Bunce S Big Fat Short History Of British Boxing

*FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE BIGGEST FIGHTS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS* 'Essential reading for anyone with even a fleeting interest in boxing' Boxing Monthly 'Nobody knows British fighters and their stories better than Steve Bunce' Daily Telegraph Boxing is Steve Bunce's game. He has filed thousands and thousands of fight reports from ringside. He has written millions and millions of words for national newspapers previewing boxing, profiling boxers and proselytising on the business. He has been the voice of British boxing on the airwaves, both radio and television, with an army of loyal fans. And now it's time to put those many years of experience into penning his history of the sport of kings on these isles. It's Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing. Starting in 1970, the beginning of modern boxing in Britain, Bunce takes us from Joe Bugner beating Henry Cooper to an explosion then in the sport's exposure to the wider British public, with 22 million watching Barry McGuigan win his world title on the BBC. All boxing royalty is here - Frank Bruno taking on Mike Tyson in Las Vegas; Benn, Watson, Eubank and Naseem; Ricky Hatton, Lennox Lewis and Calzaghe; Froch and Haye - through to a modern day situation where with fighters as diverse as Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, we have more world champions than ever before. And besides the fighters, there are the fixers, the managers, the trainers, the duckers and divers... Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing will have every high and impossible low, tragic deaths and fairy tales. It is a record of British boxing, British boxing people and fifty years of glory, heartache and drama. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ***** A fantastic history and a top collectors prize already... this book knocked me out in the first pages. ***** Must read book for boxing fans. ***** Been reading boxing books all my life, don't think I've enjoyed one more than this. ***** An absolute must for any British boxing fan.

A Social History of Sheffield Boxing combines urban ethnography and anthropology, sociological theory and place and life histories to explore the global phenomenon of boxing. Raising many issues pertinent to the social sciences, such as contestations around state regulation of violence, commerce and broadcasting, pedagogy and elite sport and how sport is delivered and narrated to the masses, the book studies the history of boxing in Sheffield and the sport’s impact on the cultural, political and economic development of the city since the 18th century. Interweaving urban anthropology with sports studies and historical research the text expertly examines a variety of published sources, ranging from academic papers to biographies and from newspaper reports to case studies and contemporary interviews. In Volume II, Bell and Armstrong examine the revival of Sheffield boxing after the decline of the 1950s and 1960s outlined in Volume I. Instigated by two men from outside the city—Brendan Ingle and Herol Graham—this renaissance became known as the ‘Ingle style,’ which between 1995 and 2014 produced four world champions: Naseem Hamed, Johnny Nelson, Junior Witter and Kell Brook. These successes inspired others and raised Sheffield’s profile as a boxing city, which in the 1990s and 2000s produced two more world champions in Paul ‘Silky’ Jones and Clinton Woods. In this second volume, Bell and Armstrong track the resurgence of boxing to the present day and consider how the game and its players have changed over time.

In 1962, Sonny Liston became boxing's world heavyweight champion. He was a poor plantation boy and a bruiser for the mob who had done time for armed robbery, but he had fought his way to the top. Those he met in the ring said he was unstoppable, even dangerous. Sonny, however, knew differently.

The Thin White Line: The Inside Story of Cricket's Greatest Scandal tells the story of the spot-fixing scandal of 2010, which sent shockwaves through the sport. It stunned the wider sporting world and confirmed the reputation of the News of the World's Mazher Mahmood as the most controversial news reporter of his generation. It was the start of a stunning chain of events that saw the News of the World shut down, Pakistan captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir banned and sent to prison, before Mahmood himself ended up behind bars. This gripping, forensic account takes the reader through the twists and turns of those fateful days late one August and beyond. For the first time, it shines a light on the tradecraft of the News of the World team and how they exposed the criminal scheming of the cricketers and their fixer Mazhar Majeed. It reveals how deeply fixing had penetrated the Pakistan dressing room, and lifts the lid on the black arts of investigative reporting which would eventually prove Mahmood's undoing.

2014 marked the 25th anniversary of the first bout in the epic battle between Nigel Benn, Michael Watson and Chris Eubank to contest the WBO Middleweight Championship that would keep us entertained for five manic, magnificent and ultimately tragic years, marking the start of an epic saga in British Boxing. The fight took place a month after the Hillsborough disaster and was screened live on TV, in a slot now dominated by talent contests. It was a time when kids could stay up late to watch 12 rounds of madness. It was also the last Golden Era of British Boxing. While for us these greats of British boxing provided entertainment away from the hooliganism of football, for them it was much more personal. Rivalries exist in every sport, but their loathing was real and in the ring it nearly became deadly. But this is what the swaggering early-90's Britain tuned in for. These three fighters were Britain's alpha-ego. They made the country proud. No Middle Ground takes us back to the years when these boxers pounded the heavy bags and tells their story as well as that of Britain's love affair with the sport, and how these fight came to define them and us. In tracing the boxers' journeys to centre-stage Sanjeev Shetty reveals the story of the dark side of Thatcher's nation - the blood, the sweat, the dangerous hatred that fuelled these men, and the ultimate price they would pay for their moment in the sun.

WINNER OF THE 1996 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE. In the early 1990s, Donald McRae set out to discover the truth about the intense and forbidding world of professional boxing. Travelling around the States and Britain, he was welcomed into the inner sanctums of some of the greatest fighters of the period - men such as Mike Tyson, Chris Eubank, Oscar de la Hoya, Frank Bruno, Evander Holyfield and Naseem Hamed among them. They opened up to him, revealing unforgettable personal stories from both inside and outside the ring, and explaining why it is that some are driven to compete in this most brutal of sports, risking their health and even their lives. The result is a classic account of boxing that remains as fresh and entertaining as when it was first published almost 20 years ago. McRae approaches his subjects with wit, compassion and insight, and the result was a book that was a deserved winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize.

This is the extraordinary story of the British birthplace of a worldwide sport of boxing in London's East End.

Ray Lester is a fixer in the boxing business. He makes fights happen. He builds a bridge and guides boxers across to the negotiating table. Ray Lester is good at his job. One morning, a girl arrives at Ray's door and asks him for help finding her father, an old-school Vegas crooner called Eddie Lights. Ray travels with his questions to Sin City, along with 30,000 other Brits with their Union Jacks on the way to watch Hatton take on Mayweather. But the boys in leather jackets from back east are on his tail and Ray finds himself embroiled in a murderous plot. So begins a journey into the murky world of deals, fights and fighters. A world beyond the glitz, glamour and glory. A world where the fixer is king.