by Jack Tunney
In the seven years since, their careers have taken different paths. Guided by unscrupulous manager Tommy Domino, Boyle is positioned for a title shot against Sugar Ray Robinson. Varga, however, has struggled in a career still haunted by the bloody loss to Boyle.
When the boxer scheduled to fight Boyle in Atlantic City breaks his hand two weeks before the fight, Domino scrambles for a replacement. He finds Varga toiling in a Philadelphia gym and offers him the rematch Varga has been waiting years to get. For Varga, it’s a chance to finally even the score, a chance to get the title shot he’s always dreamed about. But Boyle is not the only formidable foe aligned against Varga.
Redemption comes at a bloody price – a price perhaps too high for Varga to pay …
http://tinyurl.com/c77cmdk
FIGHT CARD: KING OF THE OUTBACK
Outback Australia, 1954
Two rival tent boxing troupes clash over a territorial dispute in the Outback town of Birdsville. In the sweltering heat, tensions simmer, tempers flare, and as things reach boiling point, a boxing tent is burned to the ground.
Fighting men know only one way to solve their disputes, and that’s in the ring. The solution, a show-down, smack-down, winner take all bout between the two rival outfits.
In the blue corner, representing ‘Walter Wheeler’s Boxing Sideshow’ is Tommy King, a young aboriginal boxer with a big heart and iron fists.
In the red corner, representing ‘Arnold Sanderson’s Boxing Show’, is ‘Jumpin’ Jack Douglas, a monstrous wrecking machine from the city – a man who’ll do anything to win.
The fight – brutal. In the world of Tent Boxing, in the harsh Australian Outback, weight divisions and rules don’t count for much. It’s a fight to decide, who is indeed, King of the Outback!
http://tinyurl.com/d9xrfq3
FIGHT CARD: A MOUTH FULL OF BLOOD
(SEQUEL TO FIGHT CARD: SPLIT DECISION)
Chicago, 1955
A year after the pulse-pounding action of Split Decision, Jimmy Wyler is back in Chicago trying to put his life back together. Working a job washing dishes in a late night diner, Jimmy vows to never get into a boxing ring again.
But then, someone needs him. Leo, a teenage boy who fights hard against the city every day, could use a man like Jimmy. To help save him from his alcoholic father, and to save his only sister from a pimp bent on turning her out.
Jimmy must fight again. Fight for the ones who can’t fight for themselves. It will take him from fistfights in back alleys to no rules bouts with crowds screaming for blood and all the way back to the orphanage where he grew up. Along the way, blood will be spilled and knuckles will be bruised.
More white-knuckle action and epic fights from the Fight Card series.
http://tinyurl.com/bvgs9vv
FIGHT CARD: TOMATO CAN COMEBACK
Detroit, 1956
Tom Garrick had a heart of gold, a jaw of iron, and heavy artillery in both fists. This orphan from the Windy City returned from the Korean War to battle his way up the welterweight ranks, inspiring speculation about a title bid. Then he slugged it out with a top contender who humiliated him over eleven rounds and cut short his victory march.
Popular opinion was he had been exposed as a lucky pretender. The newspapers dubbed him "Tomato Can" after watching the blood splatter around the ring like tomato juice from a tin can being battered by a tire iron.
Now, for some mysterious reason, 'Tomato Can' Garrick is lacing on the gloves again, hoping for a shot at redemption. He has no promoter, no manager, not even a sparring partner. The only one in his corner is a buddy from the war who has never been inside the boxing game before.
There's a punch-drunk pantheon of bums, brawlers and cutthroat contenders just waiting to pound him into Palookaville ... a lonely war widow with her claws in his heart ... and a regimen of dubious training methods which may do more harm than good to his chances. But Garrick isn't going to go down in history as "the Tomato Can" without a fight.
http://tinyurl.com/chg7pxg
FIGHT CARD: BLUFF CITY BRAWLER
Memphis, 1954
Tom Riley makes a meager living in the ring in Detroit, but it’s good enough for him. He ain’t ambitious. A few bucks and a rather high opinion of himself are all he needs.
But when he accidentally kills a connected mobster, he’s forced on the lam and winds up in Memphis—the Bluff City. He struggles to make a new life for himself there. But his past mistakes are about to catch up to him, in spades.
The Detroit Mob is closing in, and Tom’s future is about to be decided in blood—and in the ring.
http://tinyurl.com/cnfkpux
FIGHT CARD: GOLDEN GATE GLOVES
San Francisco, 1951
Conall O’Quinn grew up at St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys, a Chicago orphanage where he learned the sweet science of boxing from Father Tim, the battling priest. After a stint in the Army, Conall finds work on the docks of San Francisco – a place where his fists make him the dock champion. Soon, however, he gets on the bad side of a union boss and is set up for a dock side brawl designed to knockout his fighting career. When Conall comes out on top, things go from bad to worse when he is framed for the docks going up in flames.
Along with Benson, his best friend and trainer, Conall heads for the hills in search of a lost treasure in the vicinity of a mine controlled by the union boss. However, where Conall goes trouble follows and he is quickly embroiled in a heated grudge match between fist-happy miners and lumberjacks.
Championing the miners in an all out slugfest, Conall is about to find out there is more to fighting than just swinging fists … giant, hammer-fisted lumberjacks, the mine owner’s beautiful daughter, union flunkies, and mob thugs all want a piece of him … and when the opening bell rings, the entire world appears to be against him …
http://tinyurl.com/bwtebdf
FIGHT CARD: IRISH DUKES
Dublin, Ireland, 1951
After winning his latest bout in Berlin, US Army boxing champ Sergeant Kevin Crowley is on military leave in Ireland. Raised in St. Vincent's Asylum For Boys in Chicago, he has finally returned to the place of his birth, where he is sure he will find the family he never knew and lay claim to his dream of a royal fortune.
What Crowley actually finds is the fight of his life... A near destitute grandmother, crippling debt left by a father he never knew, a feisty redhead with hatred in her heart, a villainous landlord and his gang who'll stop at nothing to settle a score going back a generation...
Kevin Crowley has never backed down in the ring or out... The treasures and truth awaiting him in Dublin are not what he first imagined. But with his past, his family, and his future at stake, Crowley will put up his dukes and fight like never before...
http://tinyurl.com/cjjn28a
FIGHT CARD: THE KNOCKOUT
Brooklyn, 1954
Frankie ‘The Piston’ Corleone was an up-and-coming light heavyweight fighter until a broken hand took him out of contention. Now, Frankie works as a private eye, occasionally taking sparring work to stay in shape make ends meet.
Cappy O’Brien has trained a lot of fighters, including Frankie. But Cappy has never had a real contender until now ... Candy Marquez is the real deal, and after being battered by Marquez during several rounds of sparring, Frankie has to agree. But the fight game is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and other trainers and the mob all want a piece of Cappy’s best prospect.
When Cappy winds up dead, it’s time for Frankie to take off the gloves and take The Piston’s punching power to the street to knockout a killer ...
http://tinyurl.com/btf52t8
FIGHT CARD: RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE
Hell’s Kitchen, 1953
Brendan O’Toole is on a downward slide. When his wife dies in a freak car accident, he quits his job and hits the bottle hard. Half tanked in the ring, he allows himself to be knocked out, ending his boxing career.
O’Toole, hits rock bottom. After a night of boozing, he is brutally mugged and left for dea
d. But O’Toole has friends, even if he can’t see it. One of them is Danny Reilly, a barman with a heart of gold. He arranges for O’Toole to join a construction crew set to work on a hotel being built in the Central African jungle nation of Sezanda. It’s O’Toole’s last shot at redemption.
Sezanda, Central Africa, 1954
As things begin to look up for O’Toole, the Sezandan government is overthrown in a military coup. All foreigners are taken prisoner and locked in concentration camps. O’Toole is sent to the worst, HELL CAMP XXI, under the control of a brutal ex-Nazi, Kommandant Krieger. Krieger has a special way of keeping his prisoners under control. In the camp, he has erected a boxing ring. And anyone who steps out of line is forced to face off against his man-mountain, wrecking machine, Crator – a man whose sole purpose is to inflict pain.
Fate has destined Brendan O’Toole to don the gloves one more time, in a fight not just for his life, but his very soul.
http://tinyurl.com/agasj9n
FIGHT CARD: AGAINST THE ROPES
New York City, 1925
The boxing ring was the only world Terry Quinn had ever known. He'd entered the hallowed halls of St. Vincent’s Home for Boys in New York City as a fighter and left as a boxer. Years of training and honing his skills finally paid off as he fought his way to the top. Only one more fight stood between Quinn and shot at the heavyweight championship against Jack Dempsey. It was the glory he'd been waiting for all his life.
But things have never gone easy for Terry Quinn. As he starts training for the biggest fight of his career, a crew of Tammany thugs and fix-it men tell him to throw the fight or face dire consequences. Even before he has a chance to consider their offer, those dire consequences come home to roost when one of his long time corner men turns up dead.
The identity of the killer isn't in question. The only question is what is Terry Quinn going to do about it.
AGAINST THE ROPES is a tough New York tale played out while the Roaring Twenties roared their loudest. Crooked cops, Tammany hacks, has-beens, and even the great Jack Johnson, all play a role in Quinn’s decision – is his quest for justice worth his future, and possibly ... his life.
http://tinyurl.com/a5orww5
FIGHT CARD: THE LAST ROUND OF ARCHIE MANNIS
Chicago, 1925
Amidst the violent, bloody boulevards of gangland Chicago, Archie Mannis uses his fists to rise from the shadows of St. Vincent's Asylum For Boys. Forging a reputation from his earliest amateur bouts, Archie’s fists carry him through the Great Depression and into the heat of The War In The Pacific. Back home, his fistic skills put him once again on a championship road. But there are dangers lurking – the sweet taste of morphine, crooked fight promoters, and a bitter enemy whose hatred has festered since their hardscrabble childhood.
As Archie Mannis faces his last round, legendary boxers, famous writers, Hollywood celebrities, and notorious mobsters are all part of the mix – waiting to see if Archie will still be standing in the ring when the final bell clangs ...
Written in the style of the great fight biographies found in the sports pulps of the ‘40s and ‘50s, The Last Round of Archie Mannis will have you cheering from ringside ...
http://tinyurl.com/bt85elf
FIGHT CARD: GET HIT, HIT BACK
Ottumwa, Iowa, 1954
Griffin McCann's small-town world is rocked when the bank where he works as a guard is robbed. He chases the robbers out of the bank and into a gun battle, leaving one hood dead and one on the lam. Left alone with a dead robber and a bag full of cash, McCann makes a rash decision ...
Knowing he’s made a bad mistake, McCann wants to return the money, but life is never that simple. He needs a plan, so he turns to the one thing he knows best – boxing. Now, his moment of weakness has put him in the ring against a deadly opponent who wants to destroy him.
But McCann remembers the most important thing Father Tim, the battling priest, taught him back at St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys in Chicago: When you get hit, hit back ...
http://tinyurl.com/nke7w2e
FIGHT CARD: BROOKLYN BEATDOWN
Brooklyn, 1954
Bare knuckler brawler Levi Kimro battles his way through the bloody backroom ghetto bars of Brooklyn in pursuit of his dream of owning his own business. It's a hard and vicious road he walks and it becomes even more complicated when he falls hard for the electrifying Dorothea McBricker.
Dorothea's brother, Teddy, has fallen under the influence of notorious gangster Duke Williamson – a powerful man who is pressuring Levi to join his stable of fighters or face off against the human killing machine, ‘Deathblow’ Ballantine. A knock-down, drag out, Brooklyn Beatdown is brewing, and Levi will need every ounce of his fighter’s heart if he wants to save not only himself, but the woman he loves ...
FIGHT CARD MMA: WELCOME TO THE OCTAGON
Belfast 2013
Mickey The Rage Rafferty has gone through some tough times, but he's not ready to tap-out just yet. The Belfast widower has to take care of his eight-year-old daughter, Lily. However, his main talent is fighting and the only way he can make enough money off it to support his girl is to take dodgy underground matches paying off in bloodstained cash. Mickey’s trainer, Eddie Smith, doesn't approve. He wants his most promising student to step into the cage as a real martial artist, not as a fool for thugs and gangsters.
With Eddie on the verge of cutting him loose, Mickey is up against the cage – crushed between fast cash and a legitimate career. Mickey has some big decisions to make and some even bigger opponents to face.
The MMA life can be harsh, and it’s never easy ... Welcome To The Octagon ...
http://tinyurl.com/paq6waj
FIGHT CARD MMA: THE KALAMAZOO KID
Kalamazoo, Michigan, 2013
Ray Kurt was one of the first guys to step into a sanctioned MMA fight – back when you scrapped four times a night and didn't wrap your hands until you got to the hospital afterward. Now he trains fighters in his Kalamazoo mixed martial arts gym, searching for someone he can take to the top.
Young fighting phenom Tallis Dunbar might just be that someone, but Tallis comes attached to a whole lot of trouble. Detroit mob fixer Andru Harp wants Kurt to turn Tallis into an MMA beast tough enough to take on the Chicago mob’s fearsome fighter, High Voltage – the same man who nearly killed Tallis’ brother a year earlier.
For Detroit and Chicago it’s all about turf, but for Kurt and Tallis their lives and redemption are balanced on a razor’s edge. Kurt is used to fighting with few rules, but now there is only one – survive...
http://tinyurl.com/pda3e9m
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