The Sweet Science Goes Sour (How Scandal Brought Boxing to Its Knees)

In The Sweet Science Goes Sour, boxing writer Thomas Myler recounts some of the sport’s most controversial fixes, fakes, and frauds. Like a ringside seat at the sport’s greatest and most troubled bouts, the book brings to life boxing’s many outrageous characters. They include Primo Carnera, tragically manipulated and ultimately destroyed by mobsters; Sonny Liston, who lost to Muhammad Ali because of a suspicious phantom punch; and Roberto Duran’s, who was involved in a baffling surrender to Sugar Ray Leonard. Here too are notorious matchups like Riddick Bowe versus Andrew Golota, which ended in an unprecedented full-scale riot at Madison Square Garden. There's also Mike Tyson’s infamous ear-munch on a shocked Evander Holyfield. Based on solid research and written in a dramatic, “you-are-there” style, this book pulls back the curtain on the squared circle to reveal the seamier side of the sweet science.