Pound for Pound

A Biography of Sugar Ray Robinson

By Herb Boyd

2005

First Published

3.58

Average Rating

336

Number of Pages

10H15M

Audio Length

Hailed by critics as a long overdue portrait of Sugar Ray Robinson, a man who was as elusive out of the ring as he was magisterial in it, Pound for Pound is a lively and nuanced profile of an athlete who is arguably the best boxer the sport has ever known. So great were Robinson's skills, he was eulogized by Woody Allen, compared to Joe Louis, and praised by Muhammad Ali, who called him "the king, the master, my idol." But the same discipline that Robinson brought to the sport eluded him at home, leading him to emotionally and physically abuse his family—particularly his wife, the gorgeous dancer Edna Mae, whose entrepreneurial skills helped Robinson build an empire to which Harlemites were inexorably drawn. Exposing Robinson's flaws as well as putting his career in the context of his life and times, renowned journalist and bestselling author Herb Boyd, with Ray Robinson II, tells for the first time the full story of a complex man and sport-altering athlete.

Avg Rating

3.58

Number of Ratings

102

5 STARS

20%

4 STARS

31%

3 STARS

38%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Herb Boyd

Author · 10 books

Herb Boyd is an awarding-winning American author and journalist who has published 17 books and countless articles for national magazines and newspapers. Brotherman:The Odyssey of Black Men in America: An Anthology (One World/Ballantine, 1995), co-edited with Robert Allen of the Black Scholar journal, won the American Book Award for nonfiction. In 1999, Boyd won three first place awards from the New York Association of Black Journalists for his articles published in the Amsterdam News. In 2006, Boyd worked with world music composer Yusef Lateef on his autobiography The Gentle Giant, which was published by Morton Books of New Jersey. In 2008, he published Baldwin's Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin, and is working with filmmaker Keith Beauchamp on several projects. Boyd has been inducted into both the Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent and the Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame as a journalist. Along with his writing, Boyd is also the Managing Editor of The Black World Today, one of the leading online publications on the Internet. Boyd, a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit, teaches African and African-American History at the College of New Rochelle in the Bronx, and is an adjunct instructor at City College in the Black Studies Department.