The Fighting Frenchman

"Scott LeDoux's face read like a roadmap of boxing's last golden era--eye thumbed by Larry Holmes, brow gashed by Mike Tyson, ears stung by none other than Muhammad Ali. "George Foreman hit me so hard," LeDoux said, "my ancestors in France felt it." The only man to step into the ring with eleven heavyweight champions, LeDoux also fought through two of boxing's greatest scandals, recurring illness, and childhood trauma that haunted him for decades. This is his story, the life and times of a Minnesota Rocky making the most of the hard knocks that bruise the American Dream, told in full for the first time by award-winning journalist Paul Levy. He was never a world champion, but Scott LeDoux was always the people's champ. Doing his best to turn a small-town miner's son into boxing's next great white hope, Don King said of Scott LeDoux: "He eats rusty nails for breakfast, punches holes in concrete with either hand, bobs and weaves like a giant Rocky Marciano." He was a big, good-natured kid, with a ready wit and the will to take all comers along on a ride he himself found hard to believe. From the mining community of Crosby, Minnesota, to the dingy, mildew-scented dressing rooms in mino