The Life of Boxing Legend Jimmy Wilde told by Adrian Knott with a foreword by Colin Hart
The book tells the exciting story of how Jimmy Wilde became a global star in an age before television and mass-media coverage.
Born in a Welsh mining town, Jimmy learnt his trade in fairground boxing booths and went on to become a legend and arguably Britain’s greatest ever fighter pound for pound.
Blessed with freakish knockout power that belied his skeletal frame, Wilde frequently conceded weight to opponents, trouncing men who were as much as two stone heavier than himself. He was crowned world flyweight king when he stopped the tough Italian-American Young Zulu Kid in 1916.
Practically unbeatable in his heyday, Jimmy was a superstar who rubbed shoulders with the likes of the Prince of Wales and Lord Lonsdale, and played himself in a silent movie based on his life.
A century after his final fight, boxing historians still widely consider him the greatest flyweight ever, and is revered as one of the top 10 British boxers in history.
This book tells the story, in and out of the ring, of a unique champion and true boxing great, who is listed among the best boxers of all-time.
This book tells the exciting story of how Jimmy became a global boxing superstar in an age before television and mass-media coverage. Here you will read about:
· Jimmy’s impoverished childhood in a Welsh mining village
· The technique he perfected that gave him such immense knockout power
· The important role his devoted wife and father-in-law played in his success
· The glory of winning the Lonsdale Belt and then the world title
· How Jimmy dealt with fame and accusations of cowardice due to not being enlisted in the army during the early part of World War One
· Exciting blow-by-blow accounts of all his fights – from dingy, smoky halls in south Wales to the magnificent Polo Grounds in New York City
· The day Jimmy took on all-comers for a sum of £40 and reputedly knocked out 23 men in four hours!
Author Adrian Knott has been a boxing fan since he was a small boy in the mid-1980s when he used to watch boxing on the BBC’s Sportsnight. He spent most of his schooldays reading old copies of Boxing News and collecting fights on videotape. A keen amateur boxer in his youth, Adrian lives in Dudley.
