Читать книгу Jacobs Beach. The Mob, the Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing онлайн

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Max was more than fourteen pounds heavier than the challenger, and should have murdered Braddock, in the nicest possible way, that night in the Madison Square Garden Bowl, an offshoot of the MSG, in nearby Long Island. But he hadn't trained properly and there was a lot of the clown in Max, who loved the high life. He took James too lightly. Braddock found something deep down he always knew was there. It came together for him over the fifteen rounds in his career that mattered more than any other, and he beat Max. His opponent wished Jim well, saying he hoped he valued the title more than he had done, a gnomic reference perhaps to the pressures brought to bear behind the scenes by Madden.

Lucky Jim was now not only the world heavyweight champion, he was the unofficial king of New York, with the run of the clubs and bars up and down Broadway and its environs. Runyon was the first to call him the Cinderella Man, and it stuck, another of boxing's enduring fairy tales. What happened before and after that historic upset is less well chronicled.