A Fighting Life

For more than seven decades, Lou Duva has been a mainstay in the boxing world. With his craggy face and the bulbous nose of a boxer with questionable defensive skills, Duva is one of the most enduring images of boxing, having climbed in and out of rings for championship fights on six different continents. In Lou Duva: A Fighting Life, you’ll hear firsthand the exhilarating story of how Duva balanced family life and his work with nineteen different world champions. The son of Italian immigrants who landed at Ellis Island and lived in Manhattan before moving the family to Paterson, New Jersey, Duva had the odds stacked against him. Rather than settling, Duva was able to claw his way out of poverty to reach the pinnacle of the boxing business, where he laid the foundation of Main Events Promotions—one of the most powerful boxing promotions companies in the sport. Lou Duva: A Fighting Life chronicles an amazing boxing career filled with ups and downs. From his training of champions including Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis to staging some of the biggest bouts in the history of boxing, including the classic match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, to the notorious “Riot at the Garden,” Duva pulls no punches as he shares his Hall of Fame life for the first time. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes and sports enthusiasts, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, aviation, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Lou Duva has been a boxing trainer for over fifty years and involved in the sport for seven decades. He has trained nineteen world champions, promoted boxing events in over twenty countries, and is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He's been involved with such champions as Evander Holyfield, Arturo Gatti, Hector "Macho” Camacho, and Lennox Lewis. Tim Smith is a former sportswriter for the New York Daily News and the New York Times. He has written about boxing, baseball, the NFL, and the NBA. Evander Holyfield is considered one of the greatest boxers of all-time. He is an Olympic medalist, winning the bronze during the 1984 Summer Games, and is the only four-time world heavyweight champion in boxing history. Considered one of the 100 greatest punchers of all time by Ring magazine, "The Real Deal” is most famously known for his two victories over Mike Tyson.