The first filmed prizefight, Veriscope's Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897) became one of cinema's first major attractions, ushering in an era in which hugely successful boxing films helped transform a stigmatized sport into legitimate entertainment. Exploring a significant and fascinating period in the development of modern sports and media, Fight Pictures is the first work to chronicle the mostly forgotten story of how legitimate bouts, fake fights, comic sparring matches, and more came to silent-era screens and became part of American popular culture.

Boxing was popular in the American West long before Las Vegas became its epicenter. However, not everyone in the region was a fan. Counterpunch examines how the sport’s meteoric rise in popularity in the West ran concurrently with a growing backlash among Progressive Era social reformers who saw boxing as barbaric. These tensions created a morality war that pitted state officials against city leaders, boxing promoters against social reformers, and fans against religious groups. Historian Meg Frisbee focuses on several legendary heavyweight prizefights of the period and the protests they inspired to explain why western geography, economy, and culture ultimately helped the sport’s supporters defeat its detractors. A fascinating look at early American boxing, Counterpunch showcases fighters such as “Gentleman” Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, and Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champ, and it provides an entertaining way to understand both the growth of the American West and the history of this popular—and controversial—sport.

This volume offers detailed information about the boxers who were active during boxing's "Golden Age," 1890 to 1910, focusing primarily on George "Kid" Lavigne, Bob Fitzsimmons, Barbados Joe Walcott, Joe Gans, Terry McGovern, Sam Langford, and Stanley Ketchel, and their opponents, who were also key figures.

This volume is the most comprehensive bibliography of purely biographical material written by Americans. It covers every possible field of life but, by design, excludes autobiographies, diaries, and journals.

Never have so many done so much to stop so few. The year was 1895, and Dallas gambler Dan Stuart had a modest idea: promote a boxing carnival featuring a match for the heavyweight championship of the world between Gentleman Jim Corbett and Fighting Bob Fitzsimmons. What could be simpler? This richly detailed true epic of a fight and the hard-punching (and sometimes loony) political and religious turmoil surrounding it will entertain not only sports fans but all who appreciate a well-told tale that demonstrates once and for all that truth can be stranger than fiction - a lot stranger.