Peter Maher book by Matt Donnellon

[cmoyle]

I found the following quote by Matt Donnellon on an earlier thread in a Boxrec forum concerning his new book about Peter Maher and a question about why he chose to write about Maher: "I thought i knew boxing and its history reasonably well but 5 years ago I checked out Maher's career and was surprised how little I knew about him. The more I read up on him the more amazed how highly his peers and contempories rated him. I wondered why so i dug a little deeper and this book is the result of 4 years of that digging. Most of the book is based on contempory accounts of his fights etc. What do i hope to accomplish by it? I suppose to rectify this lack of knowledge of a top fighter of the turn of the twentieth century who had a pretty turbulent career and life."

Well, I just wanted to say that I also knew very little about Maher, that is, until I just finished Matt's fine book about the man. His mission for the book was accomplished in my case. I now know a helluva lot more about Maher and have a much greater appreciation for his fighting career. I found the book to be well researched, interesting, and very enlightening. Well done Matt, great piece of work! Of particular interest to me were the many comments from leading fighters of that period concerning Maher's power. Corbett, among a number of others, called him the greatest hitter he'd ever witnessed. Corbett may have been able to box his ears off had the pair ever met in the ring, but it sure sounds as if he had no desire to take a chance on catching one of Maher's deadly right hands. I highly recommend this book!

[robert.snell1]

I hope to get a copy of this soon and thanks for the comments made .

[raylawpc]

In 1917, Corbett ranked John L. Sullivan, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, Joe Choynski, Tom Sharkey, and Maher as the "hardest hitters in the world of pugilism." San Francisco Examiner, 8-2-1917 p. 13. He did not rank them in any particular order in that article.

Of Maher he wrote: "Peter Maher was one of the most terrific hitters I have ever seen in action. He had no skill and no left hand worthy of note. But the great Irishman could pack a wallop with his right hand hard enough to fell an ox."