Life stories of the champions and contenders who shaped boxing.
Born in Ponce and raised in New York, Carlos Ortiz won the junior welterweight title in 1959 and the lightweight title twice in the 1960s, stopping Fl...
Masahiko 'Fighting' Harada won the world flyweight title at 19, handed Éder Jofre the only two defeats of his career at bantamweight, and fell just sh...
Brazil's greatest boxer ruled the bantamweights from 1960 to 1965, lost only twice in 78 fights, and came back to win the WBC featherweight title at 3...
Gabriel 'Flash' Elorde rose from poverty in Bogo, Cebu, to beat Sandy Saddler, rule the junior lightweight division from 1960 to 1967 and become the f...
Francisco Guilledo rose from a bootblack in Iloilo to knock out Jimmy Wilde at the Polo Grounds in 1923, becoming the first Asian world boxing champio...
A Tylorstown coal miner who learned his trade in fairground booths, Jimmy Wilde became the first world flyweight champion in 1916 and reigned until Pa...
The Cinderella Man went from broken hands, dock labor and public relief to an upset of Max Baer in 1935, then lost the title to Joe Louis, served on S...
From a Livermore butcher shop to the heavyweight championship, Max Baer's career ran through the 1930 ring death of Frankie Campbell, a Star of David...
From a poor village in Friuli and a French circus to the heavyweight title in 1933, Primo Carnera's career was shaped by mob managers, arranged fights...
From Sidi Bel Abbès and Casablanca to the world middleweight title, Marcel Cerdan lost only four times in 114 fights before his romance with Édith Pia...
Carmen Basilio left an onion farm in Canastota, New York, to win the welterweight title twice and take the middleweight crown from Sugar Ray Robinson...
From the steel mills of Gary to two middleweight championships, wartime Navy service and a brutal trilogy with Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale built a caree...
