Boxing Biographies

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.

Go behind the scenes with Eddie as we follow his incredible journey from World's Strongest Man to competing in 'The Heaviest Boxing Match in History', featuring training diaries, 10 rounds of mental preparation, and documentary clips. You'll hear exclusive podcast style interviews with iconic friends including Ross Edgley, James Haskell, Paddy McGuinness, his family and inner circle. Listen to Eddie as you never heard him before: 100% authentic, honest and raw.

In this work of sporting and social history we have a biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon (1870–1908), the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division. George Dixon: The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870–1908 chronicles the life of the most consequential Black athlete of the nineteenth century. Yet despite his triumphs, Dixon has been lost to history, overshadowed by Black athletes whose activism against white supremacy far exceeded his own.

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".

"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.

The sequel to the Amazon best seller Unfinished Agony, this is the third and final audiobook on the wild man of Wakefield Paul Sykes.

In this groundbreaking new book, the author, a trans man, trains to fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden while struggling to untangle the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. Through his experience boxing - learning to get hit and to hit back; wrestling with the camaraderie of the gym; confronting the betrayals and strength of his own body - McBee examines the weight of male violence....

Paul Sykes, from Lupset, near Wakefield, died aged 60 in Pinderfields Hospital from pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver. He was a man whose life might have been changed by success in the boxing ring, but despite contending for the British and Commonwealth Heavyweight Titles, he sank back into old habits. It heralded a return to the self-destructive course of his life. This audiobook is my journey to find out what happened to Paul Sykes between the years after his 1990 cult classic documentary and his eventual tragic demise in 2007.

From weighing 28 stone and fighting a deep depression, to his amazing return to heavyweight champion of the world, Tyson opens up and share his inspiring advice and tips on diet, exercise regime and his incredible journey back to a healthier body and mind. Frank, accessible and inspiring, The Furious Method is a feel-good and motivating tonic, full of inspirational advice for listeners on how we can all improve our physical and mental health. And how we can all create a champion mind-set.

Three months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, prizefighters Charles "Sonny" Liston and Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. stepped into a boxing ring in Miami to dispute the heavyweight championship of the world. Liston was a mob fighter with a criminal past, and rumors were spreading that Clay was not just a noisy, bright-eyed boy blessed with more than his share of the craziness of youth, but a believer in a shadowy cult: the Nation of Islam. Instead of a hero and a villain, boxing had served up two bad guys.

Belfast's Carl ‘The Jackal' Frampton MBE is no ordinary boxer. One of only three fighters from the British Isles to be named the Ring magazine Fighter of the Year, he has headlined sellout world championship bouts on both sides of the Atlantic, winning multiple world titles in the process. His dedicated army of fans have traversed the globe to be ringside throughout it all. But Frampton's popularity far exceeds the traditional adulation for a sporting icon; he is regarded as a symbol of hope and unity by both sides of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland.

Born into a family of Irish traveller heritage, Big John Fury descends from a long line of bare-knuckle fighters, including King of the Gypsies. So it’s no surprise that he too found himself fighting outside the ring at a young age. From his early years in Manchester, John learned to box by practising bare-knuckle fighting within the travelling community, before graduating into the sport professionally. The ring has never been far from his sights, and John has played a crucial role in coaching and being a cornerman for his two-time British heavyweight champion son, Tyson Fury.

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.

'A Boy Named Henry – British Boxing Legend Sir Henry Cooper's Story 'by Stu Armstrong is a captivating journey through the life of one of Britain’s most cherished sporting heroes. From humble beginnings in Bermondsey, South London, to his iconic battles in the ring, this compelling biography shines a light on the extraordinary man behind the gloves.

"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.

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.

The Champ: Terry Downes - known as 'The Paddington Express' - was a world champion boxer, US Marine, gangsters' favourite and latter-day film star and businessman. The Chump: James McNicholas' PE teacher once told him he was so unfit he'd be dead by the time he was 23. James has spent his life pursuing a career in acting and comedy. In reality, that has meant spells working as a painter-decorator and river cruise salesperson. After Terry's death, James finds himself in reflective mood, comparing how he's doing in life to how his grandad was at that age.

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.

Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story. James J. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929.

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.