This is the story of Amadou M'barick Fall, who was born in the French West African colony of Senegal and became world famous as ‘Battling Siki’, when he beat the French boxing hero Georges Carpentier in September 1922 in Paris. With this victory, Siki was the first African to win a boxing world title, and the ‘child of the jungle’, as he was routinely referred to by the white public, threatened white prestige and notions of supremacy in a world structured by racism and colonialism. The book's author Peter Benson, a boxing fan from his early childhood days, takes his readers from Siki's birth in Saint Louis to his violent death in December 1925 in New York City, though he focuses on the 1920s boxing business. The meticulously researched book introduces multiple layers not only of Siki's career, but also of his life and personality. It thus challenges the so far still predominant interpretation of ‘Battling Siki’, who was, besides for his boxing skills, specifically known for his reckless lifestyle and his seeming inability to cope with life in a modern and ‘civilized’ world. Unfortunately, Benson tends to get lost in details, and taking the potential and the merits of the new sport history into account, the book might even be considered a missed opportunity. The world-famous Senegalese boxing champion had fought in France, Ireland and the United States, and, hopefully, other historians will continue the writing on Siki. His rich history offers fascinating material for multiple interpretations, such as a transnational history of race or of Euro-American images of ‘the African’ in the early twentieth century, to name just two of many options.