Boxing Biographies

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".

Sonny Bill Williams (SBW) is a once-in-a-hundred-year athlete with immense sporting talent in rugby league, rugby union and boxing. Sonny Bill has built an incredible career and sporting reputation across the globe. His athleticism has taken him from inner-city Auckland, where he grew up, to the highest sporting moments in Twickenham, Eden Park and Sydney's Olympic Stadium. But there is so much more to Sonny Bill Williams' life and journey than his on-field and in-the-ring triumphs.

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....

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

On the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) stepped into the ring with Sonny Liston, he was widely regarded as an irritating freak who danced and talked way too much. Six rounds later Ali was not only the new world heavyweight boxing champion: He was "a new kind of black man" who would shortly transform America's racial politics, its popular culture, and its notions of heroism. No one has captured Ali—and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated—with greater vibrancy, drama, and astuteness than David Remnick.

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.

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.

Arturo "Thunder" Gatti hung up his gloves in 2007, closing the book on a boxing career that bordered on the mythical. At long last, he seemed ready to leave the business of blood behind for a long, happy life outside the ring. His retirement was celebrated—boxing's modern gladiator had earned his freedom. Two years later, he was gone—found dead in a hotel in Brazil under mysterious circumstances. He was only thirty-seven years old. Did he commit suicide? Or was he killed by his new wife?

On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home - of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was accidental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, Shaun Assael treats the boxer's death as a cold case. The result is a riveting whodunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas.

In this extraordinary, poignant memoir, Rahaman tells a much bigger and more personal story than in any other book on Muhammad Ali - that of two brothers, almost inseparable from birth to death. It is the final and most important perspective on an iconic figure.

Punching Bag is the compelling true story of a high school career defined by poverty and punctuated by outbreaks of domestic abuse. Rex Ogle, who brilliantly mapped his experience of hunger in Free Lunch, here describes his struggle to survive; reflects on his complex, often paradoxical relationship with his passionate, fierce mother; and charts the trajectory of his stepdad’s anger. Hovering over Rex’s story is the talismanic presence of his unborn baby sister.

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.

Emmy Award-winning broadcaster Chris Myers reflects on his illustrious career as one of the most trusted and renowned journalists in sports. Myers has witnessed and participated in his fair share of historic events: on the field when the earthquake struck the 1989 World Series; on the air throughout the tragic aftermath of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing; on the sidelines during the Patriots’ stunning comeback at Super Bowl LI; and a contentious live interview with the notorious OJ Simpson.

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.

Pittsburgh’s Paul Spadafora defeated Israel Cardona to capture the International Boxing Federation lightweight belt and the heart of a city that had not boasted a world champion prizefighter in over a half-century. Outside the ring, Paul’s dependency on drugs and alcohol marred his legacy and bore tragic consequences. Paul’s narrative was one of brilliance, crippled by madness, a dichotomy of in-ring savant and out-of-ring calamity. Fighting Till the End is a candid examination of a flawed champion determined to conquer his demons and come out on top in the final round of his life.

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.

Through most of the Roaring '20s, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to his time. In A Flame of Pure Fire, renowned sports writer Roger Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the Manassa Mauler, but also illustrates how the tumultuous 1920s shaped Dempsey - and how the champ, in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history.

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.

Vinnie Curto was born in East Boston, Massachusetts, on July 10, 1955. His father Jimmy Curto was a raving, sick, alcoholic homosexual. Vinnie’s father and his drunken friends sexually abused young Vinnie, frequently raping him and performing other deviant sexual acts on him, while his mother Loretta stood by and let it happen.

Muhammed Ali and Howard Cosell, a legendary athlete and a television icon, were individually interesting, but together they were mesmerizing. They were profoundly different, young and old, black and white, a Muslim and a Jew, Ali barely literate, Cosell an editor of his university's law review. Yet they had in common forces that made them unforgettable: both were unprecedented performers who covered enormous insecurities by demanding, loudly and often, public acclaim.