John Jarrett – författare

This is a cradle-to-grave biography of Mickey Walker, former welterweight (1922-1926) and middleweight champion (1926-1931) of the world, one of the greatest fighters in ring history. He fought at a time when boxing was a major sport with only eight championships, and he held two of them over a nine-year period. He fought at a time when each weight division was jammed with good fighters, and he fought them all from welterweight up to heavyweight, frequently being outweighed 20 to 30 pounds.Walker was also a great personality who loved life and lived it to the fullest. He was married seven times to four different women, and he cavorted with movie stars and mobsters. When his boxing career ended in 1935, Walker ran saloons in various locations and eventually became an artist of some standing. He died in 1981 at age 79.

Say hello to the world''s only undefeated heavyweight champion, a guy called Rocky Marciano, who defied physical limitations - `He''s too small, too short, too light, too old.'' With just a 67-inch reach, two left feet and under six feet tall, tough, hard-hitting Marciano blasted his way to 49 wins, 43 inside the distance. He was impervious to pain: you could knock him down but you couldn''t knock him out. Marciano KO''d Jersey Joe Walcott in a 1952 thriller to become world champion. Defending his title five times, he brought the million-dollar gate back to boxing in 1955 when he crushed Archie Moore in his final fight. He then criss-crossed America making public appearances, for cash only. He built a network of friends, businessmen and Mob guys who willingly paid his way, fed him, dressed him and flew him around. And that''s how he died, hitching a ride in a plane that crashed in an Iowa cornfield in 1969, on the eve of his 46th birthday. His mantra was, `If you want to live a full life, then live dangerously.'' Rocky did that, all right!

Sugar Ray Robinson was boxing royalty. King of the world. Personality with a punch. Over 25 years he ruled three divisions, from lightweight to middleweight. As a kid he had danced for pennies on the streets of Harlem, and he danced again in the ring from New York and Vegas to Paris and back again. The greatest pound-for-pound fighter in history. After a brilliant amateur career he turned professional in 1940 and won his first 40 contests before Jake LaMotta snapped his streak of 123 fights. He was unbeaten over the next nine years and would beat LaMotta in five of their six fights, taking his middleweight title in the process. One of Ray''s toughest fights was with Uncle Sam over his $4 million fight earnings. He built and lost a Harlem business empire before retiring from the ring and entering showbiz. The great fighter proved a philandering husband and a redundant father before settling down with his third wife, Millie, in California where he set up the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation, teaching kids about sports and life.

Benny Leonard was arguably the greatest lightweight champion of all time. With superb boxing skills and potent punching power, he fought over 200 times and suffered just five defeats. He spent his boyhood in a crime-ridden ghetto in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and was the greatest of a long line of Jewish boxers to emerge from the slums. Leonard was still only 19 when he knocked out Freddie Welsh to become world lightweight king in 1917. He defended the title eight times and retired as undefeated champion in 1925, to please the only woman he loved, his mother. But the 1929 Wall Street Crash wiped out his fortune and he was forced to make a comeback at 35. Leonard fought the best of his era: Johnny Dundee, Johnny Kilbane, Rocky Kansas, Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis and Lew Tendler among them. Apart from being a sublime boxer, Benny was a first-class showman who helped to put boxing on a higher plane. He died as he lived - in the ring - while refereeing a fight at age 51. This is the definitive account of his remarkable life and career.

Benny Leonard was arguably the greatest lightweight champion of all time. With superb boxing skills and potent punching power, he fought over 200 times and suffered just five defeats. He spent his boyhood in a crime-ridden ghetto in Manhattan''s Lower East Side, and was the greatest of a long line of Jewish boxers to emerge from the slums. Leonard was still only 19 when he knocked out Freddie Welsh to become world lightweight king in 1917. He defended the title eight times and retired as undefeated champion in 1925, to please the only woman he loved, his mother. But the 1929 Wall Street Crash wiped out his fortune and he was forced to make a comeback at 35. Leonard fought the best of his era: Johnny Dundee, Johnny Kilbane, Rocky Kansas, Jack Britton, Ted Kid Lewis and Lew Tendler among them. Apart from being a sublime boxer, Benny was a first-class showman who helped to put boxing on a higher plane. He died as he lived - in the ring - while refereeing a fight at age 51. This is the definitive account of his remarkable life and career.

Henry Armstrong: Boxing's Super Champ is the story of arguably the most incredible fighter in the history of boxing - told by one of the few surviving writers to have been around during Armstrong's unique world championship reign. When Henry had his arm raised on 17 August 1938, after winning a blood-spattered 15-round decision over Lou Ambers, he became the first boxer to simultaneously hold world titles at three different weights - and somehow he managed the feat in an era of just eight weight classes, with no 'junior' or 'super' divisions. He had entered Madison Square Garden as the reigning world feather and welterweight champion, and left with the world lightweight belt strapped around his waist. Now in his 90s, veteran boxing journalist and author John Jarrett looks back on the life and career of this ring hero of his youth: a 5ft 51/2in buzzsaw they nicknamed 'Homicide Hank'. In the 85 years that have passed since then, nobody has matched Armstrong's amazing triple-championship feat. It's likely no one ever will.