Great Boxing Books!

Rory McCloskey · Post by **Rory McCloskey** » 21 Sep 2005, 23:05

I recently bought a book on boxing titled... " An Illistrated History Of Boxing " it has great pictures or all the great fighters and it has sketchings of the pioneers of the sport. very detailed in their descriptions on fights and on fighters. goes as far back as james figg. I was surprised to discover how little these guys fought... maybe that was part of the reason they could go 75 rounds at a time...

PS- on a recent thread someone said they wanted to see the picture of dempsey making a smurk at willard after a hook that pinned willard against the ropes... its in this book, if i have any free time on my hands then i will scan it and find a place to post it on here.

jwizard · Post by **jwizard** » 21 Sep 2005, 23:54

"The Sweet Science" by A.J. Liebling

F'n awesome

Rory McCloskey · Post by **Rory McCloskey** » 22 Sep 2005, 00:02

i just ordered that off of amazon.com...should arrive soon

wlvrne · Post by **wlvrne** » 22 Sep 2005, 08:20

Rory McCloskey wrote:I recently bought a book on boxing titled... " An Illistrated History Of Boxing " it has great pictures or all the great fighters and it has sketchings of the pioneers of the sport. very detailed in their descriptions on fights and on fighters. goes as far back as james figg. I was surprised to discover how little these guys fought... maybe that was part of the reason they could go 75 rounds at a time...

PS- on a recent thread someone said they wanted to see the picture of dempsey making a smurk at willard after a hook that pinned willard against the ropes... its in this book, if i have any free time on my hands then i will scan it and find a place to post it on here.

Or maybe that those fights took so much out of them that they needed that much time to recuperate fully.

theone · Post by **theone** » 22 Sep 2005, 19:04

An Illistrated History Of Boxing "

I bought the sixth revised and updated edition 2 days ago. Great reading!
The Boxing Register/The official hall of fame record book is my favorite boxing book however. it has biographies and records of all the members of the boxing hall of fame.

Rory McCloskey · Post by **Rory McCloskey** » 22 Sep 2005, 19:08

wlvrne wrote:
Rory McCloskey wrote:I recently bought a book on boxing titled... " An Illistrated History Of Boxing " it has great pictures or all the great fighters and it has sketchings of the pioneers of the sport. very detailed in their descriptions on fights and on fighters. goes as far back as james figg. I was surprised to discover how little these guys fought... maybe that was part of the reason they could go 75 rounds at a time...

PS- on a recent thread someone said they wanted to see the picture of dempsey making a smurk at willard after a hook that pinned willard against the ropes... its in this book, if i have any free time on my hands then i will scan it and find a place to post it on here.
Or maybe that those fights took so much out of them that they needed that much time to recuperate fully.

yeah thats what i was trying to get at but you got it.

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 22 Sep 2005, 19:37

Rory McCloskey wrote:I recently bought a book on boxing titled... " An Illistrated History Of Boxing " it has great pictures or all the great fighters and it has sketchings of the pioneers of the sport. very detailed in their descriptions on fights and on fighters. goes as far back as james figg. I was surprised to discover how little these guys fought... maybe that was part of the reason they could go 75 rounds at a time...

PS- on a recent thread someone said they wanted to see the picture of dempsey making a smurk at willard after a hook that pinned willard against the ropes... its in this book, if i have any free time on my hands then i will scan it and find a place to post it on here.

Though I have seen Jack Broughton listed as being over 200 and something and 1. But overall, the pioneers did fought sporatically, probably because bare fists hurt more than gloves. And your hands would have to hurt.

Books I'd recommend...

Unforgivable Blackness, the new biography about Jack Johnson. Haven't read it completely, but enjoying the section I skimmed through.

And Max Schmeling's autobiography is worth it for the rare pictures included, plus it gives an insight of the man who beat Joe Louis and met FDR, Hitler, movie stars, and famous authors. A one in a million life in his own words.

dws · Post by **dws** » 22 Sep 2005, 20:55

I just got Pound For Pound,biography of Sugar Ray Robinson,by a guy and Ray Robinson Jr,they don't gloss over what a prick he was but the bottom line is you get an unvarnished look,good and bad,at the greatest fighter of all time.And as Sherlock said the Max Schmeling autobiography is cool,a good book about a good fighter and a greater man.Joe Louis was pretty honest in his autobiography,talking about his drug addiction and other vices but most importantly you get to read about ,from his perspective,his historic fights.I wish Greb and Ketchel would've lived long enough to write their stories.In This Corner is a great book too with about 40 champs telling their stories,a few telling what it was like to face Harry Greb!

barry · Post by **barry** » 22 Sep 2005, 21:34

"Boxing Day" about the Johnson-Burns contest is a good read...it also has a chapter on Aussie heavyweight Bill Squires...as far a boxing history goes...Alexander Johnstons "Ten and Out" is a good read and John Grombach's "The Saga of the Fist" is very good as well, but you have to take those kinds of books with a grain of salt as they are often just words that have been said time and again throughout the ages. Randy Roberts books on Dempsey and Jack Johnson were well researched and Michael Isneberg's "John L. Sullivan and His Times" is one of the mo0st thouroughly researched books that I have ever seen. Peter Heller's "In This Corner" is very good as it has several former champions talking about their careers. "Boxing Babylon" by Nigel Collins was a good read dealing with the tragic side of boxing's heroes. Maurice Golesworthy's "The Encyclopedia of Boxing" is set up like a dictionary in that things are alphabetical order. There's many of others that are well worth the time, but there is also a lot of junk out there...so before you decide on something try to find out a little bit about it.

bollox · Post by **bollox** » 23 Sep 2005, 06:22

Am about half way through one on Jack Dempsey - A Flame of Pure Fire (Jack Dempsey and the roaring 20's) by Roger Kahn. An interesting read on his life and times (so far) and what was happening in the US at the time. WW1 had just finished, prohibition

and a transition from wild west with gun totin' cowboys to a more sophisticated society. Recommended reading

The Great John L · Post by **The Great John L** » 23 Sep 2005, 07:18

barry wrote:...Peter Heller's "In This Corner" is very good as it has several former champions talking about their careers...

It's probably been about 30 years since I read this book, but I still remember much of Gunboat Smith's story. What a character! Lew Jenkins was pretty entertaining also.

barry · Post by **barry** » 23 Sep 2005, 09:24

That book is certainly interesting and worth a read. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Gunboat Smith seem like a bit of a racist in that book, but it may have just been the norm talk during his era.

The Great John L · Post by **The Great John L** » 23 Sep 2005, 09:30

barry wrote:That book is certainly interesting and worth a read. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Gunboat Smith seem like a bit of a racist in that book, but it may have just been the norm talk during his era.

Very much a racist. Unfortunately racism was probably the norm during that time -- after all he was the "White Hope" HW champion. He was probably raised that way. It still didn't detract from his hilarious recountings of some of his fights, particularly his fights against Willard and Billy Wells.

-KOKid- · Post by **-KOKid-** » 23 Sep 2005, 14:43

Here's a list of the boxing books I have in my bookshelf. I must honestly say that enjoyed every single of of them. I have yet to read a book on boxing or boxer that I did not like.

Biographies:
Muhammad Ali: His Life & Times
Larry Holmes: Against The Odds
Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope
Joe Louis & Jesse Owens: In Black & White
Aaron Pryor: Flight Of The Hawk - The Aaron Pryor Story
John L. Sullivan: John L. Sullivan & His America
Jack Dempsey: A Flame Of Pure Fire - Jack Dempsey & The Roaring 20s
Max Schmeling: An Autobiography
Bob Fitzsimmons: Prizefighter - The Life and Times of Bob Fitzsimmons
Jim Corbett: Gentleman Jim Corbett - The Truth Behind A Boxing Legend
Gene Tunney: The Golden Guy Who Licked Jack Dempsey Twice
Primo Carnera: Primo - The Story Of Man Mountain Carnera
Rocky Marciano: Rocky Marciano
Sugar Ray Robinson: Sugar Ray
Tom Molineaux: Black Ajax
Sonny Liston: The Devil & Sonny Liston
Joe Frazier: Smokin' Joe
Don King: Only In America: The Life & Crimes Of Don King
Rubin Carter: Hurricane
Nigel Benn: Dark Destroyer
Jake La Motta: Raging Bull
Benny Lynch: Benny - The Life and Times of A Fighting Legend
Ken Norton: Going The Distance - The Ken Norton Story
Jack Johnson: Papa Jack - Jack Johnson & the Era Of White Hopes
George Foreman: By George
Ken Buchanan: The Tartan Legend
Archie Moore: The Ageless Warrior
James J. Braddock: The Rise of the Cinderella Man
Charley Burley: The Life and Hard Times of an Uncrowned Champion
Earnie Shavers: Welcome to the Big Time
James Quick Tillis: Thinkin' Big
Frank Bruno: From Zero to Hero
Otto von Porat: Kamp År
Ole Klemetsen: Lukkøye
Michael Murray: The Journeyman
Chris Eubank: The Autobiography
Naseem Hamed: The Shadows of Boxing and Those He Left Behind
Michael Watson: The Biggest Fight

History, Encyclopedia, Profiles, etc.:
An Illustrated History of Boxing
Boxing - An Illustrated History of the Fight Game
History of Boxing
The Sweet Science
Boxing - Unseen Archives
Muhammad Ali - A Thrirty Year Journey
Muhammad Ali - In Fighters Heaven
Muhammad Ali - The Unseen Archives
Facing Ali - The Opposition Weighs in
Tarnished Armour
They Could've Been Contenders
Boxing - Heroes & Champions
The 1998 Boxing Almanac and Book of Facts
The A-Z of World Boxing
The Fight (Ali vs. Foreman)
My Greatest Fight
Dark Trade - Lost In Boxing
The Manly Art - Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting In America
100 Greatest Boxers
The Black Lights - Inside The World of Professional Boxing
Boxing's Strangest Fights
War, Baby - The Glamour of Violence
Dynamite Gloves - The Fighting Lives of Big Punchers
The Boxing Register - IBHOF Official Record Book
Falling Hard - A Rookie's Year in Boxing
Mission Impossible - How Lennox Lewis Unified The World Heavyweight Title
Looking For A Fight
Lennox
Hugh McIlvanney on Boxing
Fighting Chance - Winners and Losers in the Ultimate Risk Business
The Long Round
Fighters - The Lives and Sad Deaths of Freddie Mills and Randolph Turpin
Rocky Lives - Heavyweight Boxing Upsets of the 1990s
Ring of Hate
That Night in the Garden
The Great White Hopes
The Greatest Boxing Stories Ever Told

-KOKid-

BoxBuzz · Post by **BoxBuzz** » 23 Sep 2005, 17:46

Thank you KOkid! Much obliged for the listing. Night Train does not make your list?

enrique · Post by **enrique** » 23 Sep 2005, 18:02

I recommend WC Heinz "Fireside Book of Boxing" which has a lot of good stuff by a lot of great writers.

The Great Prize Fight- by Lloyd- is the story of Heenanvs Sayers.

Izenberg's -John L Sullivan and his America---excelent.

Get anything by AJ Liebling, WC Heinz and you will have good reading.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 23 Sep 2005, 22:02

which of the archie moore books describe the best detail on his fights??

i have "any boy can" the archie moore story.

how is ageless warrior???

-KOKid- · Post by **-KOKid-** » 24 Sep 2005, 03:03

BoxBuzz wrote:Thank you KOkid! Much obliged for the listing. Night Train does not make your list?

Night Train and The Devil & Sonny Liston are the same book. Don't know why Nick Toches or his publishing company decided to release it with two titles, but it is the exact same book. Nowadays I only see it with the Night Train title though, maybe I have a special edition of it

?.
I got The Devil & Sonny Liston as soon as it was released.

-KOKid-

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 24 Sep 2005, 17:43

I like boxers biographies a lot usually they give a good insight into their characters and how they got into boxing etc. Some of the best biogs I've read are

Somebody up there likes me... Rocky Graziano
No man stands alone... Barney Ross
Toy Bulldog.... Micky Walker
Two fists and a fortune... Bruce Woodcock
Raging Bull... Jake Lamotta
Flight of the Hawk... Arron Pryorr
.......many more too...
recent books that are good are 'Unforgivable blackness' biog on Jack Johnson and 'The pussycat of prizefighting' which looks at Tiger Flowers and his era... both well researched and reccomended reading.

Bladder · Post by **Bladder** » 25 Sep 2005, 07:15

silkov wrote:recent books that are good are 'Unforgivable blackness' biog on Jack Johnson and 'The pussycat of prizefighting' which looks at Tiger Flowers and his era... both well researched and reccomended reading.

Heh!

I'm surprised Klompton hasn't replied to your Flowers comment.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 25 Sep 2005, 11:07

Bladder wrote:
silkov wrote:recent books that are good are 'Unforgivable blackness' biog on Jack Johnson and 'The pussycat of prizefighting' which looks at Tiger Flowers and his era... both well researched and reccomended reading.
Heh!

I'm surprised Klompton hasn't replied to your Flowers comment.

Whys that?...

Bladder · Post by **Bladder** » 26 Sep 2005, 07:08

silkov wrote:
Bladder wrote:
silkov wrote:recent books that are good are 'Unforgivable blackness' biog on Jack Johnson and 'The pussycat of prizefighting' which looks at Tiger Flowers and his era... both well researched and reccomended reading.
Heh!

I'm surprised Klompton hasn't replied to your Flowers comment.
Whys that?...

Apparently the Flowers book was the biggest unresearched and non-factual piece of crap ever published under the guise of a Boxing biography. And he told the author so.

Come on Klompton, let's hear it.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 26 Sep 2005, 08:43

Bladder wrote:
silkov wrote:
Bladder wrote: Heh!

I'm surprised Klompton hasn't replied to your Flowers comment.
Whys that?...
Apparently the Flowers book was the biggest unresearched and non-factual piece of crap ever published under the guise of a Boxing biography. And he told the author so.

Come on Klompton, let's hear it.

Well lets see Klompton write something better... its easy to critcise the driver when youre tucked nicely up in the back seat!.... 8) ....

funso banjo baby · Post by **funso banjo baby** » 26 Sep 2005, 14:21

def 'Bucks and Bruisers' about Pierce Egan, the regency journalist of Boxiana fame.

Also Harry Carpenters Pictorial History Of Boxing...the pix are just fantastic and Harry was the greatest boxing bod of all....still love his famous bbc interview with the young and polite Mike Tyson all those years ago, where they sat and watched some of the classic fights of the past. Tyson's knowledge and love of the game was immense and he came across as a grounded, intelligent and articulate man ...wow the past is a strange place !

BrocktonBlockbuster49 · Post by **BrocktonBlockbuster49** » 26 Sep 2005, 19:34

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:which of the archie moore books describe the best detail on his fights??

i have "any boy can" the archie moore story.

how is ageless warrior???

anyone wanna have any suggestions

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