Synopsis
This book profiles seven famous Italian boxers.
Library Journal
This portrait of a fistic age by Ali biographer Hauser and Canadian sportswriter Brunt honors the heyday of the Italian American boxer. Filled with classic photos and profiles culled from the archive of the recently defunct Sport magazine, it ranges from the sadly inept but Mob-backed giant, Primo Carnera, to superb ring craftsman Willie Pep and is understandably clustered around the two iconic Rockies of the postwar era-free-swinging and quotable middleweight champion Rocky Graziano and Rocky Marciano, the powerful shoemaker's son from Brockton, MA, who retired undefeated (56-0) as heavyweight champion. (While Sinatra and DiMaggio are better remembered today, these two were their equal in most Italian American homes of the Fifties.) In the second tier are the thuggish but compelling Jake LaMotta ("Raging Bull") and the anti-LaMotta, Carmen Basilio, the honest Catskills onion farmer's son. This group portrait is also an unintended tribute to a non-Italian, the great Sugar Ray Robinson, who in his prime beat most of these fighters, including LaMotta five of six times. With some filler (good-enough fighters like Roland LaStarza and Willie Pastrano) and leaving the Italian boxing story with its 1980s coda, the throwback champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, this book does the paisans and boxing fans proud.-Nathan Ward, "Library Journal" Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.