In the 1950s, Arcel ran independent television fights from various cities across the USA, upsetting the monopolistic International Boxing Club run by millionaire Jim Norris with the backroom assistance of mobster Frankie Carbo, a one-time gunman for Murder Inc. Warned to 'lay off, or else', Arcel carried on until one day in Boston when he was slugged over the head with a lead pipe. He recovered but quit the fight game, coming back in the 1970s to train the great Duran. He last worked the corner with heavyweight champion Larry Holmes in 1982.

Champ in the Corner: The Ray Arcel Story

Jarrett, John

Biographies & Memoirs

Tempus

This is a cradle-to-grave biography of Mickey Walker, former welterweight (1922-1926) and middleweight champion (1926-1931) of the world, one of the greatest fighters in ring history. He fought at a time when boxing was a major sport with only eight championships, and he held two of them over a nine-year period. He fought at a time when each weight division was jammed with good fighters, and he fought them all from welterweight up to heavyweight, frequently being outweighed 20 to 30 pounds. Walker was also a great personality who loved life and lived it to the fullest. He was married seven times to four different women, and he cavorted with movie stars and mobsters. When his boxing career ended in 1935, Walker ran saloons in various locations and eventually became an artist of some standing. He died in 1981 at age 79.

Toy Bulldog: The Fighting Life and Times of Mickey Walker

McFarland Company

They still call it the most sensational fight ever for the world heavyweight championship, between champion Jack Dempsey and his hammer-fisted Argentine challenger, Luis Angel Firpo. Back in the Roaring Twenties, 85,000 packed into New York's Polo Grounds to see all three minutes 57 seconds of it. Nobody asked for their money back. In the first round Firpo was floored seven times, but got up to deck the champion, then knocked him clean into the press section. Pushed back into the ring as the count reached nine, the champion survived the round, thinking he had been knocked out. In round two, Dempsey knocked Firpo out in 57 seconds. The four-minute Fight of the Century was over! "The Wild Bull of the Pampas" became Argentina's most famous citizen, after the infamous Perons. Dempsey, half a million dollars richer, rested and rusted for three years before losing his title to Gene Tunney.

Dempsey and the Wild Bull: The Four Minute Fight of the Century

Sports & Outdoors

Individual Sports

Pitch Publishing Ltd

They called Max Baer the "Clown Prince of Boxing," but trainer Ray Arcel remembered a night in 1933 when he worked Baer’s corner in what was probably Max’s greatest triumph, the night he smashed Max Schmeling to defeat in 10 brutal rounds. That was no clown. A year later, Baer was heavyweight champion of the world. From a $4 a day foundry worker, Baer’s rise was rapid. He bought so many suits he couldn’t keep track of them; wore a new hat every week; bought a house like a hotel. Arcel cried like a baby when he read in theNew York Times that Max had died from a heart attack in November 1959, at just 50 years old. This is the fascinating story of an iconic boxing figure who achieved so much in a life too short.

Max Baer: Clown Prince of Boxing

Say hello to Rocky Marciano, the world's only undefeated heavyweight champion, a guy called Rocky Marciano. With just a 67-inch reach, two left feet and under six feet tall, Marciano blasted his way to 49 wins, 43 inside the distance. You could knock him down but you couldn't knock him out. Marciano KO'd Jersey Joe Walcott in a 1952 thriller to become world champion. Defending his title five times, he brought the million-dollar gate back to boxing in 1955 when he crushed Archie Moore in his final fight. He then criss-crossed the U.S. making public appearances, for cash only. He built a network of friends, businessmen and Mob guys who willingly paid his way and flew him around. And that's how he died, hitching a ride in a plane that crashed in an Iowa cornfield in 1969, on the eve of his 46th birthday. His mantra was, "If you want to live a full life, then live dangerously." Rocky did that, all right!

Rocky Marciano: The Brockton Blockbuster

<div>Over 25 years Sugar Ray Robinson ruled three divisions, from lightweight to middleweight. As a kid he had danced for pennies on the streets of Harlem, and he danced again in the ring from New York and Vegas to Paris and back again. After a brilliant amateur career he turned pro&nbsp;in 1940 and won his first 40 contests before Jake LaMotta snapped his streak of 123 fights. He was unbeaten over the next nine years and would beat LaMotta in five of their six fights, taking his middleweight title. One of Ray's toughest fights was with Uncle Sam over his $4 million fight earnings. He built and lost a Harlem business empire before retiring from the ring and entering showbiz. The great fighter eventually settled down with his third wife, Millie, in California where he set up the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation.&nbsp;</div>

The Sugar Ray Robinson Story: Boxing's Comeback King

Product Description 
Benny Leonard was arguably the greatest lightweight champion of all time. With superb boxing skills and potent punching power, he fought over 200 times and suffered just five defeats. He spent his boyhood in a crime-ridden ghetto in Manhattan's Lower East Side and was the greatest of a long line of Jewish boxers to emerge from the slums. Leonard was still only 19 when he knocked out Freddie Welsh to become world lightweight king in 1917. He defended the title eight times and retired as undefeated champion in 1925, to please the only woman he loved, his mother. But the 1929 Wall Street Crash wiped out his fortune and he was forced to make a comeback at 35. Leonard fought the best of his era: Johnny Dundee, Johnny Kilbane, Rocky Kansas, Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis, and Lew Tendler among them. Apart from being a sublime boxer, Benny was a first-class showman who helped to put boxing on a higher plane. He died as he lived - in the ring - while refereeing a fight at age 51. This is the definitive account of his remarkable life and career. 
 About the Author \nJohn Jarrett is the author of ten boxing books including 
The Sugar Ray Robinson Story: Boxing's Comeback King, 
Rocky Marciano: The Brockton Blockbuster, 
Max Baer: Clown Prince of 
Boxing, and 
Dempsey and the Wild Bull. He has written about the sport since 1951 for publications such as 
Boxing News, International Boxing, and 
Boxing Pictorial. He was Northern Area secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control for 40 years.

The Great Benny Leonard: Mama's Boy to World Champ

Community & Culture

Henry Armstrong: Boxing's Super Champ

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