Publisher's Synopsis
During a hugely successful career, the name of Mickey Duff has been synonymous with all the best boxers of the last 50 years - Sonny Liston, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson to name but a few.
Mickey Duff has been at the top of the fight game since the early Fifties, when as a 15-year-old he cunningly side-stepped the British Boxing Board of Control to acquire himself a promoter's licence - by law a licence could not be issued to anyone under 16.
Since then his name has been linked, either through promotion or management, with all the world's best fighters from Liston to Tyson. In Britain he has managed or promoted the likes of Frank Bruno, John Conteh, Lloyd Honeygan, John H. Stracey, and Alan Minter - all of whom became world champions.
In the mid-1970s, along with his partner, Jarvis Astaire, Duff became the supreme force in British boxing - a stranglehold that was to last over 10 years. He talks candidly about that time, and about how he and Astaire formed their exclusive broadcasting alliance with the BBC.
He also tells the true story of Britain's loveable hero, Frank Bruno, who Duff criticises for walking out on the men who made him; and provides a fascinating account of his relationship with the Kray Twins, both of whom frequented Duff's East End gym in the late 1950s and early 60s.
Duff also sets the record straight about that infamous left hand from Henry Cooper which floored Cassius Clay in their first fight; reveals how Mike Tyson's old manager, Jim Jacobs, was so dependent on Duff's advice that Duff hand-picked the former champion's first 18 opponents; and speaks of his love of gambling and the money he's won and lost on fights over the years.
But above all, the book provides an unrivalled insight into the countless changes and developments within the fight game over the past five decades. A must for boxing aficionados everywhere.
