Irish Thunder: the Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward Free
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FREE IRISH THUNDER: THE HARD LIFE AND TIMES OF MICKY WARD PDF Bob Halloran | 352 pages | 19 Oct 2010 | ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD | 9780762769865 | English | Old Saybrook, United States Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward by Bob Halloran Growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, a once lively and robust town that had fallen on extremely hard times by the s, Ward saw many of his friends and family fall prey to the lurid temptations of the streets. Ward, who was 12 at the time, worshipped his brother and would eventually be trained by him when he turned professional in The hard-hitting but extremely sordid film chronicled the daily lives of several Lowell crack addicts. Eklund immodestly lit up a crack pipe on camera, with the smoke swirling around his head like an ominous halo. One night Ward was arrested for interfering with the arrest of Eklund for a relatively minor offense. During the fracas, a policeman cracked Ward on the hand with a nightstick. That injury incurred by Ward would plague him throughout his career. The interview had been set up in advance, and Ward was aware that on the same weekend I would also be visiting Eklund at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Plymouth, where he was serving at least eight years for robbery. I had a good relationship with Joe Lake, an advisor to Ward, as well as with Ward himself. When Ward failed to make weight on his first try, I followed him into the steam room where he obligingly gave me a good interview. Over the years Ward had Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward lot of people around him who seemed to hinder his career more than they helped him. Ward finally managed to attain a measure of ring immortality on the basis of his three-fight series against Arturo Gatti. He finally retired in with a record of 27 KOS. He is the type of fighter whose legend will only grow larger as more time goes by. He was always a stand-up guy, whether it was in the ring as a boxer, in the streets where, if provoked, he could be a tremendous street fighter, or when dealing with his very large and dysfunctional family. In a sport that is virtually devoid of happy endings, Ward has somehow managed to come out on top. Despite his breathless battles against Gatti, he seems to have his faculties intact. He bought a house on the good side of town and is living a simple but seemingly happy life. Although the social dynamics in Lowell have changed somewhat, he is a local icon for all of the right reasons. He has always been, and continues to be, a guy that you want to root for. Not only was he a gladiator in the ring, his loyalty to others, especially Eklund and many people who did not deserve such devotion, is well known in boxing circles. While the book reads like fiction, it is all true. It is hard not to like Ward, but the book will only make you like him more. Ward was a fighter who was hard to keep down. Comment on this article. Pierre took the final chapter in the trilogy with Hughes and now is the UFC interim champion at the pound division. Hughes just shook his head after tapping out before a sold out audience at the Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Pierre conquered his nemesis. Pierre several years ago, but lost two years ago in a title match. Pierre found Hughes using a left-handed stance to change up his attack, but the Canadian quickly adapted Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward used his quickness, skills and raw strength to take Hughes to the ground. Inside the Octagon the Canadian was Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward in danger. In fact, Hughes was the fighter teetering for the entire fight that ended in of the second round. Every move the Illinois fighter attempted was squashed. Pierre is now promised a fight against the current UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra, who pulled out of the fight with Hughes because of injury. Pierre filled in for Serra with less than a month of training. After dominating the first round on top of Hughes, the second round was even worse as St. Pierre Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward elbows and fists. Though the Illinois fighter escaped from underneath, he was quickly thrown down. Within seconds St. Pierre grabbed Hughes left arm and turned it into an inescapable arm bar. Silva dominated the second round for four minutes and 30 seconds but Liddell rallied and took the Brazilian to the ground. With both fighters huffing and puffing, and Silva with a bad cut over his right eye, Liddell seemed the stronger puncher and landed a back-handed fist and a right hand that stunned the former Pride FC fighter Silva. But he survived the round. The judges scored ittwice for Liddell who won his first bout after back-to-back losses. The Cameroon native was unable to use his punching power with effectiveness against the karate-trained fighter. Then, unexpectedly, Machida landed a left hand that dropped Sokoudjou and proceeded to gain an arm triangle that forced a submission at of the second round. A heavyweight bout featured two Southern Californians eager to punch out. With his nose bleeding profusely and sustaining three consecutive uppercuts, referee Mario Yamasaki stopped the fight at of the third and final round for a technical knockout. A grudge fight between two Louisiana fighters ended in a decisive submission victory by Rich Clementi of Slidell over the favored Melvin Guillard of New Orleans. A rear naked choke at seconds of the first round forced Guillard, who had been predicting domination, to tap out. Though the fight was definitively over, Guillard attempted to assault Clementi but referee Herb Dean grabbed the fighter. Unable to continue, Irvin was declared the winner by disqualification at Cane seemed unaware that UFC rules disallow knees to the head while the person is on the ground. Some mixed martial arts organizations allow it. Former Ultimate Fighter participant Manny Gamburyan quickly took his fight to the ground with former boxer Nate Mohr Once on the ground the lightweight used his quickness to grab an ankle and twist. Mohr screamed to stop the fight at of the first round. The judges scored it for Lister. With UFC threatening to snarf up those much lusted after PPV dollars, the suits went into overdrive, and worked smarter, and harder, to give fans compelling matchups. They agreed to get along to get money, and they relegated the sanctioning bodies, with those moronic mandatories, and instead listened to you, the consumer, and booked the fights that made sense. He transcended the sport, and boxing added another player to the mix of fighters that even non-fight fans in the US recognize the name of. Boxing, a sprawling mess of interests lacking a central organization that insures cohesiveness in marketing, and message, and mission, relies on a central figurehead to maintain its precarious perch in the mainstream sports information flow. Mayweather, a savvy marketer who has outgrown his periodic outbreaks of youthful indiscretions, is a superstar that fits our age to a T. He knows exactly what buttons to push to keep his name in the papers-—or, more accurately today, on computer screens—and feeds us rabid presshounds of negativity and turmoil red meat, with his intra-familial beefs and 50 Cent-inspired Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward proclaiming his peerlessness. The only thing holding Mayweather back is his own talent, probably, as he owns too much of it. He blew out De La Hoya, and Hatton, and like Roy Jones in his heyday, he so dominates his opposition, that drama is missing from his fights. That sort of drama, as manufactured by the late Diego Corrales, is the variety that the sweet science can deliver like no other sport. He dug into his well, after getting knocked to the floor in the second round of his tussle with middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, and refused to lose. All of us could apply his tenacity in staying on his feet, and roaring back to topple Taylor with a furious flurry in the seventh round of their Sept. As referenced before, maybe his superior level of talent has set the bar too high for us nitpickers. We may be prone to be too hesitant to bestow praise on Floyd, because he makes it look too easy. You certainly are the runaway frontrunner for Fighter of the Decade…. We knew how good his promoter, Bob Arum, thought he was. But we still withheld a measure of respect before Pavlik met Taylor, the middleweight king, in Atlantic City. Maybe we had been burned by not as great as we were led to believe white hopes in the past, and were worried that hype and marketing were his greatest attributes as a boxer. The respect came pouring forth when he stayed on his trembling legs in the second round of his September scrap with Taylor, and intensified when he closed the show with a KO crack in the seventh. The fighter has to be rewarded for staying the course, and not allowing himself to be knocked off the title path since turning pro inand progressing at a sometimes snailish pace, and sticking with his no-name trainer Jack Loew even though some experts urged him to trade Loew in for a flashier model, and battling frail hands, and getting pinched for slugging an off-duty cop in There was no mega marketing machine bombarding our short attention spans with a campaign to make Kelly Pavlik into the torchbearer for the sport in But the leg of his march to prominence reaffirms the best Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward what the sport has to offer, and reminds us that with talents like Pavlik, the sweet science will never crumble into obsolescence.