Pulling No Punches

Pulling No Punches PDF Author: Steven Edwin Laffoley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781897426500
Category : Boxers (Sports)
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey called Sam Langford from Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia, “The greatest fighter we’ve ever had.” And champion Jack Johnson stated he “he was the toughest little son-of-a-bitch that ever lived.” Celebrated New York boxing writer Hype Igoe said he was “the greatest fighter, pound for pound, who ever lived,” while New York sports writer Joe Williams said he “was probably the best the ring ever saw.” Langford was so good that many boxers refused to fight him, so good that he took bouts with bigger men just to get a match, so good that he once fought the greatest boxer of his age, Jack Johnson, who was forty pounds heavier and a good foot taller—and still went the distance. Yet, for all the ferocity of his talent, Sam Langford (1883-1956) could not outbox fistic fate. From his first bout in 1902 until his last a quarter century later, he battled boxing’s colour barrier that kept him from being world champion in three different weight classes. Still, he refused to be knocked down and relentlessly pursued a title shot until he was nearly forty. When, in 1923, he approached Jack Kearns, the manager of then heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, for a title bout, the wily Kearns looked over the nearly blind, well-past-his-prime boxer, and shook his head. “We were looking for someone easier,” he sighed. He was just that good. When Langford could no longer get his title shot, he retired from the ring in 1926 and soon faded from the public mind—until the serious compilers of lists that recognize boxing’s all-time greatest began including his name, and he found himself becoming a legend. His official record says he fought 250 bouts, but he remembered fighting more than 500. And he loved to talk about them all, loved the stories that shaped the contours of his life and loved the absolute truth and less-than-certain tales that wove themselves into his boxing legend. Of course, this was as it should have been, because for him, great boxing was as much about the battles’ tales as it was about the battles themselves. This is the story of Sam Langford.

Pulling No Punches

Pulling No Punches PDF Author: Steven Edwin Laffoley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781897426500
Category : Boxers (Sports)
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book Here

Book Description
Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey called Sam Langford from Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia, “The greatest fighter we’ve ever had.” And champion Jack Johnson stated he “he was the toughest little son-of-a-bitch that ever lived.” Celebrated New York boxing writer Hype Igoe said he was “the greatest fighter, pound for pound, who ever lived,” while New York sports writer Joe Williams said he “was probably the best the ring ever saw.” Langford was so good that many boxers refused to fight him, so good that he took bouts with bigger men just to get a match, so good that he once fought the greatest boxer of his age, Jack Johnson, who was forty pounds heavier and a good foot taller—and still went the distance. Yet, for all the ferocity of his talent, Sam Langford (1883-1956) could not outbox fistic fate. From his first bout in 1902 until his last a quarter century later, he battled boxing’s colour barrier that kept him from being world champion in three different weight classes. Still, he refused to be knocked down and relentlessly pursued a title shot until he was nearly forty. When, in 1923, he approached Jack Kearns, the manager of then heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, for a title bout, the wily Kearns looked over the nearly blind, well-past-his-prime boxer, and shook his head. “We were looking for someone easier,” he sighed. He was just that good. When Langford could no longer get his title shot, he retired from the ring in 1926 and soon faded from the public mind—until the serious compilers of lists that recognize boxing’s all-time greatest began including his name, and he found himself becoming a legend. His official record says he fought 250 bouts, but he remembered fighting more than 500. And he loved to talk about them all, loved the stories that shaped the contours of his life and loved the absolute truth and less-than-certain tales that wove themselves into his boxing legend. Of course, this was as it should have been, because for him, great boxing was as much about the battles’ tales as it was about the battles themselves. This is the story of Sam Langford.

Boston’s Black Athletes

Boston’s Black Athletes PDF Author: Robert Cvornyek
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 166690905X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Sport often mirrored the racial climate of the time, but it also informed and encouraged equality on and off the field. In Boston, the Black athletic body historically represented a challenge to the city’s liberal image. Boston's Black Athletes: Identity, Performance, and Activism interprets Boston’s contested racial history through the diverse experiences of the city’s African American sports figures who directed their talent toward the struggle for social justice. Editors Robert Cvornyek and Douglas Stark and the contributors explore a variety of representative athletes, such as Kittie Knox, Louise Stokes, and Medina Dixon, that negotiated Boston’s racial boundaries at sequential moments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to demonstrate Boston’s long and troubled racial history. The contributors’ biographical sketches are grounded in stories that have remained memorable within Boston’s Black neighborhoods. In recounting the struggles and triumphs of these individuals, this book amplifies their stories and reminds readers that Boston’s Black sports fans found a historic consistency in their athletes to shape racial identity and cultural expression.

Joe Gans

Joe Gans PDF Author: Colleen Aycock
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786439947
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Joe Gans captured the world lightweight title in 1902, becoming the first black American world title holder in any sport. Gans was a master strategist and tactician, and one of the earliest practitioners of "scientific" boxing. As a black champion reigning during the Jim Crow era, he endured physical assaults, a stolen title, bankruptcy, and numerous attempts to destroy his reputation. Four short years after successfully defending his title in the 42-round "Greatest Fight of the Century," Joe Gans was dead of tuberculosis. This biography features original round-by-round ringside telegraph reports of his most famous and controversial fights, a complete fight history, photographs, and early newspaper drawings and cartoons.

The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home PDF Author: John Demont
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 0771025130
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The province's premier journalist tells the story he was born to write. No journalist has travelled the back roads, hidden vales and fog-soaked coves of Nova Scotia as widely as John DeMont. No writer has spent as much time considering its peculiar warp and weft of humanity, geography and history. The Long Way Home is the summation of DeMont's years of travel, research and thought. It tells the story of what is, from the European view of things, the oldest part of Canada. Before Confederation it was also the richest, but now Nova Scotia is among the poorest. Its defining myths and stories are mostly about loss and sheer determination. Equal parts narrative, memoir and meditation, The Long Way Home chronicles with enthralling clarity a complex and multi-dimensional story: the overwhelming of the first peoples and the arrival of a mélange of pioneers who carved out pockets of the wilderness; the random acts and unexplained mysteries; the shameful achievements and noble failures; the rapture and misery; the twists of destiny and the cold-heartedness of fate. This is the biography of a place that has been hardened by history. A place full of reminders of how great a province it has been and how great—with the right circumstances and a little luck—it could be again.

Billy Miske

Billy Miske PDF Author: Clay Moyle
Publisher: Win by Ko Publications
ISBN: 9780979982248
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Hall of Fame boxer Billy Miske was arguably the most courageous and inspirational figure in boxing history, and his story is long overdue. During a career that was impeded and cut short as a result of his ongoing battle with a terminal illness, he fought a number of the greatest fighters who ever lived, including Jack Dillon, Harry Greb, and Jack Dempsey.

The First Black Boxing Champions

The First Black Boxing Champions PDF Author: Colleen Aycock
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786461888
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This volume presents fifteen chapters of biography of African American and black champions and challengers of the early prize ring. They range from Tom Molineaux, a slave who won freedom and fame in the ring in the early 1800s; to Joe Gans, the first African American world champion; to the flamboyant Jack Johnson, deemed such a threat to white society that film of his defeat of former champion and "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries was banned across much of the country. Photographs, period drawings, cartoons, and fight posters enhance the biographies. Round-by-round coverage of select historic fights is included, as is a foreword by Hall-of-Fame boxing announcer Al Bernstein.

Joe Jennette

Joe Jennette PDF Author: Joe Botti
Publisher: Win by Ko Publications
ISBN: 9780979982279
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In this first and only biography on the life and boxing career of heavyweight boxing contender Joe Jennette, author Joe Botti chronicles the life and career of this interracial athlete who competed in the longest boxing contest of the twentieth century. From 1904 to 1922 Jennette faced and defeated the most dangerous fighters of his era, including Jack Johnson, Sam Langford, and Sam McVea. Jennette was unable to secure a title shot due to the fact that the world was fixated with finding a Caucasian boxer to defeat Jack Johnson in the "great white hope" era. The story deals with the struggles of interracial romance, racism, and the world of boxing in the early twentieth century. Joe Botti is the Founder and Head Coach of the Union City Boxing Club in Union City, N.J. He studied at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. A former amateur boxer, Botti has trained over 30 New Jersey Golden Glove champions and currently manages and trains professional and amateur boxers.

Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner

Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner PDF Author: Theresa Runstedtler
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520280113
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Discusses the life and boxing career of Jack Johnson.

Boston's Boxing Heritage

Boston's Boxing Heritage PDF Author: Kevin Smith
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738511368
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Boston's Boxing Heritage: Prizefighting from 1882 to 1955 chronicles the rich history of prizefighting in Boston and the many characters that made the Hub city the home of champions. It is not only a pictorial history of the sport but also a tale of heroes and villains, gangsters and mobsters, contenders and bums, trainers and newspapermen, straight men and cheats. It is a saga of ethnicity and race, of color barriers broken and neighborhood rivalries settled and rekindled. At its core this story is truly about a city and its relationship with a sport. Boston's Boxing Heritage: Prizefighting from 1882 to 1955 covers the early bareknuckle years of boxing through the sport's post-World War II boom. When Boston's John L. Sullivan won the heavyweight crown from Paddy Ryan in 1882, he took prizefighting from an illegal, red-light district pastime to the country's most popular sport and in essence put Bean Town on the sporting map. For the next sixty years, Boston remained one of the elite cities in the boxing world spawning ring immortals such as George "Little Chocolate" Dixon, Joe "the Barbados Demon" Wolcott, William "Honey" Mellody, Rocky Marciano, Jack "the Boston Gob" Sharkey, and Sam "the Boston Tar Baby" Langford.

The First Black Boxing Champions

The First Black Boxing Champions PDF Author: Colleen Aycock
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786449918
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This volume presents fifteen chapters of biography of African American and black champions and challengers of the early prize ring. They range from Tom Molineaux, a slave who won freedom and fame in the ring in the early 1800s; to Joe Gans, the first African American world champion; to the flamboyant Jack Johnson, deemed such a threat to white society that film of his defeat of former champion and "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries was banned across much of the country. Photographs, period drawings, cartoons, and fight posters enhance the biographies. Round-by-round coverage of select historic fights is included, as is a foreword by Hall-of-Fame boxing announcer Al Bernstein.