Just ordered these books..Any others recommended?

Heller's book is great! Haven't read Brenner's

 

Yeah it’s a big one. I took it on a flight to Australia once so had plenty of time to read and nothing else to do so got it done that way. A good read for sure.

 

Most of those arent first hand sources.

 

Kirkland Laing's autobiography is an excellent read.

 

I really don’t like the ‘ive Interviewed someone that knew Burley a bit and will keep going back to his 50-year old recollections’

 

That’s his point mate

 

Laing's biography is a great book, especially if you were following British boxing throughout his career.

Much of the story is told via many of his opponents who were interviewed for the book and therein lies my biggest issue with it. A glaring omission is that Colin Jones wasn't interviewed, as for me their careers are intertwined. I spoke to the author and he told me he wasn't able to locate Jones, which I found strange as he must have been easy to find through the Welsh ABA or ex-boxers association.

Nevertheless, it's a well researched and well written book despite a couple of errors. Hard to find a copy at a sensible price now though.

 

It really annoys me that people think Detloff’s book is good. It’s a waste of paper.

 

I’ve held back on that one still.

 

Earnie Shavers: Welcome to the Big Time
Larry Holmes: Against the Odds
George Foreman: By George
Off the Ropes: Ron Lyle

There's also a book on the death of Zora Folley. I've never read it, but it sounds interesting.

 

Hey Chris,

I know you are asking more about biographies, but, if you open to fiction, I highly recommend "Pound For Pound" by F.X. Toole if you haven't read it.

 

Book i have had for 20 years, and still go back and read time and time again, you do that with good books and good films, is titled " The Legendary Champions " by Rex Lardner.
It chronicles the Heavyweights from Sullivan to Tunney, with really in depth details of the stuff we enjoy, obvs all their big fights, the training leading up to them, the accounts of all the early lives of these great champions, the book goes into great detail about their thought process, the training routine, what they thought of one and other, as for the pictures WOW some I have not seen before or since, one in particular stands out, the picture is of a group of fighters that were having a medical before fighting for the Milk Fund a charity around that time, their is about 8/9 all stripped to the waist, waiting their turn with the doctor, extreme left is Harry Greb looking at, we know not what, hands on hips tanned face every inch the great fighter we all know he was, and about 6 fighters away was Tunney in a white T shirt glancing to his right towards Greb prob thinking " oh no him again " one for the ages. Great book, you will not be disappointed.

 

On the contrary, the Detloff book on Ezzard Charles is quite good.

You’re contradicting yourself in the span of a few posts — first you don’t like first-hand sources (“I’ve interviewed somebody that knew Burley”) and then you slam someone for not using first-hand sources.

The AP or UPI reports of Charles’ fights were written by someone at ringside. Those are first-hand wire service reports — newspapers would pay AP or UPI to get national/international news rather than send their own writers across the country or around the world. So whether an AP story is from the Tuscaloosa News in Alabama or the El Segundo Times in California, it was written by a reporter who was there.

Plus Detloff did extensive interviews with people who were there, including Richard Christmas, who was Ezzard’s personal secretary and who organized most of his training camps (not as trainer, but logistics) — he was by Ezz’s side for most of his adult life.

I’d take that over someone who pumps up accounts of Greb’s fights from the friendly hometown Pittsburgh press (oh, because they are unbiased and reliable lol) and ignores or slams every eye-witness, first-hand account from anyone from New York with a flippant, unsubstantiated claim that the entire New York sporting press corps banded together to besmirch Greb’s legacy because he wouldn’t pay them to bend the truth to favor him.

SMFH.

 

This post shows a gross lack of understanding of press reports in general and what Flea is discussing in particular. Its true that by the time Charles was fighting wire reports were generally reliable and often either had a byline or could be easily traced back to the correspondent from who the report originated. However, in Greb’s time wire reports were wildly inaccurate and often originated from dubious sources. In the no-decision era it was common practice for managers of fighters to run to the telegraph office and issue their own, promotional, and often contradictory report of how a fight played out. It was such a common practice that these managers became known collectively as “the beat them to wire boys.” An excellent example of this is Greb’s bout with Bill Brennan in Syracuse. Every newspaper in Syracuse judged Greb the winner and yet a wire report supposedly originating from the Syracuse Herald found its way to the Pittsburgh Papers saying Brennan had lost. It was discovered after the fact that this wire report originated with Leo P. Flynn, Brennans manager when Greb returned to Pittsburgh with the actual Syracuse Herald newspaper. This is all easily verifiable by checking all sources involved. As to the allusion to someone using only Pittsburgh sources to prop up Greb I hope that wasnt directed at me because it only further makes you look stupid. If youd read my book instead of just popping off on a subject that as illustrated above you dont seem to understand, you would know that my sources are all cited, very often quoted, and I give equal weight to any divergent opinions. It just so happens that Greb was so dominant there are very few divergent opinions. If you care to go into detail instead of speaking in broad generalities then by all means post examples and quotes. My guess is you wont though. Either way I will be waiting.

 

Where in my post did I reference wire reports in relation to Greb?

And while I’m sure you didn’t intend to, this is what you just posted about the fight in Syracuse: “Every newspaper in Syracuse judged Greb the winner and yet a wire report supposedly originating from the Syracuse Herald found its way to the Pittsburgh Papers saying Brennan had lost.“ Isn’t Greb winning the same as Brennan losing?

You say I have a gross misunderstanding about how wire reports work (I don’t) then say, well, yes, in Ezzard Charles’ day (which is what I was posting about in relation to wire reports) you would have a byline of the wire correspondent or be able to trace the authorship. What am I misunderstanding?

As for the part about Greb, you’re on the record multiple times on this forum stating that the New York newspaper accounts of Greb can’t be trusted because he refused to pay off the New York press. Are you backing away from that now? (Yet in the Syracuse fight — in New York btw — you now agree with the local press lol).

For the record, I do not believe there was a conspiracy among the ‘New York press’ to downgrade Greb and hurt his legacy because he didn’t pay them off. If that was, indeed, a common practice of the day (I’d like to see supporting documentation that all athletes praised by the New York press paid for those words in their favor to be written if you can produce it), it’s equally possible that Greb’s camp paid off the friendly Pittsburgh press ... or that they were homers who gave him the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.

So what here to you disagree with? My turn to wait.