Hard Leather: A History of Cuban Professional Boxing
by Enrique Encinosa
from the book:
Enrique Encinosa gets it. When Kaiser Bill decided to build a German High Seas Fleet that would challenge the naval supremacy of his cousin, the King of England, events were put into play that would give Jack Johnson his title shot against Tommy Burns. Enrique would run with that all the way Down Under. He knows, feels – has experienced – that boxing doesn’t float like a balloon outside of the social milieu. From the time as a kid when he dove into the deep waters of boxio, Enrique got it.
Like Liebling’s shoulder attached to the arm down to the fist – his first instructor had seen the business end of Kid Chocolate – Enrique drank the kool-aid of boxing’s lineality. And what a sugar sweet kool-aid it is. Seven years after winning the title, an aging, dissipated Johnson defended his crown in Havana. Encinosa puts in the body blows, (capped in the penultimate round with Willard’s straight right to the heart – the end was near for Johnson) in this all-important, boxing-in-Cuba, showcase.
Pierce Egan, in his sketches, biographies and ringside reports, showed the way. Encinosa adds his Caribbean links to Egan’s English chain, from the father of Cuban boxing, Juan Budinich Taborga, through the Kids Chocolate and Gavilan, and beyond. Like Egan, Encinosa is generous with prizefighters up and down the line. Julian Echevarria is taken from his first fight in a San Sebastian arena, age 14, to Havana, and his destiny with Kid Chocolate. The Golden Age of English boxing is Egan’s Regency Period; Encinosa’s is Cuba in the 1950s. Castro’s revolution would end prizefighting in the island, and subsequently shower South Florida in a tropical storm of exiled talent.
The death of Paret, Pupi Garcia, the heavyweight Nino Valdez, Luis Sarria’s magical hands, Sugar Ramos, Luis Rodriquez, Mantequilla Napoles, Florentino ‘the Ox’ Fernandez, the guileless Frankie Otero, and more, mucho mas. Nothing in Cuban boxing has Enrique Encinosa overlooked. Whatever he hasn’t directly experienced he has grabbed, shaken and mastered in Hard Leather.
A movable feast.
DS Cogswell
The Chapters:
In the Beginning
The Father of Cuban Boxing
Title Fight in Havana
The First National Heroes
The Legendary Black Bill
The Chocolate Kid
The Legend of the Cuban Baron
The Twenties and Thirties:
The Middleweights
The Welterweights
The Lightweights
Smaller Guns
Fighters From Other Lands
The Life and Times of an Old Warrior
Gavilan, the Sparrow Hawk
The 1940-1950 Decades:
The Middleweights and Welterweights
Lightweights and Featherweights
The Flyweights
Fighters from Other Lands
The Great Heavyweight
The End of an Era
Angel Robinson
Death in the Ring
Pupi Was Special
Luis Sarria
A Champion’s Funeral
Bantam Johnny Sarduy
Sugar Ramos
The Pocket Ali
Smooth As Butter
The Ox
Jose Stable
The Cuban Bomber
The Boatlift Fighters
Elvis Yero
A Great Promoter
The Build Up
The Talented Hurtabo
The Black Panther
Team Freedom
The Great Escape
Lara and Rigondeaux
Statistics and Data on Cuban Boxing
World Title Fights in Cuba (and more)
Enrique Encinosa’s book on the history of Cuban boxing from the 1880’s to present times can now be purchased in either digital or printed version through the internet at Amazon and similar sites.
Product Details
- File Size:24273 KB
- Print Length:260 pages
- Publisher:EDITORIAL PRINTED FINE ARTS (September 23, 2016)
- Publication Date:September 23, 2016
- Sold by:Amazon Digital Services LLC
- Language:English
- ASIN:B01LXBDNG1
AMAZON LINK: Amazon.Com