Percy Sutton

Product Details
Pub. Date: January 2006
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Paperback, 336pp
Sales Rank: 166,855
ISBN-13: 9780060934385
ISBN: 0060934387
Edition Description: Reprint

Synopsis

Hailed by critics as a long overdue portrait of Sugar Ray Robinson, a man who was as elusive out of the ring as he was magisterial in it, Pound for Pound is a lively and nuanced profile of an athlete who is arguably the best boxer the sport has ever known. So great were Robinson's skills, he was eulogized by Woody Allen, compared to Joe Louis, and praised by Muhammad Ali, who called him "the king, the master, my idol." But the same discipline that Robinson brought to the sport eluded him at home, leading him to emotionally and physically abuse his family — particularly his wife, the gorgeous dancer Edna Mae, whose entrepreneurial skills helped Robinson build an empire to which Harlemites were inexorably drawn. Exposing Robinson's flaws as well as putting his career in the context of his life and times, renowned journalist and bestselling author Herb Boyd, with Ray Robinson II, tells for the first time the full story of a complex man and sport-altering athlete.


Library Journal
Robinson, both a welterweight and a five-time world middleweight champion, bested Henry Armstrong, Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano, and other great fighters. Journalist Boyd (coauthor, Brotherman) and Ray Jr. draw on the manuscript of the boxer's wife to tell of the boxing great's meteoric rise, long reign, and sad fall, along the way painting a portrait of the lively Harlem in which Robinson was such a star attraction. Sugar Ray's two fights with Carmen Basilio were cited in Don Dumphy at Ringside as among the greatest fights the veteran broadcaster had seen. Robinson's philandering extravagance and illnesses clouded his later life. This candid portrait should be welcome on public library sports shelves, along with Robinson's own Sugar Ray (written with Dave Anderson).-Morey Berger, St. Joseph's Hosp. Lib., Tucson, AZ Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Biography

Herb Boyd is an activist, journalist, author, and teacher. His articles have appeared in such publications as the Amsterdam News, the Final Call, Essence, and the Network Journal. In 1995, with co-editor Robert Allen, Boyd received the American Book Award for Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America. A noted authority on black studies, he is the author of We Shall Overcome and has been teaching African and African American history for nearly forty years. He teaches at the College of New Rochelle and lives in New