This book looks at boxing in Australia from early European settlement to the present day. Packed with stories, you can read about the first recorded fight; the racially charged match between a white and a black man; the travelling boxing shows; the Indigenous champions, including Lionel Rose; women boxers; and modern-day winners such as Jeff Fenech, Anthony Mundine and Kostya Tszyu. It is full of fabulous images, text boxes with additional snippets of information and profile boxes with vital statistics for key boxers.

The sporting memoir of an unlikely pugilist's attempt to take on Australia’s amateur boxing circuit.

"A fascinating social history of the development of boxing in Australia which brings to life the historical heroes and modern-day gladiators of the boxing world. From cobblestreet fighting in 1700 through to the spectacular stadium events in the 21st century, Robert Drane details the 'sweet science of bruising'. Includes a combination of the history and true life boxing stories of some of the boxing greats - Les Darcy, Jeff Fenech, Kostya Tzu and Anthony Mundine."--Provided by publisher.

'My life has been a mad travelling show, meeting some of the strangest and greatest people who've ever lived. I've had my fair share of trouble and I'm lucky to be here. But I've always been a showman and I've done my best to preserve a precious part of an old Australia that's fast disappearing.' Son of a sideshow operator and trapeze artist, fourth-generation showman Fred Brophy grew up on the road, travelling the length and breadth of Australia. He did time in jail as a wild teenager before establishing his own successful boxing tent. It has become a star attraction in the Outback and is now the only one of its kind in the world. Fred tells stories of living on the smell of an oily rag, rescuing battlers, and becoming embroiled in some of the most bizarre adventures imaginable. This is one helluva life, full of hardship, hilarity and unexpected turns, including Fred being inducted into the Queensland Boxing Hall of Fame and receiving a Medal of the Order of Australia. 'Now ladies and gentlemen, let's go inside. The show's about to begin . . .'

This book examines Australia’s sporting relationships with the Asian region during the interwar period. Until now, Australia’s sporting relationships with the Asian region have been neglected by scholars of Australian and Asian sports history, and the broader field of Australia’s Asian context. Concentrating on the period of the 1920s and 1930s – when sporting relationships between Australia and a number of Asian nations emerged in a variety of sports – this book demonstrates the depth of these previously under-examined connections. The book challenges, and complicates, the broader historiography of Australia’s Asian context – a historiography that has been strongly influenced by the White Australia Policy and the Pacific War. Why, for example, did white Australia so warmly welcome visiting Japanese sportsmen at a time when the Pacific region appeared to be inexorably sliding into a war that was informed by racial antagonisms? This book examines sporting relations between Australia and seven Asian countries (China, Japan, India, Netherlands East Indies, Philippines, Malaya and Singapore) and a range of sports including rugby, football, swimming, hockey, boxing, cricket and tennis. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

“The strangest book you are likely to read this year.” – JM Coetzee SHORTLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD Pain was Joe Grim’s self-expression, his livelihood and reason for being. A superstar boxer who rarely won a fight, Grim distinguished himself for his extraordinary ability to withstand physical punishment. In this wild and expansive novel, Michael Winkler moves between the present day and Grim’s 1908–09 tour of Australia, bending genres and histories into a kaleidoscopic investigation of pain, masculinity, and narrative. Pain is often said to defy the limits of language. And yet Grimmish suggests that pain – physical and mental – is also the most familiar and universal human condition; and, perhaps, the secret source of our impulse to tell stories. “A powerful blast of literary ingenuity and originality.” – Lloyd Jones, author of Mister Pip "Grimmish meets a need I didn't even know I had. I lurched between bursts of wild laughter, shudders of horror, and gasps of awe at Winkler’s verbal command: the freshness and muscle of his verbs, the unstoppable flow of his images, the bizarre wit of the language of pugilism—and all the while, a moving subterranean glint of strange masculine tenderness." – Helen Garner ‍“All the makings of a cult classic. It’s grotesque and gorgeous, smart and searching.” – Beejay Silcox, The Guardian

When the author of this book was growing up in a sleepy Australian mining town in the 1950s, the most exciting event of the year was the arrival of Jimmy Sharman's boxing tent. When the author returned to Australia after many years abroad he discovered that a few boxing tents still existed in remote, northern Australia. McLennan worked at one of these tents and in the process of finding out what makes a man fight for money, he learned a lot about Australia and a lot about himself.