WELCOME TO THE FFG LITERARY UNIVERSE
FIGHT FOR GLORY is an epic, historical trilogy of books, penned by a direct descendent of Mike and Tommy Gibbons, about Minnesota-born sons of Irish rebels and immigrants, who make a blood pact with one another: They will become the first brothers in history to be Champions of the World in the boxing ring.
Exhaustively researched in libraries and archives around the world, drawn from exclusive Gibbons Family memoirs, journals, photographs, and letters, and vividly illustrated with rare photographs, cartoons, and ephemera from the period, the FIGHT FOR GLORY publishing trilogy spans the globe over America’s most electrifying century, from 1884 – 1983.
Tommy (left) and Mike (right), sparring atop a Manhattan skyscraper, circa 1915.
WELCOME TO THE FFG LITERARY UNIVERSE
FIGHT FOR GLORY is an epic, historical trilogy of books, penned by a direct descendent of Mike and Tommy Gibbons, about Minnesota-born sons of Irish rebels and immigrants, who make a blood pact with one another: They will become the first brothers in history to be Champions of the World in the boxing ring.
Exhaustively researched in libraries and archives around the world, drawn from exclusive Gibbons Family memoirs, journals, photographs, and letters, and vividly illustrated with rare photographs, cartoons, and ephemera from the period, the FIGHT FOR GLORY publishing trilogy spans the globe over America’s most electrifying century, from 1884 – 1983.
Tommy (left) and Mike (right), sparring atop a Manhattan skyscraper, circa 1915.
Briefly Told:
THE FFG STORY
Against the tumultuous backdrop of early 20th Century America, brothers, soulmates, and underdogs of the prizefighting world, MIKE and TOMMY GIBBONS, under the tail of Halley’s Comet in 1910, make a sacred vow to become champions of the world.
They set in motion a daring, audacious plan to knock out a rogue’s gallery of the age’s most fearsome pugilists to claim boxing’s middleweight and heavyweight crowns, respectively.
They fought to become champions.
They became heroes instead.
“Once again, the great pendulum is swinging into sight.
The comet has returned…”
– New York Sun,
September 19, 1909
Briefly Told:
THE FFG STORY
Against the tumultuous backdrop of early 20th Century America, brothers, soulmates, and underdogs of the prizefighting world, MIKE and TOMMY GIBBONS, under the tail of Halley’s Comet in 1910, make a sacred vow to become champions of the world.
They set in motion a daring, audacious plan to knock out a rogue’s gallery of the age’s most fearsome pugilists to claim boxing’s middleweight and heavyweight crowns, respectively.
They fought to become champions.
They became heroes instead.
MEET THE GIBBONS BROTHERS
The Shining Knights of the Ring
The Brothers Gibbons, revered as the “shining knights of the ring,” are five-time Boxing Hall of Famers and routinely ranked in the Top 50 Fighters of All Time (The Ring, Sports Illustrated). They fought professionally between 1907-1925.
As the foremost proponents of the “sweet science” method of boxing (emphasizing strategy, planning, elegance and execution over power), MIKE and TOMMY GIBBONS boast an astonishing 97% win-rate in the ring. They are also veterans of the first world war, much-decorated civil servants, and all-American heroes.
Mike and Tommy Gibbons were the first brothers in history inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. In 2022, they were joined by famed Ukrainian siblings Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko.
After his ring retirement, Mike Gibbons served on the Minnesota State Boxing Commission, ensuring fair play, legal contests, and sound health/safety protocols in his home state.
Between 1934-1959, Tommy Gibbons served six consecutive terms as Sheriff of Ramsey County, working closely with J. Edgar Hoover to rid St. Paul, Minnesota of a rogue’s gallery of Public Enemies, from lethal stick-up artist John Dillinger to the big-ransom kidnappers in the Barker-Karpis Gang.
In and out of the boxing ring, the Brothers Gibbons fought like gentlemen and lived like heroes, the power of their fraternity unwavering, even in the dark depths, operatic heights, and phantasmagorical landscape of the early 20th Century’s explosive history and tumultuous fight game.
MEET THE GIBBONS BROTHERS
The Shining Knights of the Ring
The Brothers Gibbons, revered as the “shining knights of the ring,” are five-time Boxing Hall of Famers and routinely ranked in the Top 50 Fighters of All Time (The Ring, Sports Illustrated). They fought professionally between 1907-1925.
As the foremost proponents of the “sweet science” method of boxing (emphasizing strategy, planning, elegance and execution over power), MIKE and TOMMY GIBBONS boast an astonishing 97% win-rate in the ring. They are also veterans of the first world war, much-decorated civil servants, and all-American heroes.
Mike and Tommy Gibbons were the first brothers in history inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. In 2022, they were joined by famed Ukrainian siblings Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko.
After his ring retirement, Mike Gibbons served on the Minnesota State Boxing Commission, ensuring fair play, legal contests, and sound health/safety protocols in his home state.
Between 1934-1959, Tommy Gibbons served six consecutive terms as Sheriff of Ramsey County, working closely with J. Edgar Hoover to rid St. Paul, Minnesota of a rogue’s gallery of Public Enemies, from lethal stick-up artist John Dillinger to the big-ransom kidnappers in the Barker-Karpis Gang.
In and out of the boxing ring, the Brothers Gibbons fought like gentlemen and lived like heroes, the power of their fraternity unwavering, even in the dark depths, operatic heights, and phantasmagorical landscape of the early 20th Century’s explosive history and tumultuous fight game.
“Mike Gibbons had an uncanny genius with his fists. He whipped blows through the tiniest of openings, and his effortless counter punching frustrated
any man into defeat.”
— Damon Runyon
Sportswriter
Hearst Newspapers
MIKE GIBBONS,
THE ST. PAUL PHANTOM
Middleweight
Mike Gibbons always moving. Fast. Even when he shouldn’t be. Time is short. He knows that.
Conceived in the wake of a violent cyclone that razed a third of Minnesota in the spring of 1886, Mike is raised poor, the first surviving American-born child to Irish refugees. He talks differently than everyone else in his family. They sing songs he’s never learned. They mark their days with rites and rituals Mike does not comprehend. He’s not good at praying or obeying, so he often feels like an outsider in his own home.
Mike is pale and scrawny, cannon fodder for neighborhood bullies. He’s unafraid of anything if you ask him, but terrified of the whole wide world and everything in it if you simply watch him bound through it for five minutes. Always moving. Quick with his feet. Thinking too much, but fast.
If he’s ever going to change his stars — if he’s ever going to have enough, if ever he’s to become champion of the world — he’s going to have to move fast.
Faster than flames. Faster than history.
MIKE GIBBONS,
THE ST. PAUL PHANTOM
Middleweight
Mike Gibbons always moving. Fast. Even when he shouldn’t be. Time is short. He knows that.
Conceived in the wake of a violent cyclone that razed a third of Minnesota in the spring of 1886, Mike is raised poor, the first surviving American-born child to Irish refugees. He talks differently than everyone else in his family. They sing songs he’s never learned. They mark their days with rites and rituals Mike does not comprehend. He’s not good at praying or obeying, so he often feels like an outsider in his own home.
Mike is pale and scrawny, cannon fodder for neighborhood bullies. He’s unafraid of anything if you ask him, but terrified of the whole wide world and everything in it if you simply watch him bound through it for five minutes. Always moving. Quick with his feet. Thinking too much, but fast.
If he’s ever going to change his stars — if he’s ever going to have enough, if ever he’s to become champion of the world — he’s going to have to move fast.
Faster than flames. Faster than history.
“Mike Gibbons had an uncanny genius with his fists. He whipped blows through the tiniest of openings, and his effortless counter punching frustrated any man into defeat.”
— Damon Runyon
Sportswriter
Hearst Newspapers
“Personally, I have never lamped a better, faster puncher, with a more perfect style and hitting system than Tommy Gibbons. I am absolutely mad about this guy as a ringster. He hasn’t any weakness.”
— Ernest Hemingway
Novelist, Journalist
Amateur Boxer
TOMMY GIBBONS,
THE HAPPY WARRIOR
Light Heavyweight
Fighting in his big brother’s shadow, punching for a couple-hundred dollars a night in small theaters and athletic clubs, Tommy Gibbons in 1915 is finally beginning to make his mark on the world.
Sportswriters concur that Tommy is “a fast climber” and “a genuine glove artist,” much loved, but perennially underrated. They are roused by his powerful ring victories, charmed by his “smoke-less, drink-less, and swear-less” persona, and enchanted by his constant smile — even if that cheerful visage betrays a painful truth: The Happy Warrior’s entire journey toward the heavyweight crown is driven, urgently and primarily, by his desperate need to earn enough in the ring to raise his children and save his beloved wife from the ravages of severe mental illness.
In 106 bouts between 1911-1925, Tommy knocks out half of his opponents. By 1924, he is considered the best pound-for-pound heavyweight fighter in the world.
Fiercely devoted to family, faith, and his community, Tommy is a beloved Everyman and a wide-eyed dreamer, a folk hero who, according to newspapers of the era, “puts the heart in the heartland.”
TOMMY GIBBONS,
THE HAPPY WARRIOR
Light Heavyweight
Fighting in his big brother’s shadow, punching for a couple-hundred dollars a night in small theaters and athletic clubs, Tommy Gibbons in 1915 is finally beginning to make his mark on the world.
Sportswriters concur that Tommy is “a fast climber” and “a genuine glove artist,” much loved, but perennially underrated. They are roused by his powerful ring victories, charmed by his “smoke-less, drink-less, and swear-less” persona, and enchanted by his constant smile — even if that cheerful visage betrays a painful truth: The Happy Warrior’s entire journey toward the heavyweight crown is driven, urgently and primarily, by his desperate need to earn enough in the ring to raise his children and save his beloved wife from the ravages of severe mental illness.
In 106 bouts between 1911-1925, Tommy knocks out half of his opponents. By 1924, he is considered the best pound-for-pound heavyweight fighter in the world.
Fiercely devoted to family, faith, and his community, Tommy is a beloved Everyman and a wide-eyed dreamer, a folk hero who, according to newspapers of the era, “puts the heart in the heartland.”
— Ernest Hemingway
Novelist, Journalist
Amateur Boxer
Once upon a time,
A century ago,
Everything changing,
Everything rising fast,
then coming undone
Boxing,
the most popular
entertainment in the world
The Prize Ring,
our modern Coliseum
A million-dollar game.
The new century’s chaos,
Distilled in a 24-foot ring.
Two men, fighting to the finish.
Thrills. Spectacle. Vengeance.
Catharsis. Redemption.
Transcendence.
An Epic about American Dreams
Based on the Inspiring True Story
of Mike and Tommy Gibbons
They fought to become champions. They became heroes instead.
Two Irish-American Brothers,
Daring to dream of glory
In a world gone mad
Mike Gibbons,
The St. Paul Phantom
Tommy Gibbons,
The Happy Warrior
They risked everything
and fought like kings
For family
For faith
For country
For glory
AVAILABLE NOW!
BUY IT NOW!
Full-Color Print Book
Illustrated eBook
AVAILABLE NOW!
BUY IT NOW!
Full-Color Print Book
Illustrated eBook
