#82: ‘Ring Battles of the Century’ by Gilbert E. Odd

‘Ring Battles of the Century’ by Gilbert E. Odd is a collection of fight reports, embellished by further musings meant to contextualise these reports. The overarching theme of the book is that Odd has selected the most outstanding and colourful contests in ring history for the past thirty years [the early 20th Century].

I don’t have a huge amount to say about this book, and while I believe that this is an important book in the context of British boxing, it simply didn’t inspire me to expand in this blog post. I may be a little fatigued by Christmas etc., but I found it hard to wade through the, at best, outdated language when Odd came to describe Black fighters. This book is in no way unusual for publications of the period but it’s getting a little tiring to return willingly to this style of discriminatory language.

I’ll be writing more on this subject soon, once I get around to finishing a book that has been looming over me for a while, and sitting heavily on my bookshelf the entire time. I’m going to have to finish that one in instalments as it’s too unpleasant (for many reasons) to finish in one hit.

Anyway, these are the bouts covered in this book:

• Jack Dempsey vs Georges Carpentier, 2 July 1921
• Joe Louis vs Tommy Farr, 30 August 1937
• Benny Lynch vs Peter Kane, 13 October 1937
• Eric Boon vs Arthur Danahar, 23 February 1939
• John Henry Lewis vs Len Harvey, 9 November 1936
• Joe Beckett vs Frank Moran, 12 October 1922
• Georges Carpentier vs Battling Siki, 24 September 1922
• Jack Dempsey vs Luis Angel Firpo, 14 September 1923
• Larry Gains vs Don McCorkindale, 3 March 1932
• Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis vs Johnny Basham, 19 November 1920
• Henry Armstrong vs Ernie Roderick, 25 May 1939
• Harry Mizler vs Gustave Humery, 2 October 1935
• Teddy Baldock vs Alf ‘Kid’ Pattenden, 16 May 1929
• Mickey Walker vs Tommy Milligan, 30 June 1927
• Jimmy Wilde vs Pete Herman, 13 January 1921
• Jack Petersen vs Jack Doyle, 12 July 1933
• Jim Driscoll vs Charles Ledoux, 20 October 1919
• Max Baer vs Primo Carnera, 14 June 1934
• Gus Lesnevich vs Freddie Mills, 14 May 1946
• Tony Zale vs Rocky Graziano, 27 September 1946
• Nel Tarleton vs Al Phillips, 23 February 1945
• Johnny King vs Jackie Brown, 31 May 1937