Stone-broke and hungry, discouraged and weary, his hand in a plaster cast, his ring career apparently ended, and with a wife and three children looking to him for support, James J. Braddock had to go on relief in 1934 to keep his brood from starving.
Less than one year later, however, this courageous Irishman, battling against terrific odds, threw the fistic world into a turmoil as he scored the most startling upset the ring had known in 43 years by defeating Max Baer and ascending to the world's heavyweight throne-to become the 15th wearer of the mantle first worn by the immortal John L. Sullivan.
A series of only the most amazing circumstances served to pitch Braddock off the relief rolls and then, within a few months, to make him heavyweight champion of the world. Never before in the history of the ring had so many dramatic and almost unbelievable events played such a role in the creation of a champion.
The authorized story of how "The Cinderella Man," as Damon Runyon called Braddock, was tossed and buffeted about the seas of pugilism for ten long years before he became king is told here for the first time by one who knew him intimately from the start.