The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe

The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe PDF Author: Christian Vick
Publisher: Llumina Press
ISBN: 9781605947198
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"It stung to some degree. I was very young, it was hard to read and hear so much negativity. I won the silver medal. I lost the fight on my feet. I didn't see why everyone felt I was a disgrace. Ferdie Pacheco and folks were giving me no credit. It motivated me. All they can do is talk. In the ring, I determine what the outcome will be." A behind the scenes look at the former heavyweight champion's life and times, The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe chronicles Riddick's journey from the 1988 Olympics to top of the boxing world. The biography also provides insight into Bowe's abrupt exit from the sport. Complete with commentary from the boxing world, Triumph revolutionizes the way a boxing story is told, with material from Riddick Bowe himself and contributors from HBO's Larry Merhant to former world champion Evander Holyfield. Jim Lampley, Ross Greenburg, Lou Dibella, and a host of others make Triumph a must-read for any sports fan.Christian Vick is from the northern Virginia area. He is a graduate of Quinnipiac University where he was the recipient of a full basketball scholarship. After spending a couple years playing basketball overseas, Christian now covers boxing for Unifiedchamp.com. Christian is an avid fan of all sports

The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe

The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe PDF Author: Christian Vick
Publisher: Llumina Press
ISBN: 9781605947198
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
"It stung to some degree. I was very young, it was hard to read and hear so much negativity. I won the silver medal. I lost the fight on my feet. I didn't see why everyone felt I was a disgrace. Ferdie Pacheco and folks were giving me no credit. It motivated me. All they can do is talk. In the ring, I determine what the outcome will be." A behind the scenes look at the former heavyweight champion's life and times, The Triumph and Tragedy of Riddick Bowe chronicles Riddick's journey from the 1988 Olympics to top of the boxing world. The biography also provides insight into Bowe's abrupt exit from the sport. Complete with commentary from the boxing world, Triumph revolutionizes the way a boxing story is told, with material from Riddick Bowe himself and contributors from HBO's Larry Merhant to former world champion Evander Holyfield. Jim Lampley, Ross Greenburg, Lou Dibella, and a host of others make Triumph a must-read for any sports fan.Christian Vick is from the northern Virginia area. He is a graduate of Quinnipiac University where he was the recipient of a full basketball scholarship. After spending a couple years playing basketball overseas, Christian now covers boxing for Unifiedchamp.com. Christian is an avid fan of all sports

Historical Dictionary of Boxing

Historical Dictionary of Boxing PDF Author: John Grasso
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810878674
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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Book Description
Boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world, reaching back to the Ancient Greeks, although it has become popular only in the past century or so. But, in some ways, it is a rather complicated sport since – to avoid unnecessary harm – it has been endowed with rules to keep it clean, referees to see the rules are obeyed, and organizations to regulate the sport. Boxing was once largely amateur, although the professional bouts attracted the most attention, but now it is also an Olympic sport. And, over the years, there has been one champion after another who symbolized what boxing was all about, such Joe Louis, Mohammad Ali and Cassius Clay. Naturally, these champions are the focus of the Historical Dictionary of Boxing as well, and they have the biggest entries in the dictionary section, but they had to fight against someone and there are dozens and dozens of other boxers with smaller entries. More of these boxers come from the United States than elsewhere, but there are others from Europe, Asia and Latin America, and there are also entries on the major boxing countries as well. Plus entries on the rules, on the organizations, and on the technical terminology and jargon you have to know just to follow the bouts. The introduction provides a broad view of boxing’s history while the chronology traces events from 688 B.C. to 2012 A.D. Not all that much has been written on boxing that is not ephemeral, but much of that literature can be found in the bibliography. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the sport of boxing.

A Flame of Pure Fire

A Flame of Pure Fire PDF Author: Roger Kahn
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544173910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
Jack Dempsey was perfectly suited to the time in which he fought, the time when the United States first felt the throb of its own overwhelming power. For eight years and two months after World War I, Dempsey, with his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, was heavyweight champion of the world. A Flame of Pure Fire is the extraordinary story of a man and a country growing to maturity in a blaze of strength and exuberance that nearly burned them to ash. Hobo, roughneck, fighter, lover, millionaire, movie star, and, finally, a gentleman of rare generosity and sincerity, Dempsey embodied an America grappling with the confusing demands of preeminence. Dempsey lived a life that touched every part of the American experience in the first half of the twentieth century. Roger Kahn, one of our preeminent writers about the human side of sport, has found in Dempsey a subject that matches his own manifold talents. A friend of Dempsey's and an insightful observer of the ways in which sport can measure a society's evolution, Kahn reaches a new and exciting stage in his acclaimed career with this book. In the story of a man John Lardner called "a flame of pure fire, at last a hero," Roger Kahn finds the heart of America.

One Punch from the Promised Land

One Punch from the Promised Land PDF Author: John Florio
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762797681
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
It was 1976 when Leon and Michael Spinks first punched their way into America’s living rooms. That year, they became the first brothers to win Olympic gold in the same Games. Shortly thereafter, they became the first brothers to win the heavyweight title: Leon toppled The Greatest, Muhammad Ali; Michael beat the unbeatable Larry Holmes. With a cast of characters that includes Ali, Holmes, Mike Tyson, Gerry Cooney, Dwight Qawi, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and dozens of friends, relatives, and boxing figures, ONE PUNCH FROM THE PROMISED LAND tells the unlikely story of the Spinks brothers. Their rise from the Pruitt-Igoe housing disaster. Their divergent paths of success. And their relationship with America. The book also uncovers stories never before made public: the big paydays, the high living, the backroom deals. It’s not afraid to tackle an issue rarely discussed: Does the heavyweight title deliver on its promise to young men in the inner city? This is the definitive story of Leon and Michael Spinks. And a cross-examination of heavyweight boxing in 20th century America.

Larry Holmes

Larry Holmes PDF Author: Larry Holmes
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429975547
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
In Larry Holmes, the reader will experience the uplifting odyssey that took Larry Holmes from a boxing nobody to a world champion. Holmes is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of our time and held the title for more than seven years. But his rise to the top was hardly an easy one. He began his life as one of twelve children raised by a single mother in Cuthbert, Georgia, and had to struggle in poverty for the first sixteen years of his life. His road to champion-from which he would net $40 million-was one requiring doggedness and extreme courage, qualities that led people to dub Holmes "The People's Champion." Also featured in the book is an insider's look at Holmes relationship with Muhammad Ali, his views on the state of boxing in the 1990s-including the Mike Tyson situation, his fights with Don King, and his ratings of the top boxers today. Larry Holmes is a champion in every sense of the word. He has risen to every challenge he faced-from poverty to ridicule to naysayers-and his life story is both inspiring and moving.

Looking for a Fight

Looking for a Fight PDF Author: Lynn Snowden Picket
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780385315845
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Looking For A Fight A Memoir "I should have been alarmed at the canvas I had, in my bullheadedness, unwittingly stepped into--but I never could back down from a challenge," writes Lynn Snowden Picket in her frank, powerful memoir. An accomplished journalist, Lynn had just completed the New York Marathon and was toned and fit, but underneath she was smarting from a recent and hurtful divorce. Seeking an outlet for her stifled aggression, her trainer led her to a sweat-stained gym in Brooklyn, a place renowned for producing skilled, hard-hitting boxers. At Gleason's, Lynn would learn how to fight. Lynn steps into the ring with a cockiness that is "part naivete and part rage." Before long she's sparring with men twice her size, with years more experience. For the men at Gleason's, fighting is sometimes their only available path to glory, money, and fame. At their hands, three times a week, Lynn's ribs slam against her lungs, her face bruises, her hands swell. More difficult to overcome, however, are the tenacious panic attacks that come both in and outside the ring. Gleason's has become the focal point of Lynn's life; its mixed smells of machismo, adrenaline, and fear have become her own. After ten months Lynn is ready for her first public fight against a woman, her equal in weight and strength. This match will be the greatest test of Lynn's skill. The greatest test of her courage, however, will be knowing when to quit.

Floyd Patterson

Floyd Patterson PDF Author: W. K. Stratton
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0151014302
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This knockout biography follows boxing legend Floyd Patterson, civil rights activist, national icon, and the youngest man to win the World Heavyweight Champion title, and the first to ever win the title twice.

Smokin' Joe

Smokin' Joe PDF Author: Mark Kram
Publisher: Ecco
ISBN: 9780062654472
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A gripping, all-access biography of Joe Frazier, whose rivalry with Muhammad Ali riveted boxing fans and whose complex legacy as a figure in American sports and society endures History will remember the rivalry of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali as one for the ages, a trilogy of extraordinary fights that transcended the world of sports and crossed into a sociocultural drama that divided the country. Joe Frazier was a much more complex figure than his rivalry with Ali would suggest. In this riveting and nuanced portrayal, acclaimed sports writer Mark Kram, Jr., unlinks Frazier from Ali and for the first time gives a full-bodied account of Frazier's life, a journey that began with the youngest of thirteen children packed in a small farmhouse, encountering the bigotry and oppression of the Jim Crow South, and continued with his voyage north at age fifteen to develop as a fighter in Philadelphia. Tracing Frazier's life through his momentous bouts with the likes of Ali and George Foreman and the developing perception of him as the anti-Ali in the eyes of blue-collar America, Kram follows the boxer up to his retirement in 1981 and beyond, exploring his relationship with his son, the would-be heavyweight champion Marvis, and his fragmented home life as well as the uneasy place that Ali continued to occupy in his thoughts. A propulsive and richly textured narrative that is also a powerful story about race and class in America, Smokin' Joe is unparalleled in its scope, depth, and access and promises to be the definitive biography of a towering American figure whose life was galvanized by conflict and whose mark has proven to be lasting.

Bad Intentions

Bad Intentions PDF Author: Peter Heller
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786748281
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
A biography of the man who would become heavyweight champion of the world and rock the sporting world with scandal.

Becoming Holyfield

Becoming Holyfield PDF Author: Evander Holyfield
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416564381
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
History's only four-time world heavyweight boxing champion and one of America's most admired and beloved athletes reveals the dramatic story of his rise from poverty to the very pinnacle of the toughest sport on earth. Barely able to make it into the heavyweight division and almost always the smaller fighter in the ring, Holyfield spent his professional career proving the naysayers wrong. Along the way he provided some of the twentieth century's most thrilling sports moments, not all of them on purpose. In Becoming Holyfield, he gives us the exciting inside story of defeating Mike Tyson, the self-proclaimed "Baddest Man on Earth," and then getting a piece of his ear bitten off in the rematch. We learn how it felt to become the undisputed champion of the world by knocking out the man who knocked out Tyson, and we find out what it was really like to be in the middle of a title fight and see a motorized parachute fly right into the ring. There is heartbreak to go along with triumph, beginning with Holyfield's loss of an Olympic gold medal because of a highly controversial disqualification and continuing through his short-lived retirement following a misdiagnosed heart condition. Along the way we're treated to glimpses of such colorful figures as Don King and Howard Cosell and we come to understand the extra-ordinary power of love in shaping a young boy's life, and the love he tried to return. Holyfield made more money in the ring than any other fighter in history, and gave away millions to support the dreams of underprivileged kids looking for the same kinds of breaks that allowed him to become a champion. Holyfield's immense popularity cannot be overstated, and it cuts across all ethnicities and socioeconomic classes. The top three highest-grossing sporting events in Las Vegas history were all Holyfield fights, and his highly rated appearances on Dancing with the Stars helped to ensure that show's success. Other fighters may have been bigger, stronger, or more flamboyant, but few could match Evander Holyfield's poise, grace under pressure, or commitment to serve as an inspiration to others.