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Review
`This is a tour de force of reportage and research by an author who really knows his stuff.' --Independent on Sunday
wonderfully evocative book.The author...has a powerful style, as punchy as some of the matches he describes' --Sunday Telegraph
Kevin Mitchell, an award-winning Fleet Street sports writer, tells brilliantly the story of that dark and shameful period --The Sun
'...exercises a fascination as hard to resist as it is to account for satisfactorily, an engrossing - if not exactly edifying - read' --Scotsman
`[Mitchell] is a connoisseur of both the dark and glorious sides of the ring game' --Telegraph
`An engaging account of a motley crew'
--Monocle
"...Tale of how the Mob owned the boxers at Madison Square Garden in 1950s New York packs a killer punch."
--Men's Health
"A must-read for any sports fan." --Irish Examiner
`gripping... an evocative investigative recall of those lawless days... when boxing was controlled by racketeers and Mafia Mobsters'
--The Oldie
wonderfully evocative book.The author...has a powerful style, as punchy as some of the matches he describes' --Sunday Telegraph
Kevin Mitchell, an award-winning Fleet Street sports writer, tells brilliantly the story of that dark and shameful period --The Sun
'...exercises a fascination as hard to resist as it is to account for satisfactorily, an engrossing - if not exactly edifying - read' --Scotsman
`[Mitchell] is a connoisseur of both the dark and glorious sides of the ring game' --Telegraph
`An engaging account of a motley crew'
--Monocle
"...Tale of how the Mob owned the boxers at Madison Square Garden in 1950s New York packs a killer punch."
--Men's Health
"A must-read for any sports fan." --Irish Examiner
`gripping... an evocative investigative recall of those lawless days... when boxing was controlled by racketeers and Mafia Mobsters'
--The Oldie
Product Description
New York in the Fifties was the most interesting, the most vibrant city in the world. As American culture burst into life - it gave us television, beatniks, rock 'n roll, Marilyn and Elvis, Cold War paranoia, the Pill - New York was its epicentre.
New York gave the world a couple of other things too: one bloody and brutal but the king of sports, the other simply bloody and brutal. The Fifties were boxing's last real heyday. Never again would the sport be so glamorous or so popular. And that's where New York's other gift to the world - the Mob - came in.
Gangsters have been around boxing for ever, but 1950s New York was special. Most of the decade's major fights took place in the city, at boxing's spiritual home, Madison Square Garden. Most of the deals that made or ruined the lives of the era's many fine fighters were done on a famous strip of pavement across the road from the Garden: Jacobs Beach. And the man standing on that strip of pavement was a charming Italian murderer called Frankie Carbo.
Carbo had lurked in the long shadows of professional boxing since Prohibition, but this was his time. Through his willing associates, the International Boxing Club, he exercised total control over sport's most dubious neighbourhood. Under Carbo, the Mob reached its apogee in the fight game; and under Carbo it would breathe its last ugly gasp. The Mob would be replaced by men dedicated to its traditions, but none would be able to match its power. When the Mob had had done it, boxing would never be the same again.
Kevin Mitchell's gripping new book is the unsanitised story of those times and that place, of Rat Pack cool and the fading of the Mob's peculiar glamour, brilliantly told through the eyes of the men who were there.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is very well-written, beginning in the machine-gun typewriter style of the movie-screen sportswriter. The work is also well-researched, including detailed interviews with protagonists who have experienced American east-coast boxing first-hand. There is a poignant chapter on an evening spent in the company of the complex, sometimes chilling, Don King - you feel as though you were `there'.
We are also introduced to characters with whom we may have been unacquainted unless, like the author, we have scrutinized decades of newsprint. I wouldn't have heard of Estes Kefauver, for instance, had I not been aware of his assault on 1950s horror comics. The author writes as though the data spills from his boxing brain, and this is probably true for much of it. He also touches on mafia links with show-biz, and sometimes the strands run in parallel, reminiscent of a grainy old newsreel with black-and-white boxing clips.
He concentrates more on some names than others: understandably so, as the book needs to do `what it says on the tin' - adhere to the mob-related community clustered around Madison Square Garden (in its several incarnations). There are a couple of deliberate lapses into movie-style fiction (or, at least, embroidered fact). The picture painted of boxing in the 1950s is one which is epitomised so overtly by professional wrestling today: someone at the top owns the whole organisation, including the contracts of all the people in it, and therefore expects them to do as instructed.
As I read, I found myself wanting to score this book only 4 out of 5, since I ached for more detail on the precise ways in which many bouts were manipulated, fixed or thrown. If Boxer X won umpteen bouts on the trot, yet so much was fixed, how can we really tell? How much of the Louis-Schmeling war was `straight'? Did Patterson take a dive against Johansson, to make the rematch more interesting? Was Holyfield's ear a stitch-up (joke intended)? But it would be unfair of me to expect anyone to provide all of these.
Instead, I'll request a sequel: this book mentions Jack Solomons, but it's a glancing blow. I'd love to see a volume that does the same job as this one, but aimed at British boxing. I would trust this author to achieve this admirably - Dave
We are also introduced to characters with whom we may have been unacquainted unless, like the author, we have scrutinized decades of newsprint. I wouldn't have heard of Estes Kefauver, for instance, had I not been aware of his assault on 1950s horror comics. The author writes as though the data spills from his boxing brain, and this is probably true for much of it. He also touches on mafia links with show-biz, and sometimes the strands run in parallel, reminiscent of a grainy old newsreel with black-and-white boxing clips.
He concentrates more on some names than others: understandably so, as the book needs to do `what it says on the tin' - adhere to the mob-related community clustered around Madison Square Garden (in its several incarnations). There are a couple of deliberate lapses into movie-style fiction (or, at least, embroidered fact). The picture painted of boxing in the 1950s is one which is epitomised so overtly by professional wrestling today: someone at the top owns the whole organisation, including the contracts of all the people in it, and therefore expects them to do as instructed.
As I read, I found myself wanting to score this book only 4 out of 5, since I ached for more detail on the precise ways in which many bouts were manipulated, fixed or thrown. If Boxer X won umpteen bouts on the trot, yet so much was fixed, how can we really tell? How much of the Louis-Schmeling war was `straight'? Did Patterson take a dive against Johansson, to make the rematch more interesting? Was Holyfield's ear a stitch-up (joke intended)? But it would be unfair of me to expect anyone to provide all of these.
Instead, I'll request a sequel: this book mentions Jack Solomons, but it's a glancing blow. I'd love to see a volume that does the same job as this one, but aimed at British boxing. I would trust this author to achieve this admirably - Dave
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Must say, im an avid reader, particulary anything, to do with my favourite sport boxing. I thought this was a classic, right from start to finish. Provides a really comprehensive account, of boxing's golden era. The authors style makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read. The mobsters the fighters and the general sheninagans of it all! He made me feel like I was in The Garden, with Johnny Adee on the mike, and the whole, blood, sweat and tears of the gladiators in the ring! Buy it.you wont out it down..
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is excellent Really depicts the other side of boxing. .Boxing fans will really enjoy it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Golden era?
Really enjoyed this one, as did the author. Tons of research and background info make this a very informed read. Read more
Published 9 months ago by R. M. Carr
boxing
An excellent book in all respects.Full of stories and facts that I have never read before.
Steve
Steve
Published on 16 Oct 2009 by Sj Collins
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