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RSR Book Review: Tales From The Vault By Author Lee Groves

Book Review by Rich “Lite It Up” Lopez

First, I want to go back to when I met the author of this book. I started to build a decent boxing collection of fights but I wanted to obtain some older and rare fights. In 2004, I started to view boxing forums and soon discovered there were other collectors like myself out there too. It was great to start trading with some fellow boxing fans and finding some rare fights I was looking for. Then I came across a boxing trader named Lee Groves and we exchanged our lists. I thought I had one of the biggest boxing collections until I viewed his list. He had thousands of fights and I was amazed. We did a couple of trades and then we lost touch somehow. Six years later in 2011, I attended the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) in Canastota New York. This was the year that Julio Cesar Chavez, SR., Mike Tyson and Kostya Tszyu were inducted respectfully. One of the events at the IBHOF is the boxing autograph card show. This is where vendors have tables set up to sell or trade magazines, books, posters, cards, etc. This is also a good event to get autographs from your favorite boxers as well.

I came across a table with an author selling his new book called Tales From The Vault. To my surprise the author was Lee Groves. I looked at his book and was already amazed on how thick the paperback was. I gave it a shot and bought the book to add to my boxing collection. He signed the book for me, we spoke a little and he thanked me for having faith in his book. After reading the book, I soon found out this was something very unique and I had something special here.

Tales From The Vault is a celebration of 100 boxing closet classics and who better than Lee Groves to pick them because he is one of the most knowledgeable boxing fans out there. He is a great writer and has one of the largest boxing collections of fights out there as I mentioned earlier. Even though we are in 2018 and the book came out in 2010, I still wanted to give Lee credit for his book. We have seen the classics like Duran/Leonard, Ali/Frazier, Arguello/Pryor, Gatti/Ward, Barrera/Morales, Hagler/Hearns, etc. Groves takes it deeper and celebrates some of the most underrated fights in boxing history. The book is 738 pages long and broken into 10 chapters. Each chapter has a category and features 10 fights each.

Lee shows his respect to the boxers in the smaller weight divisions and also has a chapter dedicated to undercard bouts. You will read about fights like Wilfredo Vazquez Vs Antonio Avelar (one of my favorite brawls) to Eder Gonzalez Vs Juan Coggi I (which is one of the craziest fights I have seen). Since Lee works for CompuBox, he also provides punch stats for each fight. Most of the fights are classics, so you have to remember there was no punch stats back in the day. Each fight is very detailed and told very well by Lee. This is a great boxing book if you’re looking to read about some of the great fights in detail that were overlooked. After reading the book, I can guarantee you will try to watch some of these great fights, weather on YouTube or your own personal collection. Some other fights on the other hand will be harder to find.

In conclusion, this book is a must have for any hardcore boxing fan and I highly recommend it. Currently I’m reading the book for a second time and it’s still great.

Tales From The Vault by Lee Groves is a guarantee knockout!

Order it HERE.

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