‘Jacobs Beach – The Mob, the Garden & the Golden Age of Boxing’ by Kevin Mitchell focuses on the period during which Mike Jacobs was the talent booker for Madison Square Garden, at the time the only place to make a career as a top tier boxer.
If you were a boxer in New York, America or indeed anywhere during the 1930s and 40s, with aspirations to be a world champion or even make a decent level, you would eventually need to pass through the ring at MSG, and only under the supervision of promoter Mike Jacobs. Jacobs’ influence was so great that the stretch of sidewalk outside of the Garden became known as Jacobs Beach, from which this book takes its title.
(Perhaps over-simplified, but…) Jacobs assumed his power due to a power vacuum left by a number of known mobsters, who had controlled boxing before him; and while it’s obviously positive that boxing was no longer controlled by career criminals, a monopoly under a single promoter didn’t exactly cure professional boxing of its ills.
It’s equally interesting and sad, to read and compare how mired modern day boxing is in similar power struggles, between rival promoters trying to protect the career paths of their fighters and at the same time control the destiny of the seemingly endless list of boxing titles.
Writers on Boxing 
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