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FIGHT FILMS: WARRIOR!
An ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past, Tommy Riordan returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father, a recovered alcoholic and his former coach, to train him for a mixed martial arts tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport. As Tommy blazes a violent path towards the title prize, his brother, Brendan, a former MMA fighter unable to make ends meet as a public school teacher, returns to the amateur ring to provide for his family.
Even though years have passed, recriminations and past betrayals keep Brendan bitterly estranged from both Tommy and his father. But when Brendan's unlikely rise as an underdog sets him on a collision course with Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront the forces that tore them apart, all the while waging the most intense, winner-takes-all battle of their lives.
FIGHT FICTION: SUCKERPUNCH!
JEREMY BROWN
MIXED MARTIAL ARTS FICTION . . . I STILL PREFER BOXING, BUT I CAME TO APPRECIATE MMA FIGHTING AFTER SEEING THE RECENT FEATUR FILM WARRIOR AND THEN READING SAM SHERIDAN'S NON-FICTION WORK HEART OF A FIGHTER . . .
No head butts, groin strikes, eye gouges, or fishhooks. He’d go along with it, but heavyweight mixed martial artist Aaron “Woodshed” Wallace thinks they’re taking all the fun out of fighting.
Stuck on no-name cards for tiny organizations, Woody is trying to put his shady past behind him with help from his trainer and mentor, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Gil Hobbes. When Banzai Eddie Takanori—president of MMA’s largest organization, Warrior Inc.—offers Woody a short-notice fight against a highly favored poster boy, Woody sees his shot at salvation. By the time Woody figures out he’s just a pawn in a high-stakes game between psychopaths, he’s in way too deep.
Good thing he knows how to take a punch.
And give a few back . . .
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FIGHT FILMS: KNOCKOUT ~ THE BOXER AND BOXING IN AMERICAN CINEMA
LEGER GRINDON
The boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped America's ideas of manhood. Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Raging Bull. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets; the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports.
Knockout breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion; it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audience's experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull.
FIGHT FICTION: TURNING PRO
KEVIN VIELDHOUSE
Two boxers, a white suburban college kid and a black inner-city fighter strive for a common goal: winning the National Golden Gloves championship before signing a lucrative contract to turn pro.
FIGHT FICTION: SO LONG, HECTOR BEBB
RON BERRY
In the daytime Hector Bebb drives a brewery lorry, but he's out early each morning for roadwork and every evening he trains for the big fight. Abe would have his boxers function as focused, sexless fighting machines. Hector has everything to make a world-beater, but his disillusioned wife.
Millie suffers frantic consequences, and when Hector returns after winning the big fight he meets bigger trouble. Told by a series of interior monologues, the 14 characters in this novel give a vivid and loving picture of the boxing world.
Originally published in 1970.
FIGHT FICTION: GOING FAST
ELAINE MCCLUSKEY
In this punchy, uproarious romp of a novel, the Halifax boxing world – peopled with has-beens, wannabes, and posers dressed in spandex, leopard prints, and tie-die – touches gloves with the colourful world of sports reporting. Both groups need something hot with speedy delivery.
Enter a cast of misfits.
There's Turmoil Davies, an enigmatic Trinidadian heavyweight poised to storm the Halifax boxing world.
There's Ownie Flanagan, an old-school trainer who scans the obituaries for odd names and trains men with more ambition than talent. He's looking for "one real fighter" before he retires and believes Turmoil is it.
And then there's Scott MacDonald, a journalist assigned to the boxing beat – a grotty but welcome getaway that promises to let him relive his own glory days through other men's sweat.
With a wicked sense of humour, Elaine McCluskey conjures a larger-than-life world where spotty turf is defended with klutzy bravado down to the final, unpredictable eight-count.
FIGHT FICTION: DANIEL O’THUNDER!
IAN WEIR
Set in the 1850s in London, England, this story, told through the interwoven voices of several narrators, relates the adventures of a troubled but charismatic prize-fighting evangelist whose career finally takes him to British Columbia and the greatest match of his life when he challenges the Devil to a battle in the ring.
FIGHT FICTION: THE HUNDRED DOLLAR GIRL
WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT
In the excellent "The Hundred Dollar Girl," (1961) Tough wise-ass P.I. Joe Puma tackles murder and broads when a contenders' voluptuous wife hires him to investigate her husband's manager.
FIGHT FICTION: JEM LANG'S SECRET PUNCH
R. GILMORE
Gilmore was a semi-prolific author churning out numerous boxing related titles during the ‘30s and ‘40s . . .
The Spartan Boxer. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1934.
A Champion's Bride. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1934.
Jem Lang's Secret Punch. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1934.
Champion Paddy O'Kane. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1935.
Bewitched. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1935.
Knuckleduster Jim. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1936.
The Kayo Gypsy. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1937.
Rough-Neck Rowan. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1939.
Wanted for Murder. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1939.
Death in the Ring. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1940.
Dynamite Dave. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1940.
Champion in Battle-Dress. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1942.
Double-Cross Murder. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1943.
The Kukri Killer. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1945.
The Missing Rajah. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1946.
FIGHT FICTION: A STONE FOR DANNY FISHER
HAROLD ROBBINS
THIS EARLY NOVEL FROM ROBBINS IS OFTEN CONSIDERED ONE OF HIS BEST . . . ‘YA JUST GOTTA LOVE THE CURRENT REPRINT COVER . . .
As a teenager, Danny Fisher had all he ever wanted – a dog, a grown-up summer job, flirtatious relationships with older women – and a talent for ruthless boxing that quickly made him a star in the amateur sporting world. But when Danny's family falls on hard times, moving from their comfortable home in Brooklyn to Manhattan's squalid Lower East Side, he is forced to leave his carefree childhood behind. Facing poverty and daily encounters with his violent, anti-Semitic neighbors, Danny must fight both inside and outside the ring just to survive.
As his boxing becomes legendary in the city's seedy underworld, packed with wiseguys and loose women, everyone seems to want a hand in Danny's success. Robbins's colorful, fast-talking characters evoke the rough streets of Depression-era New York City. Ronnie, a prostitute ashamed of how far she's fallen and desperately in need of friendship; Sam, a slick bookie who wants to profit from Danny's boxing talent; and Nellie, a beautiful but lonely girl who refuses to believe Danny is beyond redemption – each of whom has a different vision of Danny's future – will help steer his rocky course.
Gritty, compelling, and groundbreaking for its time, A Stone for Danny Fisher is a tale of ambition, hope, and violence set in a distinct and dangerous period of American history. A classic, sexy bestseller by Harold Robbins, reintroduced to a whole new generation of readers.
FIGHT FICTION: CORNERED!
RICK FOLSTAD
It's the early 1970s in Miami and middleweight contender Boone Connors is learning how the brutality inside the prize ring is overshadowed only by the violence and corruption outside it.
Training at a rundown gym in one of the tougher parts of the city, Boone is getting ready for the biggest fight of his career. So is a poweful, crooked fight manager named Callahan, who tries to make sure Connors lises the fight after betting big money on the other guy.
Through murder, beatings and threats, Callahan controls the fight game in Miami, and Connors struggles to remain clean despite all the treachery and death around him.
FIGHT FICTION: POOR MAN’S OUT!
MARK AFFIF
KINDLE EDITION: $2.99
A new novel based on the true story of an American prizefighter in the post-WWII glory days of professional boxing. The younger of two sons, the middle child of seven in a fatherless, immigrant Lebanese family, loses the full use of his right arm in a childhood “accident” that prevents him from joining in the war effort, but not from taking his battle into the ring to fight for his family’s dignity and financial viability.
Alternating from a shifting third-person to an introspective first-person that is bare-boned and illuminating, our protagonist unwittingly uncovers the essential truths of the warrior mentality, whether in the ring or on the battlefield.
Torn by familial and neighborhood loyalties, ultimately by non-negotiable ethical codes, his fierce heart is straining from the emotional hit of his life, as he comes into the fight of his life, the elimination bout for the Middleweight Championship of the World. Written from the inside-out, this novel reveals that true understanding of a character is achieved not by an exposition of what he looks like to the world, but by what the world looks like to him.
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FIGHT FICTION: WATCH OUT FOR WILLIE CARTER
THEODORE NAIDISH
(1944) Boxing prospect marries Greenwich Village nightclub singer with mixed results.
FIGHT FICTION: A RIGHT TO THE HEART
REITA LAMBERT
(1939) High society girl Holly goes to her first fight at the Garden and ends up marring a boxing champ from a poor background – sparks fly.
FIGHT FICTION: KNOCKOUT
CHARLES FRANCIS COE
(1936) The story of Flash Phibin, who goes from circus strongman to become "The Yankee Yahoo," heavyweight champion of the world, told in the hardbitten language Coe employed in his gangster and mystery novels.
FIGHT FICTION: THE DUMB-BELL
W. B. M. FERGUSON
(1927) Shy, modest, and scholarly boxing champ resists blandishments to cash in on his fame.
FIGHT FICTION: UNCIVILIZED!
KENNETH GUTHRIE
UNCIVILIZED 1: OLD SCHOOL BOXING
Joe is a fighter in a world where violence is unlimited and death is a reality. Today he gets a deal he can't refuse: Lord Thomson is offering $300 for a fight to the death at his mansion. Joe knows he can't afford to refuse this one with a little daughter and not enough money coming in from his other fights. The fight that follows will burn in to the crowd's minds the name 'Joe the Pole' for eternity and beyond. That is if he wins.
3500 words
UNCIVILIZED 2: THE CHAMPIONSHIP
Joe is back and this time he's going to take on the champ. He's had a month of training and he couldn't be more ready. Little does he know Lord Thomson has a surprise waiting for him that will change his life. Read on to find out about Joe's biggest fan.
2500 words
UNCIVILIZED 3: BACKYARD BRAWL
Joe has signed up to be the champion of both the underground scene and the legit pro-boxing world's number one, but to do it he has to fight the three best fighters in the illegal fighting world and live to talk about it. It is the hardest fight of Joe's life and one which will decide more than just his future, but the future of boxing itself.
2200 words.
UNCIVILIZED 4: FINAL COMPETITOR
Joe has one more fight to go and it is the monster that started all this. This man has been fighting his way through the world of boxing in the New World and he's back for vengeance. This is Joe's last fight. Look forward to an epic read you will not forget!
2500 words.
FIST: ROUND 0NE
Jack lost his big fight in pro-boxing years ago. Now he’s part of a bloodier sport: One with no gloves and no mercy. Jack’s last chance has come and he’s ready. Today he will climb the next notch in the ladder to the champ or end up a bloody mess in the emergency room. It’s that kind of fight.
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FIGHT FICTION: KID TINSEL ~ OCTAVUS ROY COHEN!
Possibly the scarcest of Cohen's many books, a hardboiled novel of the boxing underworld. It is one of Cohen's few ventures outside of Black dialect fiction and his only foray into fistiana. The book was the source of the 1941 B-movie The Pittsburgh Kid, starring light heavyweight champion Billy Conn.
New York: D. Appleton-Century Co. , 1941
FIGHT FICTION: REDISCOVERING JIM TULLY!
KNOWN FOR HIS HARD-BOILED, REALISTIC BOOKS ABOUT THE OUTCASTS AND VAGABONDS OF AMERICA – THE HOBOS AND BOXERS, IRISH DITCH DIGGERS AND PROSTITUTES, CIRCUS CARNIES AND PRISONERS – EARNED JIM TULLY RAVE REVIEWS IN NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS AND CELEBRATED COMMENTS FROM THE LIKES OF H.L. MENCKEN AND GEORGE JEAN NATHAN . . . THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER HAS A COOL ARTICLE TODAY REDISCOVERING JIM TULLY, ONE OF OHIO’S FORGOTTEN SONS . . .
Jim Tully hardly fit the portrait of the poet as a young man, at least the one of popular imagination. He came out of St. Marys, Ohio, the son of poor, alcohol-bedeviled Irish immigrants -- "shanty Irish," he called his family.
After his mother died young, he spent six brutal years in a Cincinnati orphanage and another year in virtual bondage to a cruel farmer. At 14, he ran away to spend six years riding the rails as a "road kid," a sort of junior hobo.
He then went on the small-town boxing circuit as a featherweight, survived the hot furnaces of chain-making factories in Columbus and Kent, and worked as a traveling tree surgeon, even tending the trees of future U.S. senator and president, Warren G. Harding . . .
FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE
KEVIN I. SLAUGHTER MAINTAINS JIM TULLY’S LADIES IN THE PARLOR BLOG. TO CHECK IT OUT CLICK HERE
HAT TIP TO JOHN STICKNEY
FIGHT FILMS: RISEN!
THANKS TO GARY DOBBS AND HIS TAINTED ARCHIVE BLOG FOR THE REVIEW OF THIS BRILLIANT NEW BOXING FILM . . .
The remarkable story of Welsh boxing legend, Howard Winston is served up in this award winning movie from Burn Hand Films. The story follows Howard from the time he lost three fingers in an industrial accident to him being crowned Featherweight champion of the world after beating Mitsunori Seki in the 1968 fight at the Royal Albert Hall. It truly is a life affirming story of grit and determination as the man who couldn't even make a fist with his right hand went onto rule the boxing world.
The part of Howard Winstone is taken by Stuart Brannan who also co-wrote the screenplay with director, Neil Jones and between them they have produced a grim, gritty but ultimately joyous film that fails to fall into the sentimental trap which is always a danger with sporting based movies. The film pulls no punches in telling it as it was and the grim surroundings of 1960's industrial Wales are brought to vivid life. There are some great character sketches and being a Welshman myself and a Valley boy too, it was pleasing to see characters that rang true on the screen. Boyd Clack, as Howard Winstone Snr gave a great turn as a man suffering from black lung disease, the curse of the coal miner, whose only desire is to help his son overcome all odds in his quest for greatness.
"A Valley's boy. The champion of the world. It's tremendous."
Howard Winstone is portrayed honestly, warts and all, and we see that his highly focused determination is both the making of him as well as the ruin of his marriage. Grainne Joughin plays Mrs Winstone and the actress has some powerful material to get her teeth into. She starts out positively joyous, almost girlish but hardens as her marriage becomes a soulless shell.
"What about what I want?", she pleads to her mother-in-law only to receive a stony look and words spat back with venom.
Though the bottom line is that this is a boxing movie and it is in the fight scenes that it will ultimately be judged - Neil Jones obviously recognised the fact and he presents Winstone's various fights in several styles -from painfully slow to blurringly fast. The second fight against Vicente Saldivar is particularly effective - played out in grinding slow motion and set to Moonlight Sonata, it becomes a hypnotic ballet as the camera pulls back time after time to the rhythm of the boxer's feet. This is then contrasted by the third and final fight against the Mexican champion flashing across the screen with the speed of strobe lighting.
More Raging Bull than Rocky Balboa, Risen is a gritty story, the mood often as black as the coal fields but it is also a testament to the determination and sheer guts of one man who rises about adversity and handicap to punch his way to the top.
Following a triumphant journey around the festival circuit, Risen will begin a cinema release this April. It will be available on Region 2 DVD this May with other regions to follow shortly.
