Following the end of our second series, we have developed another long-form special over two parts. This time, assessing the sport of boxing and whether it is truly a ‘Sport of Kings’ or merely a brutal blood sport that has provided the platform for shady characters to make untold riches often through exploitation of fighters.

The notion of boxing as a ‘Sport of Kings’ stems from the sport’s historic links with the nobility. In this first part of our journey, we chart boxing’s progression from the barbarism of bare-knuckle prize fighting to the modern-day sport governed by the Queensberry Rules, placing a focus on the sport’s historic links with the mob and the mafia and how boxing provided figures such as Frankie Carbo with a vehicle through which they could conduct illicit criminality behind a curtain of supposed legitimacy.

Carbo was a career criminal who rose from hired gun for Murder Inc to ‘Boxing’s Czar’ heading a syndicate known as The Combination who were famed for fixing boxing matches during the 1940s and exerted tremendous influence over Mike Jacobs, who at the time was Head of Madison Square Garden, boxing’s premier venue.

Carbo’s influence was at the heart of the rise of ‘The Ampling Alp’, Italian giant, Primo Carnera, who stood at 6 feet 6 inches at a time when the average man was around a foot smaller. Given his size, imposing physicality and hulking physique, Carnera was easily marketable as an unbeatable Goliath-like creature. Despite this, Time Magazine were sceptical of Carnera’s abilities as early as 1931 with a cover article commenting:

“Since his arrival in the US, backed by a group of prosperous but shady entrepreneurs […] His opponents were known to be incompetent but their feeble opposition to Carnera suggested that they had been bribed to lose.

Suspicion concerning the Monster's abilities became almost universal when another adversary, Bombo Chevalier, stated that one of his own seconds had threatened to kill him unless he lost to Carnera.“

Despite this, Carnera’s career continued to progress, he became Heavyweight Champion in 1933 and became a poster boy for Benito Mussolini’s emerging fascist regime in Italy. ‘Il Duce’ was impressed by Carnera and saw his rise to the top as a signifier of Italian strength. However, ‘Mussolini’s Boy’ was to come a cropper in 1934 when he was matched against the half-Jewish fighter Max Baer, who fought with The Star of David on his trunks at a time when Anti-Semitism was becoming increasingly prominent due to the growth of fascist dictatorships across Europe. Baer was something of a playboy, noted for not always training seriously, but on this occasion, he was fired up and destroyed Carnera in a fight so one-sided it was almost cruel when shown in cinema newsreels. Downbeat and defeated, Carnera’s embarrassment was compounded by the fact that his earnings were largely redirected into the pockets of his handlers and his story later served as the inspiration for the Hollywood picture The Harder They Come, about a physically impressive, but limited fighter whose success was manufactured by the mob. Carnera was stung by this and submitted a lawsuit, but this was dismissed in a manner akin to his in-ring beating at the hands of Baer. If this was not enough, Baer himself appeared in the film, which appeared to make a mockery of his former opponent’s career.

Lastly, we focus on the mob’s champion, Sonny Liston. A truly terrifying heavyweight, who emerged from a horrendous, poverty-stricken childhood to become perhaps to that point the most frightening and mysterious Heavyweight Champion. After relocating to St Louis to escape his abusive father and to reunite with his mother and siblings, Liston was convicted of robbery and was almost constantly in trouble with the police. In pris<