Title: Chicago Boxing
Authors: J.J. Johnston and Sean Curtin
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (“Images of Sports” series)
Publisher’s Website: www.arcadiapublishing.com
ISBN: 0-7385-3210-X
Publication Date: February 23, 2005
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 128
Price: $19.99

With the pressure of one finger, bantamweight world champion Johnny Coulon could render his opponent incapable of lifting him. In a press photo from the early 1900s, the short, aging, 110-pound “Man They Could Not Lift” stands perfectly relaxed, one finger extended into Jack Johnson’s neck as the huge boxer struggles in vain to hoist him off the ground.

This is one of more than memorable photographs from Chicago Boxing, J.J. Johnston and Sean Curtin’s informative and informal history of boxing from the late 1800s through the 1990s. Culled from the authors’ private collections, the intriguing and often humorous photographs comprise a terrific pictorial history of Chicago’s notable boxers.

Along with boxing scores and bouts, Johnston and Curtin convey a sense of the fascinating personalities behind the gloves, illuminating characters like King (Kingfish) Levinsky who was managed by his sister, Leapin’ Lena, and, after a lukewarm boxing career, turned to selling neckties at tournaments and racetracks.

Glimmers of Chicago’s social and political climate also pervade the book’s 128 pages. Nestled among hard facts are anecdotes about gangsters, movie-palaces, millionaires, vaudeville clowns, race riots, and murders. For instance, featherweight contender Mike Dundee was managed by Al Capone and Coulon sparred with Charlie Chaplin.

The photographs and the fascinating historical details leave you wanting more. With their talent for imparting a wealth of knowledge in an amusing way, Johnston and Curtin could have expanded the captions to include more information about the photographs. Boxing is so crucial to Chicago’s history (particularly during the Great Depression), and the city is so vital to boxing’s development, that the book could have gone deeper with the link between boxing and the sociopolitical climate in which it flourished.

But in Chicago Boxing, the Windy City is primarily a backdrop to the fighting sport; the relationship between the city and the sport is glossed over, as when the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is relegated to a parenthetical side-note:

“This picture was taken in Miami Beach, Florida on February 13, 1929. (The next morning in Chicago, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred).”

That said, Chicago Boxing is first and foremost about boxing and it does not pretend to be a textbook. What Johnston and Curtin aim to do, they do well.
One thing this book definitely does need, however, is an index. With so many boxers listed, spanning a century, it would be helpful to have a way to make these fascinating pictures more accessible.

Packed with memorabilia that will appeal to the history buff as well as the boxing fan, Chicago Boxing is a great guide to who’s who in Chicago’s boxing history. Author Sean Curtin urges, “Even the old lady on the street should read this book, because in here, there are pictures that go back to the 1800s—right when she was born, if she’s that old. If not, her mother was born then. And who knows, her father might be in the book.”