The Devil and Sonny Liston

The Devil and Sonny Liston PDF

Author: Nick Tosches

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780316897754

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The anti-Ali, Sonny Liston represents everything that is compelling and terrifying about boxing. An overwhelmingly powerful fighter, Liston rose from a desperately poor childhood to street criminal to world heavyweight champion. He then became the pawn of a series of criminal organizations and was shadowed throughout his life by government investigations, arrests, and the rumor of corruption. The Devil and Sonny Liston is not just the biography of a boxer; it is one of the greatest organized-crime stories ever told and confirms Toschess place as one of the most powerful and original writers of our time. Toschess acclaimed biography of Dean Martin, Dino, sold more than 110,000 copies From the rappers Wu-Tang Clan to writer Thom Jones, people are fascinated by Sonny Liston and by boxing in general. King of the World by David Remnick sold more than 100,000 copies. Tom Cruises Cruise/Wagner Productions is at work on a movie based on this book. A collection of Toschess best writing, The Nick Tosches Reader, is due out in 2000. Tosches is a contributing editor of Vanity Fair.

The Murder of Sonny Liston

The Murder of Sonny Liston PDF

Author: Shaun Assael

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-10-18

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0698156668

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The basis for SHOWTIME Sports Documentary Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston A daring investigation into the mysterious death of Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston, set against the dawn of the 1970s, when the mob was fighting to keep control of the Las Vegas Strip, Richard Nixon was launching America's first war on heroin, and boxing was in its glory days. On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home—of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was acci­dental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, investigative journalist Shaun Assael treats the boxer’s death as a cold case. The result is a page-turning who­dunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas. Elvis Presley was playing two shows a night at the International. Howard Hughes was running his empire from the penthouse suite of the Desert Inn. And middle America was flocking to the Strip, transforming it from an exclusive playground for the mob to a mecca for corporate dollars. But the city was also rotting from within. Heroin was pouring over the border from Mexico, and the segregated Westside was on the cusp of a race war. The cops, brutally violent, were barely holding it together. Driving through town with the top of his pink Cadillac down, Sonny Liston was the one celebrity who was unafraid to bridge the two sides of Las Vegas. Cashing in on his fading notoriety in the casinos, he was dealing drugs, working for a crime syndicate, and trying to break into Hollywood—all with a boxer’s faith that he could duck any threat, slip any punch. Heroin addiction was the only knockout blow he didn’t see coming. The Murder of Sonny Liston takes a fresh look at the legendary boxer, the town he called home, and one of America’s most enduring mysteries.

The Murder of Sonny Liston

The Murder of Sonny Liston PDF

Author: Shaun Assael

Publisher:

Published: 2017-08-10

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781509814824

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On January 5th 1971, former heavyweight champion Sonny Liston was found dead at his Las Vegas home. Liston's death, labelled an overdose, has long hung over Las Vegas and the boxing world, leaving unanswered questions about his ties to mob kingpins, drug lords, billionaire hoteliers and powerful promoters.Against the backdrop of the pivotal era in the history of Las Vegas when the mob turned a sleep desert oasis into a gambling paradise, The Murder of Sonny Liston is both a riveting murder hunt and a stunning portrait of a city that was home to the Rat Pack, race riots and glittering high-rises along the strip.

Sonny Liston

Sonny Liston PDF

Author: Rob Steen

Publisher: Jr Books Limited

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 9781906217815

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A biography of the controversial fighter follows Liston from the mean streets where he was a petty criminal, to the heavyweight championship and the tragic end of his life.

Boxing and the Mob

Boxing and the Mob PDF

Author: Jeffrey Sussman

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-05-08

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1538113163

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More than any other sport, boxing has a history of being easy to rig. There are only two athletes and one or both may be induced to accept a bribe; if not the fighters, then the judges or referee might be swayed. In such inviting circumstances, the mob moved into boxing in the 1930s and profited by corrupting a sport ripe for exploitation. In Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science, Jeffrey Sussman tells the story of the coercive and criminal underside of boxing, covering nearly the entire twentieth century. He profiles some of its most infamous characters, such as Owney Madden, Frankie Carbo, and Frank Palermo, and details many of the fixed matches in boxing’s storied history. In addition, Sussman examines the influence of the mob on legendary boxers—including Primo Carnera, Sugar Ray Robinson, Max Baer, Carmen Basilio, Sonny Liston, and Jake LaMotta—and whether they caved to the mobsters’ threats or refused to throw their fights. Boxing and the Mob is the first book to cover a century of fixed fights, paid-off referees, greedy managers, misused boxers, and the mobsters who controlled it all. True crime and the world of boxing are intertwined with absorbing detail in this notorious piece of American history.

Ali

Ali PDF

Author: Jonathan Eig

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 661

ISBN-13: 0544435249

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Based on more than 500 interviews, including Muhammad Ali's closest associates, and enhanced by access to thousands of pages of newly released FBI records, this is a thrilling story of a man who became one of the great figures of the twentieth century.​

Steroid Nation

Steroid Nation PDF

Author: Shaun Assael

Publisher: ESPN

Published: 2007-10-02

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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An investigative journalist looks at America's complex relationship with steroids and how it has become the country's most dangerous and pervasive drug addiction, examining incidence of steroid use throughout the world of sports, from the bodybuilders of the 1970s, to the baseball scandals of today, and profiling the godfather of the steroid movement, Dan Duchaine. 75,000 first printing.

Last Don Standing

Last Don Standing PDF

Author: Larry McShane

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1250095883

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As the last Don of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, the first-ever mob boss to turn state’s evidence, provides an insider’s perspective on the mafia. Natale’s reign atop the Philadelphia and New Jersey underworlds brought the region’s mafia back to prominence in the 1990s. Smart, savvy, and articulate, Natale came up in the mob and saw first-hand as it hatched its plan to control Atlantic City’s casino unions. Later on, after spending 16 years in prison, he reclaimed the family as his own after a bloody mob war that left bodies scattered across South Philly. He forged connections around the country, invigorated the family with more allies than it had in two decades, and achieved a status within the mob never seen before or since until he was betrayed by his men and decided to testify against them in a stunning turn of events. Using dozens of hours of interviews with Natale along with research and interviews with FBI agents, this book delivers revelatory insights into seminal events in American mob history, including: - The truth about Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance - The murder of Jewish mob icon Bugsy Siegel - The identity of the man who created modern-day Las Vegas With the full cooperation of Natale, New York Daily News reporter Larry McShane and producer Dan Pearson uncover the deadly reign of the last great mob boss of Philadelphia, a tale that covers a half-century of mob lore—and gore.

Growing Up X

Growing Up X PDF

Author: Ilyasah Shabazz

Publisher: One World

Published: 2009-01-16

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0307529134

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“Ilyasah Shabazz has written a compelling and lyrical coming-of-age story as well as a candid and heart-warming tribute to her parents. Growing Up X is destined to become a classic.” –SPIKE LEE February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. June 23, 1997: After surviving for a remarkable twenty-two days, his widow, Betty Shabazz, dies of burns suffered in a fire. In the years between, their six daughters reach adulthood, forged by the memory of their parents’ love, the meaning of their cause, and the power of their faith. Now, at long last, one of them has recorded that tumultuous journey in an unforgettable memoir: Growing Up X. Born in 1962, Ilyasah was the middle child, a rambunctious livewire who fought for–and won–attention in an all-female household. She carried on the legacy of a renowned father and indomitable mother while navigating childhood and, along the way, learning to do the hustle. She was a different color from other kids at camp and yet, years later as a young woman, was not radical enough for her college classmates. Her story is, sbove all else, a tribute to a mother of almost unimaginable forbearance, a woman who, “from that day at the Audubon when she heard the shots and threw her body on [ours, never] stopped shielding her children.”

The Odds

The Odds PDF

Author: Chad Millman

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2009-03-05

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0786731044

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One gambler is a manic former cokehead with an Ivy League degree. The second is a college dropout trying to make a living at the only thing he enjoyed at school -- gambling. The third, one of Vegas's most respected bookmakers, is perilously close to burning out. The Odds follows the lives of these three professional gamblers through a college basketball season in a one-of-a-kind city struggling to reconcile its lawless past with its family-friendly makeover. With a wiseguy attitude and a faultless eye and ear for the sights and sounds of Vegas and its denizens, Chad Millman has created a portrait that the Wall Street Journal called "fascinating. . . often screamingly funny." The Las Vegas Review-Journal had just one word for the book: "Superb."