Boxing Biographies

Eugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the 20th century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of 11 to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African-American fighter pilot in history. After the war, Bullard returned to Paris a celebrated hero. But little did he know that the dramatic, globe-spanning arc of his life had just begun.

And the new heavyweight champion of the world is.... Those are the words that Zeus Kincaid has been waiting to hear since he first put on a pair of boxing gloves. He just didn’t think they would come with a tragedy that would change how he viewed the sport forever. Cameron Reed was in her second year at Juilliard when her childhood sweetheart, Zeus Kincaid, walked away from her. A few months later, Cam realized that she would never fulfill her dream of dancing for the New York City Ballet.

Before you can achieve anything in life, you need a solid foundation of self-discipline. Talent, intelligence, and skill are only a part of the equation. Positive thinking, affirmations, and vision boards are only a part of the equation. If you want to turn your dreams into reality, you need self-discipline. Self-discipline is what will keep you focused when all hell is breaking loose, and it looks like you are one step away from failure.

In the early 1990s, Tommy Morrison, a young roughneck from Jay, Oklahoma, burst onto the boxing scene to become one of the most controversial fighters of his era. Handsome, eloquent, and dynamic, Morrison parlayed destructive knockout power and a homespun personality into celebrity status throughout middle America, where boxing rarely prospered. But it was his starring role in Rocky V alongside Sylvester Stallone that propelled him to stardom—and ultimately led to his tragic downfall.

They called him Manos de Piedra - Hands of Stone - and he was one of the greatest boxers of all time. Now Roberto Durán tells his unbelievable story, from the streets of Panama to being crowned one of the Four Kings, along with Hearns, Leonard, and Hagler, as he blazed a trail through the golden age of boxing.

In the early 1980s, Ray Mancini was more than the lightweight champ. He was a national hero. Sinatra fawned over him. Warren Zevon wrote a tribute song. Sylvester Stallone produced his life story as a movie of the week. After all, an adoring public considered Boom Boom the real Rocky. But it all came apart in a brutal 1982 battle against an obscure Korean challenger....

A gripping, all-access biography of Joe Frazier, whose rivalry with Muhammad Ali riveted boxing fans and whose legacy as a figure in American sports and society endures.

The first meeting between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden, transcended the world of sports to become a major international media spectacle with tremendous social and political overtones. Sportswriter Michael Arkush draws from interviews with Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee; his doctor, Ferdie Pacheco; and more than 100 others to examine how the fight, watched by more than 300 million viewers around the world, ushered in a new era of sports marketing. From then on, every game would be turned into an "event," powered by over-the-top hype and carefully staged pageantry.

Bobby Gunn has been fighting for his existence since a childhood spent living under the hand of his volatile father, and would do anything to give his seven-year-old daughter a better life—including betting on himself in the underground world of bare-knuckle boxing. In 1984, Gunn was an eleven-year-old boxer in Ontario when his father woke him in the middle of the night to fight grown men in motel parking lots for money, his old man pocketing the cash.

The Boxcar Children: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans. Can they find a home where they can stay together as a family? Surprise Island: The Aldens spend the summer on their own private island. There they meet a new friend with an amazing secret! The Yellow House Mystery: Years ago, a man vanished from the yellow house on Surprise Island. Why? The Aldens have found a clue to the mystery!

Stripping away the revisionism to reveal the true nature of the man himself, this new book recounts the life journey of a fighter universally recognized as a unique and treasured world icon. Few global personalities have commanded an all-encompassing sporting and cultural audience like Muhammad Ali. Now, Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest allows us to more fully appreciate the truth - and understand both the man and the ways in which he helped recalibrate how the world perceives its transcendent figures.

With the success of the critically acclaimed, Academy Award-winning film The Fighter, the world stood up and cheered for the inspiring true story of Micky Ward - a heart-and-soul warrior who overcame the odds to make history in the ring. But that was only part of the tale.… Now, in his own words, “Irish” Micky Ward tells his inspirational life story as only he can. From his first bout at the age of seven, Micky Ward was known first and foremost for giving as good as he got, and for leaving absolutely everything he had in the ring.

Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., won the world heavyweight championship at the age of 22, the same year he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He would go on to become the first and only three-time (in succession) world heavyweight champion. Nicknamed "The Greatest", Ali was as well known for his unique boxing style, consisting of the Ali Shuffle and the rope-a-dope, as he was for the catchphrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee".

Raised in 1970s Spanish Harlem, Hector Camacho lived a life as fast as his fists flew in the ring. Handsome, flamboyant, and outspoken, Camacho electrified the boxing scene of the 1980s and, shouting his mantra "Macho Time!", beat some of the greatest fighters of his generation. His fast-lane life caught up with him eventually - and tragically - when he was shot dead outside a nightclub in Puerto Rico at the age of 50.

"I can lick any son of a bitch in the world." So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, a big mouth, and even bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry.

Guillermo Vicente Vidal's memoir chronicles his journey from Castro's Cuba to the United States - a tapestry of his coming of age, a broken family, and disorientation of political unrest. Vidal was barely 10 years old when he proudly shook the hand of Fidel Castro. Although Vidal's parents were once staunch supporters of La Revolucion, they soon found they could no longer keep their sons safe in the new face of Castro's reign, making the difficult decision to send Vidal and his brothers to the US via Operation Peter Pan in 1961.

De niño, Julio César Chávez vivió con sus padres y hermanos en un viejo vagón de tren, en la pobreza más extrema; desde sus primeras peleas profesionales sorprendió de inmediato a los expertos; sus victorias ante rivales duros y experimentados -a veces sin ganar un solo peso por sus combates- le dieron la oportunidad de llegar al ansiado título del mundo, para con ello iniciar su leyenda.

Bill Littlefield (NPR's Only a Game) presents the second installment in the Library of America series devoted to classic American sportswriters, a definitive collector's edition of the pathbreaking writer who invented the long-form sports story.

"Rocky's Rumble Timeline" is a comprehensive book that delves into the life and boxing career of the legendary Rocky Marciano. This book provides a detailed overview of Rocky's journey from his early life and amateur career to becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. With a focus on his fights, training regimen, and impact on popular culture, this book offers a comprehensive look at the life and legacy of one of boxing's greatest icons. In the first chapters, the book introduces readers to Rocky Marciano, providing insights into his childhood, family background, and his introduction ...

Alan Scott Haft provides the first-hand testimony of his father, Harry Haft, a holocaust victim with a singular story of endurance, desperation, and unrequited love. Harry Haft was a 16-year-old Polish Jew when he entered a concentration camp in 1944. Forced to fight other Jews in bare-knuckle bouts for the perverse entertainment of SS officers, Harry quickly learned that his own survival depended on his ability to fight and win. Haft details the inhumanity of the "sport" in which he must perform in brutal contests for the officers.