I AM Rappaport: Boxing's Flamboyant Showman

A flamboyant boxing memoir from the Brooklyn hustler who turned professional boxing into a show, a spectacle, and a high-stakes business.

Before Dennis Rappaport became one of the most colorful figures in boxing history, he was a sharp kid from Brooklyn with big dreams, street smarts, and an instinct for making things happen. From selling cookies as a teenager to building a career in real estate, Rappaport learned early that success belonged to the bold, the creative, and the ones willing to take the risk.

In I AM Rappaport: Boxing’s Flamboyant Showman , Dennis Rappaport takes readers inside the wild, glamorous, ruthless, and unforgettable world of professional boxing. As a boxing manager, promoter, negotiator, and master showman, he helped guide Gerry Cooney to his historic heavyweight title fight against Larry Holmes, went toe-to-toe with Don King, and fought to protect his fighters in a business where loyalty was rare and manipulation was everywhere.

This is not just another boxing autobiography. It is a behind-the-scenes look at the fight game from a man who lived it at the highest level, from Madison Square Garden to Las Vegas, from championship negotiations to casino suites, from headline-making publicity stunts to personal heartbreaks.

Rappaport brought leprechauns into the ring, marched a gorilla toward Madison Square Garden, took the New York State Athletic Commission to court, tried to arrange a prison boxing spectacle, and even made headlines with an offer to buy the New York Yankees. Whenever an event surrounded a holiday, his out-of-the-box creativity brought excitement, controversy, and attention. From Valentines Day to April Fools Day to Father's Day and all the fireworks of July 4th Independence Day, Rappaport would have a surprise of two to pull out of his tool box. Along the way, he crossed paths with champions, contenders, celebrities, con men, presidents, promoters, gamblers, and some of the most unforgettable characters in sports and entertainment.

Part boxing history, part sports memoir, part New York success story, I AM Rappaport pulls readers into a world of ambition, loyalty, glamour, betrayal, courage, and survival. For readers who enjoy raw sports biographies, heavyweight boxing history, and true stories about larger-than-life personalities, this is the story of a man who made the fight game feel bigger than the fight itself.

Dennis Rappaport was called many things. Boring was never one of them.