Boxing

VIII

History

The origins of boxing are unknown. Although the Greek poet Homer describes a two-person fight in the Iliad, it is not certain that such bouts took place as early as the epic poem’s setting around 1800 bc. Along with running, wrestling, and the use of weapons, boxing was part of a young man’s education in ancient Greece. Records indicate the sport was part of the ancient Olympic Games of 688 bc. Plato mentions boxing in both The Republic and the dialogue Gorgias, and the poet Pindar elegized the Olympic boxing champion of 474 bc.

The Romans also embraced boxing, turning the sport into a brutal gladiatorial spectacle (see Gladiator). Boxers of this time covered their hands and arms with a leather thong called a cestus, sometimes studding it with metal spikes. The combatants often fought until one was fatally injured.

A

Early Modern Era

With the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century ad, boxing seemed to disappear, at least as a formal sport. Boxing did not reappear in society until the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 ushered in a more relaxed moral atmosphere, allowing the sport with a barbaric history to make a comeback. The first mention of a staged fight came in an English newspaper in 1681, and the first boxing champion—self-appointed—was James Figg, who claimed the title in 1719. James Broughton, a protégé of Figg, drew up a set of rules in 1743 promoting the idea that boxing was a bona fide British sport. Broughton’s rules forbade hitting below the waist or hitting an opponent who was down. Although most bouts were still bare-knuckle, Broughton also promoted the use of rudimentary gloves known as “mufflers.” These regulations remained the standard in the sport until they were supplanted by the Revised London Prize Ring Rules of 1838.

Despite a 1750 ordinance outlawing prizefighting in Great Britain, many members of the nobility believed boxing symbolized the manly virtues of courage, strength, and fair play. Boxing academies enrolled poets and nobles, and outstanding fighters such as Daniel Mendoza, Tom Cribb, and “Gentleman” John Jackson emerged. But with the rise of the middle class and the influence of reform and religious movements during the early 19th century, public approval of boxing sagged. New antiprizefight laws were passed, police began stopping fights, and judges prosecuted those involved. Many boxers subsequently emigrated to the United States, hoping to find greater boxing opportunities.

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B

Boxing Comes to America

Unlike Britain, the United States had no real boxing history. Without the patronage of rich or powerful men, prizefighting was associated with saloon culture, gambling, and political corruption, less a sport than a means to settle a grudge. In 1835 New Jersey became the first state to legally prohibit prizefights, followed by Massachusetts in 1849 and New York in 1859. By 1880, 38 states had made prizefighting illegal. Nonetheless, the sport grew, fueled in part by its expansion to the West (where fighting was tolerated in mining and railroad camps), by great waves of European immigration, by increased newspaper coverage, and by the shrewdness of promoters who appealed to ethnic and nationalist rivalries. Notable fights between Tom Hyer and “Yankee” Sullivan in 1849 and between Sullivan and John Morrissey in 1853 attested to boxing’s newfound popularity. By 1860, the fight between the British champion Tom Sayers and the American fighter John C. Heenan attracted widespread attention.

In the decades following the Civil War (1861-1865), boxing in the United States suffered a decline. Fixed fights, ringside violence, and indifferent fighters cemented boxing’s unsavory reputation. Once again, bare-knuckle prizefights were no more respectable and no less brutal than dog fights—hastily convened under cover of night and one step ahead of the law. The same could not be said for the gloved contests sponsored by gentlemen’s or athletic clubs or to sparring sessions in colleges.

C

Modern Rules

The social distinction between gloved contests and bare-knuckle prizefights continued even after British boxing official John Graham Chambers drew up the Marquess of Queensberry Rules in the 1860s. The popular conception that the Queensberry Rules made boxing less dangerous is not strictly true: Wearing gloves made fighters more willing to strike an opponent’s head (the skull is hard on bare knuckles), while the introduction of three-minute rounds ended the practice of boxers falling to one knee for a much-needed rest, as they could under the Revised London Prize Ring Rules.

Whatever the merits of the new rules as opposed to the older rough-and-tumble ones, boxing did not automatically gain respectability solely because of them. Another important factor was a charismatic figure named John L. Sullivan, who infused new life into the sport and turned it into something resembling a mainstream institution. Although Sullivan is remembered as the last great bare-knuckle fighter, he often insisted on the use of gloves. Sullivan’s celebrity took the sport to unprecedented commercial heights. His bouts with Jake Kilrain in 1889 (the last bare-knuckle championship contest) and James J. “Gentleman Jim” Corbett in 1892 (the first championship bout to be governed by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules) were the most famous sporting events of their time.

Moralists and reform-minded legislators continued to rail against boxing’s brutal and criminal aspects, but men of the upper classes now came to look upon boxing as an illustration of “muscular Christianity,” which celebrated a sound mind in a sound body. Boxing’s respectability, however, came at a price: With fortunes to be made, unscrupulous business practices and promotional hype increased, as did the influence of racism.

D

Boxing and Race Relations

Boxing initially tolerated the mingling of races in fair competition. As early as 1810 and 1811, Tom Molineaux, a freed slave, twice fought and lost to the English champion Tom Cribb. White fighters in the United States also fought black opponents, but as boxing became more institutional, white fighters and their managers avoided black boxers for business reasons. As in baseball, where blacks were allowed to play in the very early days of the sport, there developed in the late 19th century a so-called Negro circuit of boxers, which included George “Little Chocolate” Dixon, Joe Gans, Peter Jackson, Sam Langford, and Harry Wills. Because of the symbolism and prestige attached to the heavyweight title, and the pressure to keep it “white,” black boxers had an easier time getting fights in the lighter weight classes. In 1908, however, black fighter Jack Johnson wrested the heavyweight championship from Canadian boxer Tommy Burns.

As champion, Johnson aggravated America’s racial tensions, taunting his white opponents and marrying a white wife. Promoters tried to find a white boxer to match him, but the best to be found was a woefully out-of-shape former champion, Jim Jeffries, whom Johnson destroyed in 13 rounds on July 4, 1910. The defeat sparked race riots across the nation in which at least a dozen black men were killed. Afterward, the film of the fight was outlawed in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Since state legislators could not be sure of which other films Johnson appeared in, Congress also made it a federal offense to engage in interstate commerce of fight films for the purposes of public exhibition. Johnson’s reputation made it increasingly difficult for black fighters to get important fights.

Growing financial incentives added to boxing’s appeals to racial, ethnic, and nationalist sentiment. Canny promoters such as George “Tex” Rickard utilized racial hatred at the Johnson-Jeffries bout and patriotic fervor at a bout between American Jack Dempsey and Frenchman Georges Carpentier in 1921 to whip up interest, producing boxing’s first million-dollar gate. It was around this time that society finally acknowledged that boxing was here to stay—most antifight laws were overturned and state athletic commissions were assigned to regulate the sport.

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