Be a part of the legendary boxing gym in its prime
"It was the gym where the Muhammad Ali legend was born. The 5th Street Gym in Miami and those that inhabited it are gone now, but inside these pages their spirit lives."—Thomas K. Stewart, Boxing Writers of America
"Ferdie Pacheco takes you back to a time and place that no longer exist in boxing. On these pages, you are standing alongside the great characters of the sport, inside the wonderfully eclectic 5th Street Gym. You can feel the rhythm of the gym, smell the sweat, and hear the pounding of the heavy bags. What a ride."—Robert Cassidy,
Newsday
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.