Boxing Books I've Recently Bought.

Four kings. Great book.

Ray leonard's autobiography is good - though obviously very partial to Sugar. Angelo Dundee covers it a bit in 'My view from the corner' and also check out the criminally underrated 'Corner Men'.

Hands of Stone by Giudice on Duran is well-researched but the sort of book you'll feel you could have written better yourself.

 

They're both very poor. Fairly run of the mill middle-class-vicarious-teeth-gnashing-over-injustices-suffered-by-black-thug-at-the-hands-of-the-Man type books.

Liston deserves a proper biography which details his extraordinary journey through life, but which recognizes the seedy side of his character. This isn't it.

The author is trying too hard to be a tough guy, and it's kind of embarassing.

 

I read The Devil and Sonny Liston when I was a teenager. To this day I remember him saying he had definitive proof that Ali vs Liston 2 and one other HUGE classic boxing match were 100% predetermined, but "the powers that be" were forbidding him from revealing what the second fight was. Even as a kid I could tell the guy was a douche

 

I really liked the Murderer's Row by Springs Toledo, it gave me insight into a group of fighters I knew little about and who I intend to learn more about. An interesting side note is that I just loaned this book to a guy at work who I've known for a while and just found out was boxing fan and his father (now passed) had 110 fights under different names during the the 40s when these fighters were active. I have had some very interesting conversions with him already about his dad.

Has anyone read "I am Duran"? I was wondering how it compared to "Hands of Stone"

I also enjoyed Paul Gallender's book on Sonny Liston which would recommend.

 

Recently, I bought John Ochs' absolutely terrific three-volume biography of Jack Hurley. When it comes to boxing history, the Hurley biography doesn't take a back seat to any other book. Of course, Hurley was a tremendous all-around boxing man and an extremely fascinating character.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I have the book written by Duran and Gallenders book. Both books are good. Gallender is pretty weird though and his book does have quite a bit of hero worship and he really tries to make Sonny seem saintly but it still has alot of info

 

The Terror of Terra Haute I just bought

 

This thread inspired me so i am now 3/4 way thru Duran's book and enjoying it immensely. My god he was terrible with money.

 

That seems to be a boxer's trait, spending up big.

 

Hearns' too .. so generous and giving ... but sad story

 

Any mention of Hurley over protecting kid Matthews on the west coast his entire career?

 

Probably not considering Matthews was a 12 year veteran with something like 60 fights when Hurley took over his management and took him to be the top contender at LHW with a win over Bob Murphy in Madison Square Garden (which is on the East Coast) and then leveraged that rating for a much bigger purse against Marciano at Yankee Stadium (also on the East Coast).

 

No doubt Matthews was a good light heavyweight, I just don’t think he was a good heavyweight

Hurley refused a title fight with maxim and didn’t pursue a fight with west coast fighter Archie Moore.

He cashed out Matthews against Marciano, that’s for sure. But after the Marciano loss, Matthews only faced weak hitters in the ring. Never fought the best of the west coast heavyweights Clarence Henry

I'd like to add it was ridiculous for Matthews to get the title eliminator vs Marciano for a shot at Walcott. Without a doubt Clarence Henry should have gotten it. Matthews had one decent heavyweight win, over a version of Rex Layne who had just lost a wide decision to 11-3 Willie James. Henry was coming off an explosive knockout in Madison square garden against top 5 rated undefeated bob baker which had everyone at ringside very impressed. The NBA rated Henry 3rd going into 1952, ahead of the 5th rated Matthews.



Post Henry vs Baker I

• "I want to fight Marciano" said Clarence Henry after his people offered a $35,000 guarantee to Rocky Marciano to fight him for the #2 ranking.

Al Weill balked, content on preserving marcianos high rating and threw him in the ring vs washed up Savold and light hitting Matthews instead of the huge punching Henry

 

Any stories?

 

I agree with parts of this and the parts I agree with are what makes a biography of Hurley so compelling. The guy was as sharp as they come. I personally think Matthews would have beat Maxim but Hurley was a smart enough chess player to see that even with a title it would have taken numerous fights to get the amount of money he got fighting Marciano. Given Marcianos lack of size, style, and the fact that at that point he was nowhere near as proven as he would be a couple years later. It was a smart gamble. Had he gotten by Marciano he would have stood to make another big payday against Walcott, who was also beatable. Even losing he was able to leverage the publicity from the Marciano fight into good purses with Cockell.

Criticizing Matthews for fighting out west is like criticizing Marciano for fighting out East. You fight where you sell tickets. I also can’t agree with the idea that Matthews was protected by Hurley or anyone else for that matter. He may have been steered toward the money but that’s different than being protected. He fought Hostak, Chase, and Booker in four back to back fights early in his career. That’s not soft matchmaking. His record in those fights was 1-2-1 which isn’t great but not bad. After that the war dried up a lot of marquee fights and kept him largely inactive. He was kind of at sea until he met Hurley and after that he was fighting guys like Layne, Murphy, Beshore, Marshall, and Nardico. All guys that all the top names were fighting in addition to all of the other activity he had.

Matthews was never great and never gonna be a HW champ but Hurley’s direction of him was pretty brilliant.