Coming Soon - In the Ring With Tommy Burns

Sweet.

 

Hope it goes into detail about how he fought Johnson with ,"a jaundice".

 

Very excited ... great job Adam !

 

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That's why I haven't bought any, because the full story is not told.
Burns did not have jaundice, and you know it. He had a bout of flu weeks before the fight, end of.
Burns and the promoter McIntosh were best friends, if Burns was ill ",Huge Deal "would have postponed.
Several sellout fights have been postponed, including at least 2 of Joe Louis's defences, ticket sales have nothing at all to do with it.

After the fight Burns made no mention of being ill or underweight ,in fact he said he was in top shape,and showed that, prior to the fight. by battering Al Kaufmann around in their sparring sessions.NEXT!

 

I expect this book to shed some interesting light on Burns title reign and how it was perceived.

I have tried to peice together impresions but have doubtless missed some things.

The Johnson book must now surely be in the early stages of preparation.

 

The full story in the next book, so if you want to read about Johnson vs. Burns, buy the Johnson book.

 

I doubt Apollack will add anything significant to the Johnson Burns saga, and I have read around 6 books dealing with the fight,but we shall have to wait and see.
It will be the full story as Apollack sees it , but it won't be Johnson's full story because it won't deal with the Willard fight or his subsequent fights.
Apollack's books have been well received, but I would prefer a complete ring biography ..
Would you not have preferred to read Apollack's take on the Johnson/Jeffries fight ?
The only reason I can see to not write about the champions losing their titles ,is to keep you buying the next,"instalment".

 

No, it makes sense how the series is structured. Otherwise, there would be an inordinate amount of redundancies. You need to actually read a couple before passing these judgements.

 

I've mentioned that they have been well received, I've no axe to grind regarding the books, or their author.
I made one comment and its now these judgements:huh

 

Ok, that judgement. (Let a brother have his coffee first). Regardless, I think you would enjoy them. I was a bit skeptical too at first. The two I have read were first rate and page-turners.

 

My point is, if you wanted a biography of say Tommy Burns ,how many books of other fighters would you have to buy to get a full and complete picture? Burns lost his crown in 1908 yet had a further series of fights over the next 12 years.
In avoiding overlapping the books,[from what I understand,] must necessarily omit post title fights,and the final years of a champions ring career,as there are very few that retire permanently once they have lost their title.
If you intend to buy each biography I suppose it does not matter, but,if you were a Burns fan but,hated Johnson you might not want to spring for a significant amount of £££ buying his life story only to get the tail end of Burns's

 

I think I would want the complete story in one volume too. But what has really stopped me buying any of the Pollack books is that I can't find any of them for under £30 ...... and usually find them for over £40. I just can't afford that.

 

Glad to hear about the new book coming out.

I have long felt that Tommy Burns has not been given the respect he deserves. He changed boxing forever, by taking down the "color line", and giving a blackman a chance at the title.

When I first started reading Pollack's books, I was a little disappointed in how the ending, but I have since come to appreciate their organization -

1. You leave off on a high point, rather the a low point (like most boxing biographies)

2. It helps the flow into the next volume (yes it also creates an incentive to buy the next book, but what is wrong with that). It is the writers job to keep the reader interested.

3. Also, the crossover between fighters in the books, opens up new prespectives. I originally bought the Jim Jeffries' biograph first, but found so much interesting information on Fitzsimmons, that I went backwards chronologically and bought the Fitzsimmons' book next.

One characteristics about these books that I strongly recommend is the detail he goes into on the day-to-day training of the different fighters. It helps to bring home what these guys had to do to fight the way they did. Also, it makes an interesting "compare and contracts" with modern day training. Finally, I learned a great deal of information that was new to me. For example how boxers incorporated wrestling into their training. One thing I do have trouble with is believing that they actually ran the distances (10 - 15 miles a day) that they claim.