Overview

It was the summer of 1889 at the height of the Gilded Age that one of the last bare-knuckle fighting matches gave birth to American sports hype. One of the nation's first widely recognized sports celebrities was an Irish-American fighter from Boston named John L. Sullivan. In 1889, Sullivan temporarily quit drinking and agreed to fight undefeated challenger Jake Kilrain at an undisclosed location for a $20,000 prize. Because bare-knuckle boxing was illegal in all states, the promoters looked south, believing a rural location would get past authorities. Mississippi timber baron, Charles W. Rich, negotiated with promoters to hold the fight on his 30,000 acres of prime pine land in Richburg, Mississippi. In The Greatest Fight Ever, Magee uses the stories of the colorful characters and the background of the time to tell the story of this first nationally publicized heavyweight fight and to show how this legendary fight changed the way major sporting events are publicized even today.

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9780895873767

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