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Are today's boxers better than their predecessors, or is modern boxing a shadow of its former self? Boxing historians discuss the socioeconomic and demographic changes that have affected the quality, prominence and popularity of the sport over the past century. Among the interviewees are world-renowned scholars, some of the sport's premier trainers, and former amateur and professional world champions. Chapters cover such topics as the ongoing deterioration of boxers' skills, their endurance, the decline in the number of fights and the psychological readiness of championship-caliber boxers. The strengths and weaknesses of today's superstars are analyzed and compared to those of such past greats as Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Dempsey and Jake LaMotta.
This collection of award-winning boxing journalist Mike Silver’s best articles from the past 40 years features a colorful mix of hard-hitting exposes and light-hearted stories that include legendary boxers such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Oscar De La Hoya, and more. The boxing world has witnessed some spectacular and iconic moments, from the “Thrilla in Manila” to the last encounter between Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta. In The Night the Referee Hit Back: Memorable Moments from the World of Boxing, award-winning boxing journalist Mike Silver looks back at some of boxing’s most legendary fights, talks with Hall of Famers Archie Moore, Carlos Ortiz, Emile Griffith and Curtis Cokes, and analyzes the changes that have taken place in boxing since the Golden Age. This collection, drawn from the author’s best articles from the past 40 years, are a colorful mix of hard-hitting exposes, interviews, and light-hearted stories featuring boxers such as Floyd Mayweather Jr., Joe Frazier, Oscar De La Hoya, and Muhammad Ali. Mike Silver captures the essence, charisma, tragedy, and romance of boxing like no one else. Featuring numerous historical and iconic photographs, The Night the Referee Hit Back is a fascinating and valuable collection for boxing fans and sports historians alike.
Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing by Mike Silver Pdf
For more than sixty years—from the 1890s to the 1950s—boxing was an integral part of American popular culture and a major spectator sport rivaling baseball in popularity. More Jewish athletes have competed as boxers than all other professional sports combined; in the period from 1901 to 1939, 29 Jewish boxers were recognized as world champions and more than 160 Jewish boxers ranked among the top contenders in their respective weight divisions. Stars in the Ring,by renowned boxing historian Mike Silver, presents this vibrant social history in the first illustrated encyclopedic compendium of its kind.
Throughout history, potters, sculptors, painters, poets, novelists, cartoonists, song-writers, photographers, and filmmakers have recorded and tried to make sense of boxing. From Daniel Mendoza to Mike Tyson, boxers have embodied and enacted our anxieties about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In her encyclopedic investigation of the shifting social, political, and cultural resonances of this most visceral of sports, Kasia Boddy throws new light on an elemental struggle for dominance whose weapons are nothing more than fists. Looking afresh at everything from neoclassical sculpture to hip-hop lyrics, Boddy explores the ways in which the history of boxing has intersected with the history of mass media. Boddy pulls no punches, looking to the work of such diverse figures as Henry Fielding and Spike Lee, Charlie Chaplin and Philip Roth, James Joyce and Mae West, Bertolt Brecht and Charles Dickens in an all-encompassing study that tells us just how and why boxing has mattered so much to so many.
In When in Doubt, Stop the Bout, renowned boxing historian Mike Silver presents a shocking exposé of the sordid underbelly of professional boxing, and uncovers the sport's criminally flawed infrastructure and those responsible for it. From compromised referees to poorly trained ringside physicians to an insidious cartel of "sanctioning organizations" approving dangerous mismatches, Silver lays bare the corruption, the negligence, and the incompetence that has made a dangerous sport even more dangerous. But aside from unmasking the chaotic mess that afflicts boxing, this book for the first time proposes groundbreaking practical solutions that will mitigate the danger and save lives. Penetrating and persuasive, When in Doubt, Stop the Bout will change forever how you see the sport of boxing.
Sports fans have long been fascinated with boxing and the brutal demonstration of physical and psychological conflict. Accounts of the sport appear as far back as the third millennium BC, and Greek and Roman sculptors depicted the athletic ideals of the ancient era in the form of boxers. In the present day, boxers such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Robinson, Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. are recognized throughout the world. Boxing films continue to resonate with audiences, from the many Rocky movies to Raging Bull, The Fighter, Million Dollar Baby, and Ali. In Boxing: A Concise History of the Sweet Science, Gerald R. Gems provides a succinct yet wide ranging treatment of the sport, covering boxing’s ancient roots and its evolution, modernization, and global diffusion. The book not only includes a historical account of boxing, but also explores such issues as social class, race, ethnic rivalries, religious influences, gender issues, and the growth of female boxing. The current debates over the moral and ethical issues relative to the sport are also discussed. While the primary coverage of the political, social, and cultural impacts of boxing focuses on the United States, Gems’ examination encompasses the sport on a global level, as well. Covering important issues and events in the history of boxing and featuring numerous photographs, Boxing: A Concise History of the Sweet Science will be of interest to boxing fans, historians, scholars, and those wanting to learn more about the sport.
This work covers the individuals and events of what most consider to be the greatest era in boxing history. The first chapter compares the 1970s to all other eras, from the early 1900s and Jack Johnson to the present day and the Klitschko brothers, proving through an established set of criteria that the '70s stand above all other eras. The second chapter focuses on the tumultuous 1960s and the circumstances that led to the blossoming of unprecedented competition. The remaining ten chapters cover the years 1970 through 1979, revisiting the people and the rivalries of an era that produced Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton and Holmes, boxers known to people who didn't even follow the sport.
In 1897 a filmed prize-fight became one of cinema's first major attractions, and such films continued to enjoy great popularity for many years to come. This work chronicles the story of how legitimate bouts, fake fights, comic sparring matches, and other forms of boxing came to dominate the screens of the silent-era.
For much of the twentieth century, boxing was one of America’s most popular sports, and the heavyweight champions were figures known to all. Their exploits were reported regularly in the newspapers—often outside the sports pages—and their fame and wealth dwarfed those of other athletes. Long after their heyday, these icons continue to be synonymous with the “sweet science.” In The Boxing Kings: When American Heavyweights Ruled the Ring, Paul Beston profiles these larger-than-life men who held a central place in American culture. Among the figures covered are John L. Sullivan, who made the heavyweight championship a commercial property; Jack Johnson, who became the first black man to claim the title; Jack Dempsey, a sporting symbol of the Roaring Twenties; Joe Louis, whose contributions to racial tolerance and social progress transcended even his greatness in the ring; Rocky Marciano, who became an embodiment of the American Dream; Muhammad Ali, who took on the U.S. government and revolutionized professional sports with his showmanship; and Mike Tyson, a hard-punching dynamo who typified the modern celebrity. This gallery of flawed but sympathetic men also includes comics, dandies, bookworms, divas, ex-cons, workingmen, and even a tough-guy-turned-preacher. As the heavyweight title passed from one claimant to another, their stories opened a window into the larger history of the United States. Boxing fans, sports historians, and those interested in U.S. race relations as it intersects with sports will find this book a fascinating exploration into how engrained boxing once was in America’s social and cultural fabric.
Beyond the Glory is a compelling sequel to the book To Thine be The Glory. It reveals in more detail social issues previously touched upon in the book and discuses valuable lessons to be learnt. The book frequently references scripture passages in order to illuminate, validate and provide essential tools to aid in life. It discusses hard facts regarding developing a relationship with God, attitudes towards money, divorce and breakdowns within the family units. This book is a must read for married couples, singles, families, Christians and people seeking to know their lifes purpose. You will not be able to put this book down, but constantly be using it as a reference manual.
WINNER OF THE 1996 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE. In the early 1990s, Donald McRae set out to discover the truth about the intense and forbidding world of professional boxing. Travelling around the States and Britain, he was welcomed into the inner sanctums of some of the greatest fighters of the period - men such as Mike Tyson, Chris Eubank, Oscar de la Hoya, Frank Bruno, Evander Holyfield and Naseem Hamed among them. They opened up to him, revealing unforgettable personal stories from both inside and outside the ring, and explaining why it is that some are driven to compete in this most brutal of sports, risking their health and even their lives. The result is a classic account of boxing that remains as fresh and entertaining as when it was first published almost 20 years ago. McRae approaches his subjects with wit, compassion and insight, and the result was a book that was a deserved winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize.
Based on a true story, in eighteenth century London, Elizabeth Wilkinson struggles to make ends meet for her and her sister Tess while facing the fiercest female bare-knuckle boxers of her day.
Any discussion of great boxers must include Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler—midcentury featherweight champions whose heroics electrified the fistic world then and reverberate today. This book explores the boxing lives of both pugilists—early years, fighting years, training and conditioning, historical context, life after boxing, and, of course, the lasting controversy over their rivalry and legacy. Pep recorded 229 wins, only 11 losses and one draw over a pro career that spanned three decades. He won the featherweight crown twice. Sandy Saddler’s record of 144-16-2 includes an amazing 103 knockouts. He also won the title twice and retired an undefeated featherweight champion. Their four title bouts are an epic showcase of contrasts. Pep was the exquisite dancer/boxer, a wildly popular Italian American personality who made his opponents miss and scored at will. Saddler was a curious blend of unprepossessing menace—a tall, thin, black American banger who pressed and brutalized with singular leveraged force. Their matchups had it all: contrasting styles, dazzling skills, hard punching, splendid action, ridiculous brawling, heroic victories and crashing defeats. Included in this book are Pep’s plane crash and recovery as well as the legal wrangling with Newsweek over his boxing reputation. Saddler’s ongoing slight in boxing history and secondary status with Pep is examined under fresh light. The text is highlighted with several images of both fighters that bring to life the fierce glory of professional boxing in the 1940s and 50s.
Standing no more than 5' 7" tall, Sam Langford was one of the 20th century's greatest fighters. In 1951, the great featherweight champion Abe Attell was asked if Sugar Ray Robinson was the best of all time, either as a welterweight or middleweight. He named Stanley Ketchel as the greatest welterweight he'd ever seen and said that, as for the middleweights, he'd take Sam Langford, "the greatest of them all at that poundage." Remarkably, the man Attell felt was the greatest middleweight fighter in history fought and defeated many of the leading heavyweight contenders of his day. Over time, he matured physically and grew into a light heavyweight, then began fighting heavyweights on a regular basis, but he was almost always the much smaller of the two combatants. Nat Fleischer, founding editor of The Ring magazine, called Sam one of the hardest punchers of all time, and ranked the little man seventh among his personal all-time favorites "Sam was endowed with everything. He possessed strength, agility, cleverness, hitting power, a good thinking cap, and an abundance of courage He feared no one. But he had the fatal gift of being too good, and that's why he often had to give away weight in early days and make agreements with opponents. Many of those who agreed to fight him, especially of his own race, wanted an assurance that he would be merciful or insisted on a bout of not more than six rounds." Other leading sportswriters of that era had even higher opinions of Sam. Hype Igoe, well known boxing writer for the New York Journal, proclaimed Sam the greatest fighter, pound-for-pound, who ever lived. Joe Williams, respected sports columnist of the New York World Telegram wrote that Langford was probably the best the ring ever saw, and the great Grantland Rice described Sam as "about the best fighting man I've ever watched." At the time of Sam's induction into the Boxing Hall of Fame (October 1955) he was the only non-champion accorded the honor. Many ring experts considered Sam the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the history of boxing Under different circumstances he might have been a champion at five different weights: lightweight; welterweight, middleweight; light heavyweight; and heavyweight. Blind and penniless at the end of his life, Sam lived quietly in a private nursing home But when one visitor expressed sympathy for his circumstances, Sam replied, "Don't nobody need to feel sorry for old Sam. I had plenty of good times. I been all over the world. I fought maybe 600 fights, and every one was a pleasure " With 98 photographs and illustrations, primarily from private collections.
