Boxing's indefinable glamour ensures that its appeal crosses all barriers of class, race, and religion. The 'sweet science' has a culture all of its own and, it must be said, a history littered with scandals and controversy. For the first time here, Thomas Myler tells the inside stories of the real fight game. He reveals the sport's heroes and villains, mobsters and fixers, its shame and sorrows, while along the way providing the reader with a ringside seat at the sport's greatest and most controversial contests. Myler recalls- the enraged Mike Tyson taking a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear; the pathetic Primo Carnera and his manipulation by gangsters; the repeated and unchecked fouls that marred the Rocky Marciano - Don Cockell and Willy Pep-Sandy Saddler brawls; Roberto Duran's baffling retirement against Sugar Ray Leonard; and the Riddick Bowe- Andrew Golota fiasco that ended in an ugly full-scale riot, unprecedented in the long history of fights at New Yorks's Madison Square Garden. This no-holds-barred volume also covers Sonny Liston - whose mobster background was not unknown to boxing authorities - going down under Muhammad Ali's phantom punch; the Joe Gans - Terry

Author Biography

Thomas Myler is the boxing writer for the Irish Independent and the Irish correspondent for Boxing News. He has written extensively on world boxing and is considered one of Ireland's leading historians on the sport.