Jersey Joe Walcott

Jersey Joe Walcott PDF Author: James Curl
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489634
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Born into extreme poverty in 1914, Jersey Joe Walcott began boxing at the age of 16 to help feed his hungry family. After ten years, without proper training and with little to show for his efforts beyond some frightful beatings, Walcott quit the ring. A chance meeting with a fight promoter who recognized the potential in his iron chin and hard punch turned Walcott's fortunes around, launching one of the greatest comebacks in boxing history. This biography details Walcott's youth, his dismal early career, and his legendary climb to become the heavyweight champion of the world at age 37, at the time the oldest man ever to win the coveted title. Along the way, he battled some of the most feared champions of his day, including Joe Louis, Ezzard Charles, and Rocky Marciano. With numerous period photographs and a foreword from Walcott's grandson, this work provides an intimate look at one of the grittiest, most determined boxers of the 20th century.

Jersey Joe Walcott

Jersey Joe Walcott PDF Author: James Curl
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489634
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Born into extreme poverty in 1914, Jersey Joe Walcott began boxing at the age of 16 to help feed his hungry family. After ten years, without proper training and with little to show for his efforts beyond some frightful beatings, Walcott quit the ring. A chance meeting with a fight promoter who recognized the potential in his iron chin and hard punch turned Walcott's fortunes around, launching one of the greatest comebacks in boxing history. This biography details Walcott's youth, his dismal early career, and his legendary climb to become the heavyweight champion of the world at age 37, at the time the oldest man ever to win the coveted title. Along the way, he battled some of the most feared champions of his day, including Joe Louis, Ezzard Charles, and Rocky Marciano. With numerous period photographs and a foreword from Walcott's grandson, this work provides an intimate look at one of the grittiest, most determined boxers of the 20th century.

Ezzard Charles

Ezzard Charles PDF Author: William Dettloff
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476619476
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Greatness is often overlooked in its own time. For Ezzard Charles—one of boxing’s most skilled practitioners, with a record of 93–25–1 (52 KO)—recognition took decades. Named by The Ring magazine as the greatest light heavyweight of all time, Charles was frustrated in his attempts to get a shot at the 175–pound title, and as World Heavyweight Champion (1949–1951) struggled to win the respect of boxing fans captivated by Joe Louis’ power and charisma. This first-ever biography of “The Cincinnati Cobra” covers his early life in a small country town and his career in the glamorously dirty business of prizefighting in the 1950s, one of the sport’s Golden Ages. Charles’ fights with Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano and his three wins over the legendary Archie Moore are detailed.

The Longest Fight

The Longest Fight PDF Author: William Gildea
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374280975
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The dramatic, little-known story of Joe Gans, an early African-American sports hero and the welterweight champion of the world. Though he is largely unknown today, this book will change that with its emphasis on one key fight in 1906.

The Rise of Mike Tyson, Heavyweight

The Rise of Mike Tyson, Heavyweight PDF Author: William F. McNeil
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786496487
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Covering Mike Tyson's rise through the amateur and professional boxing ranks, this book follows the Brooklyn native from his early years as a young criminal in Brownsville to his 1988 heavyweight unification match with Michael Spinks. The book focuses on the Catskill Boxing Club--where boxing guru Cus D'Amato trained the 210-pound teenager in the finer points of the sport and developed his impregnable defense--and on his home life with D'Amato and surrogate mother Camille Ewald and the other young fighters who lived with them. Tyson's boxing education began in the unauthorized "smokers" held every week in the Bronx, matching his skills against older, more experienced fighters. He won the 1981 Amateur Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Colorado Springs at the age of 14 and repeated the amazing feat the following year. By 1985, finding no other challenging amateur competition, he was forced to join the professional ranks where, in November 1986, he became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history. Less than two years later, he unified the crown, establishing himself as one of the most dominant heavyweight fighters the sport had ever seen.

Third Man in the Ring

Third Man in the Ring PDF Author: Ruby Goldstein
Publisher: New York : Funk & Wagnalls
ISBN:
Category : Boxers (Sports)
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description


The Boxing Kings

The Boxing Kings PDF Author: Paul Beston
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442272902
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
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.

Don Dunphy at Ringside

Don Dunphy at Ringside PDF Author: Don Dunphy
Publisher: Henry Holt
ISBN: 9780805005301
Category : Boxing
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The author's recollections of his fifty-year career in sports broadcasting also offers a definitive yet personal account of boxing's "golden age" and a chronicle of the evolution of radio and television broadcasting

The Great White Hope

The Great White Hope PDF Author: Howard Sackler
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573609602
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
"[The dramatist] has used his hero, a fighter based on the first Black heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson ... as a symbol in part of Black aspiration"--Back cover.

The Professional

The Professional PDF Author: W.c. Heinz
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786748427
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Originally published in 1958, The Professional is the story of boxer Eddie Brown's quest for the middleweight championship of the world. But it is so much more. W. C. Heinz not only serves up a realistic depiction of the circus-like atmosphere around boxing with its assorted hangers-on, crooked promoters, and jaded journalists, but he gives us two memorable characters in Eddie Brown and in Brown's crusty trainer, Doc Carroll. They are at the heart of this poignant story as they bond together with their eye on the only prize that matters—the middleweight championship. The Professional is W. C. Heinz at the top of his game—the writer who covered the fights better than anyone else of his era, whose lean sentences, rough-and-ready dialogue, dry wit, and you-are-there style helped lay the foundation for the New Journalism of Jimmy Breslin, Gay Talese, and Tom Wolfe. And all the trademark qualities of W. C. Heinz are on ample display in this novel that Pete Hamill described as "one of the five best sports novels ever written."

Philadelphia's Boxing Heritage 1876-1976

Philadelphia's Boxing Heritage 1876-1976 PDF Author: Tracy Callis
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738511344
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Philadelphia has long been called the number one fight town in the world. The relentless fighting style of its boxers has thrilled fans over the years. Twenty-seven champions have come from the city over the course of more than a century. Philadelphia's Boxing Heritage: 1876-1976 retraces the legacy of determined battlers such as Joe Frazier, Benny Bass, Gil Turner, Bob Montgomery, and Bennie Briscoe. Philadelphia has also produced legions of highly skilled craftsmen such as Tommy Loughran, Jack O'Brien, Midget Wolgast, Harold Johnson, and Joey Giardello. In 1926, the Gene Tunney-Jack Dempsy heavyweight championship bout was witnessed by more than one hundred thousand fans. In 1956, Rocky Marciano brought his guns to town and won the heavyweight title from Jersey Joe Walcott. In 1971, Philadelphia-trained Joe Frazier won the "Fight of the Century" from Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in New York. Philadelphia's Boxing Heritage: 1876-1976 showcases these legends and retraces their championship bouts through more than two hundred dazzling photographs.