Showing results for "life-" in Boxing

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.

Donald McRae has followed boxing all his life. In recent years his love has waned, as criminality, doping and dirty money gnaw away at the soul of boxing. In 2018, grieving the death of his sister and with his parents seriously ill, he sought refuge in boxing again. At just this moment, Tyson Fury completed one of the most shocking comebacks in the history of the sport, proving that it still had the ability to offer thrills and redemption.

It takes a certain kind of person to do whatever is necessary to make a living as a mixed martial arts fighter. And it takes another kind of person to stand out from all the rest as both a wild man and a rock star. Chris Leben, otherwise known as "The Crippler", is that kind of person. Leben's reputation started when he appeared on the inaugural season of The Ultimate Fighter, a reality show and competition where hopeful fighters live together and vie for a UFC contract and a path to greatness.

There was only one man who fought both Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. There was only one man who recorded 141 professional Knock-Outs. There was only one man who trained both a young Ali and heavyweight champion George Forman. There was only one Archie Moore. With a seven-decade boxing career, including 27 years as a prize fighter, Moore's vast career and exploits are finally chronicled in The Ageless Warrior.

Tony 'Bomber' Bellew is one of the most unmissable boxers Britain has ever produced. Whether you loved him or hated him, you couldn't ignore him. His journey from chubby kid growing up in a rough part of Liverpool to world champion is a story of willpower, resilience and dedication. Now he's here to take you inside the ring and help you understand that whatever your goals, there's plenty you can learn there.

A larger-than-life working-class hero, Romford born and bred—always ready with the perfect soundbite—Barry Hearn was famously described as 'roguish but never a rogue'. Hearn is credited with turning snooker into one of the biggest sports in Britain. He essentially turned a sport in which competitors wear bowties into a massive globally televised event. Away from the table, his promotions empire casts its net over a dozen sports—from professional boxing to darts, fishing to 10-pin bowling—and his career spans four decades.

An autobiographical white-knuckle ride around the global fight game by the legendary Steve Bunce: the voice of the sport who is celebrating four decades of writing and talking about boxers and boxing. Around the World in 80 Fights vividly reveals the simple, wonderful and truly awful business of boxing. It is Buncey's business and this is his story.

Roberto Duran is a sporting legend. Often called the greatest boxer of all time, he held world titles at four different weights and is the only boxer in history to have fought in five different decades. His bouts with fellow greats like Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler have gone down in fistic folklore. He finally retired in January 2002 at age 52, with a professional record of 104 wins (69 by KO) in 120 fights. They called him Manos de Piedra: "Hands of Stone".

The most comprehensive and definitive biography of Muhammad Ali that has ever been published, based on more than 500 interviews with those who knew him best, with many dramatic new discoveries about his life and career. An epic tale of a fighter who became the world's most famous pacifist, Ali: A Life does full justice to an extraordinary man.

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.

"Irish" Micky Ward grew up in the 1970s and ’80s as a tough kid from Lowell, Massachusetts - a town where boxers were once bred as a means of survival. A hard worker who overcame bad luck, bad management, and chronic pain in his hands, he avoided the pitfall of poverty and dead-end work that plagued Lowell to become a Golden Gloves junior welterweight. Ward participated in street fights from an early age and was forever known by his opponents and spectators as the underdog.

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.

When Tommy Fury realised as a young boy that he wanted to become a boxer, the odds were stacked against him. His father was sent to prison when Tommy was only nine, casting his family life into chaos. He couldn't afford a bus ticket to the gym to train, so he'd have to walk three hours instead. When he got there, everyone wanted to fight him - guys much older than him and twice his size - to say they could beat a Fury.

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....

Frank Warren has spent 40 years working with boxing's most colourful and controversial characters. In his long-awaited autobiography, he reflects on the battles he had to win to reach the top and remain there, not least the battle to stay alive after he was shot at point-blank range in an attempted assassination in 1989. In Frank and Fearless, Warren pulls no punches, taking us behind the scenes into a world of blood and sweat, and intense relationships that all too often end in tears.

From Jim Lampley, HBO’s ringside face and voice of boxing, comes a first-person, blow-by-blow account of the evolution of sports television chock full of famous names, history-making events, and never-before-told stories from the world of sports.

Following Khan's retirement from the sport in May 2022, in Fight For Your Life: The Autobiography Khan looks back on his exhilarating boxing career that spanned 27 years from his first fight to his last. A role model for his Pakistani heritage, his Bolton upbringing and the best of British sport, Khan also reveals for the first time the full story of his life outside of the ring.

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.

World Champion boxer, national treasure, pantomime star, sidekick to Harry Carpenter, mental health campaigner. Frank Bruno is many different things to many different people. Now, in his own words, as he turns 60, Frank delivers the full, explosive story of his remarkable life so far. At times harrowing, at times hilarious, but always 100 percent honest, Frank Bruno: 60 Years a Fighter is the sporting memoir of the year which pulls no punches. In it, Frank opens up on his journey to becoming a World Champion and the fight which has come after retirement with mental ill health.

"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.