He was
unbeaten over the next nine years and would beat LaMotta in five of
their six fights, taking his middleweight title in the process. One
of Ray's toughest fights was with Uncle Sam over his $4 million
fight earnings. He built and lost a Harlem business empire before
retiring from the ring and entering showbiz. The great fighter
proved a philandering husband and a redundant father before
settling down with his third wife, Millie, in California where he
set up the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation, teaching kids about
sports and life.
This is a cradle-to-grave biography of Mickey Walker, former
welterweight (1922-1926) and middleweight champion (1926-1931) of
the world, one of the greatest fighters in ring history. He fought
at a time when boxing was a major sport with only eight
championships, and he held two of them over a nine-year period. He
fought at a time when each weight division was jammed with good
fighters, and he fought them all from welterweight up to
heavyweight, frequently being outweighed 20 to 30 pounds, himself
only five-seven and never weighing more than 170 pounds. Walker was
not only a great fighter, he was a great personality who loved life
and lived it to the full. He went through seven marriages with four
different women, he cavorted with movie stars and mobsters from
Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone. When his boxing career ended in 1935,
Walker ran saloons in various locations, was often his own best
customer, finally quit drinking and became an artist of some
standing, several of his paintings hanging in some of America's top
galleries. Walker died in 1981, aged 79.
In the 1950s, Arcel ran independent television fights from various
cities across the USA, upsetting the monopolistic International
Boxing Club run by millionaire Jim Norris with the backroom
assistance of mobster Frankie Carbo, a one-time gunman for Murder
Inc. He came back in the 1970s to train Duran. He last worked the
corner in 1982.
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