The history of boxing I love it from the bare-knuckle days to the present. It is all inner twined. The past, now and the future. In my opinion to understand today, it’s good to know about yesterday. How did we get here?
If you want to go back to the beginnings a great book to read is Iain Manson’s “The Lion And The Eagle”. It is about the first “Super Bowl” of boxing. It pitted the best of America, John C.Heenan against the pride of England Tom Sayers. It caused an international stir in an era where pugilism was looked down. Yet even the British “fancy” showed tremendous interest in this contest. All the hoopla that led to this affair is just mind-boggling. This all took place long before radio and TV yet it was still well publicized enough to have even the “common” people talking about it. It literally opened the door that years later led to the emergence were John L. Sullivan and big time boxing. It led to today…
The author did an amazing job in researching this outstanding book. It takes the reader back to a different time in both England and America. A piece of fistic history I recommend this book to all boxing buffs. It was a pleasure to read.
Author: Iain Manson