Download or read book Tales from the 5th Street Gym written by Ferdie Pacheco and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2010-03-28 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its forty-year existence, the 5th Street Gym housed the training grounds for three of the greatest fighters the sport has ever known--Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Sugar Ray Leonard--and became the locus for a grand total of fourteen world champions. The site was also a magnet for a wide range of international celebrities including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and Sylvester Stallone, who were all absorbed into the gym's legend. The 5th Street Gym's beginnings trace back to 1950, when Chris Dundee, along with his brother Angelo, began promoting big-time boxing at Miami Beach. Tales from the 5th Street Gym includes a wealth of never-before-seen photographs and is the first to chronicle the fascinating history of the 5th Street Gym from one of its insiders--Dr. Ferdie Pacheco--with crucial contributions from Tom Archdeacon, Angelo Dundee, Suzanne Dundee Bonner, Enrique Encinosa, Howard Kleinberg, Ramiro Ortiz, Edwin Pope, Bob Sheridan, and Budd Schulberg. Discover the secret history of one of boxing's most hallowed grounds, as Pacheco recalls the rise, heyday, and fall of the "sweet science" at Miami Beach.