Mighty Atom
The Mighty Atom: The Life of Boxing Legend Jimmy Wilde is the long-awaited biography of a boxing all-time great whose brilliance defied logic.
Born in a Welsh mining town, Jimmy learnt his trade in fairground boxing booths and went on to become a legend and arguably Britain's greatest ever fighter pound for pound.
Blessed with freakish knockout power that belied his skeletal frame, Wilde frequently conceded weight to opponents, trouncing men who were as much as two stone heavier than himself. He was crowned world flyweight king when he stopped the tough Italian-American Young Zulu Kid in 1916.
Practically unbeatable in his heyday, Jimmy was a superstar who rubbed shoulders with the likes of the Prince of Wales and Lord Lonsdale, and played himself in a silent movie based on his life. A century after his final fight, boxing historians still widely consider him the greatest flyweight ever.
This book tells the story, in and out of the ring, of a unique champion and true boxing great.
Adrian Knott has been a boxing fan since he was a small boy in the mid-1980s when he used to watch boxing on the BBC's Sportsnight. He spent most of his schooldays reading old copies of Boxing News and collecting fights on videotape. A keen amateur boxer in his youth, Adrian lives in Dudley.