Boxing and the Mob with Jeffery Sussman

Gangland Wire

Gary Jenkins: Mafia Detective

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Mob and Boxing with Jeffrey Sussman Jeffrey Sussman is the author of 15 non-fiction books including the subject of this podcast, Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science. Recently, Gangland Wire interviewed him about Murder Inc. taken from his popular book, Big Apple Gangsters: The Rise and Decline of the Mob in New York. Mr. Sussman has a long interest in the sport of boxing and he has several books about this checkered history. In this podcast, Gary interviews him about the history of mob interference in the sport. Boxing is one of the easiest sports to fix for gamblers because there is only one person who needs to cooperate. Mr. Sussman has also written Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune, Max Baer and Barney Ross: Jewish Heroes of Boxing, No Mere Bagatelles, a biography of handbag designer, Judith Leiber, and Power Promoting: How to Market Your Business to The Top! Jeffrey Sussman tells the listeners about the seamy underbelly of boxing during the entire twentieth century. Taken from his book, he has researched into organized crime characters like Owney Madden, Frankie Carbo, and Frank Palermo, and details many of the fixed matches in boxing’s storied history. He also discusses the influence of the mob on legendary boxers—including Primo Carnera, Sugar Ray Robinson, Max Baer, Carmen Basilio, Sonny Liston, and Jake LaMotta—and whether they caved to the mobsters’ threats or refused to throw their fights. Show notes by Gary Jenkins To go to the store or make a donation click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To subscribe on iTunes click here, please give me a review and help others find the podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Gangland Wire, hosted by former Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit Detective, Gary Jenkins.
0:16.9	Welcome all your wiretappers out there, back here in the studio of Gangland Wire.
0:21.3	As you can see by the badge on the plaque and my plaque from the FBI from my friends at the FBI behind me.
0:28.7	I've got Jeffrey Sussman on the Zoom here.
0:32.5	He was on the show before.
0:34.9	We talked about Greg Scarpa from his book Big Apple Gangsters. He's a prolific
0:39.9	author from New York City, and he has several books on boxing, has a real interest in
0:45.6	boxing. And so I've always been interested in this, the mob and the boxing. It's kind of out of my
0:50.1	childhood in the 50s and 60s. That was like a really commonly known thing that fights for being fixed,
0:56.2	and the mob had back east, of course, the mob had something to do with it. And so I asked him
1:01.0	about doing one on that, and he graciously agreed. So we've got Jeffrey Sussman here. Welcome, Jeffrey.
1:07.5	Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you again, Gary. So, Jeffrey, first of all, you are a pretty prolific boxer.
1:13.6	You've got other books on the sport of boxing.
1:16.6	You've got, well, name those books off.
1:19.1	You've got one about Rocky Gratiano, which out of my childhood.
1:21.7	Yeah, there was one called Rocky Gratziano, Fisd's Fame and Fortune.
1:27.2	And before that, there was a book entitled
1:29.1	Max Bair and Barney Ross Jewish Heroes of Boxing. A lot of people didn't know, for example, from about
1:35.0	1910 to 1941, the Jews were the predominant boxers in the sport. And then after the Rocky
1:41.8	Gratziano book, I wrote a book about the boxing and the mob, about how the mob controlled boxing, basically beginning around 1920, certainly up through the sunny list in Muhammad Ali fights.
1:54.3	Interesting. Now, folks, I'll have links to all of his books and his Amazon author page and everything in the show notes. So you can take a look at that.
2:02.4	Well, first of all, Jeffrey, let's start talking about how did you get such an interest in boxing?
	...

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