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.

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.

E.

Golden Age of Boxing

The years between 1920 and 1927 were the so-called Golden Age of Boxing. The man who personified the sport was American heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, whose fights with Carpentier, Luis Firpo of Argentina, and Gene Tunney of the United States received front-page newspaper coverage. But after Dempsey’s second loss to Tunney in 1927, the heavyweight division fell on hard times. Subsequent champions such as Max Baer lacked intensity, while Primo Carnera of Italy, James Braddock, and Jack Sharkey lacked polished boxing skills. Max Schmeling of Germany, perhaps the best fighter during this period, ended up winning the title from Sharkey on a foul.

The sport needed a great champion. On June 22, 1937, Joe “the Brown Bomber” Louis took the crown from Braddock, the beginning of a long and triumphant reign. The black champion’s non-threatening persona was specifically crafted by his managers in response to the legacy of Jack Johnson. Many people felt that Louis’s model deportment both inside and outside the ring helped reduce racism in the United States. Louis defended the title a record 25 times and retired as champion in 1949 (although he later made an unsuccessful comeback). In his famous 1938 title bout with Schmeling—heralded as a showdown between American democracy and German fascism as the world descended into war—Louis posted a decisive first-round knockout.

A host of good heavyweights followed Louis: Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Rocky Marciano. But the very best fighters at the mid-century were welterweight and middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson and light heavyweight champion Archie Moore. After Marciano retired in 1956—still the only heavyweight titlist to retire unbeaten—Moore tried to move up and capture the heavyweight crown but lost to Floyd Patterson. Patterson himself lost the title in 1959, then a year later became the first heavyweight to regain the world title before losing it for good to Charles “Sonny” Liston in 1962. Liston was an imposing champion, a fighter whose criminal record and gangland connections made him seem even more fearsome.

F.

Modern Champions

Few fans and observers gave brash young challenger Cassius Clay a chance in his 1964 title bout against Liston, but Clay won on a technical knockout, inaugurating the reign of one of the century’s most celebrated sports figures. Soon after winning the crown, Clay, a member of the Black Muslims, changed his name to Muhammad Ali. When Ali was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1967, he refused induction on religious grounds, and as a result was stripped of both his title and his license to box. Ali successfully challenged his criminal charges and was reinstated as a boxer in 1970.

A year later, Ali met reigning champion Joe Frazier in one of the most anticipated fights in boxing history. In a battle that lived up to the hype, Frazier won a tough decision over Ali. Less than two years later, Frazier was defeated by George Foreman. The 32-year-old Ali then regained his title in 1974, defeating Foreman in the African country of Zaire. Using a style he dubbed Rope-a-Dope, Ali sagged against the ropes of the ring and let Foreman punch him over and over with little counterattack. Foreman wore himself out throwing punches and Ali scored a stunning eighth-round knockout. Age and injury took their toll on Ali, however, and he lost the title to an unheralded Leon Spinks in 1978. He later regained it, but eventually lost again to Larry Holmes and retired in 1981.

Holmes was the most consistent and talented heavyweight of his time, winning 20 straight title fights between 1978 and 1985. But during his reign as champ, boxing itself began to slip into organizational chaos. By the mid-1980s, the three major boxing organizations—the WBA, WBC, and IBF—were basically anointing their chosen champions. Worthy challengers were often denied big fights while unqualified boxers were thrust into the limelight. The result was a slew of mediocre titleholders, reminiscent of the early 1930s.

During the 1980s fighters in the lighter weight divisions captured the public’s attention in a way that heavyweights of that decade did not. This came from a combination of personable fighters who emerged from the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Games, the ascendancy of outstanding Hispanic fighters, and some memorable bouts between evenly matched combatants such as Roberto Durán of Panama and Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Thomas Hearns of the United States.

The stagnant heavyweight division received a needed jolt with the emergence of Mike Tyson in 1985. A New York City street hood as a youth, Tyson was rescued from the juvenile criminal system by Cus D’Amato, a legendary boxing trainer who once guided Floyd Patterson to the heavyweight title. A short, bull-like fighter with devastating speed and power, Tyson became the youngest man ever to win the heavyweight championship in 1987 at the age of 20.

Tyson unified the title and reigned until 1990, when he was knocked out by James “Buster” Douglas in one of boxing’s greatest upsets. Tyson’s efforts to reclaim the championship were derailed by a series of problems, including a three-year prison sentence for rape in 1992 and, during his subsequent comeback, a bizarre incident during a 1997 title fight against Evander Holyfield when Tyson bit his opponent’s ear twice. No single fighter emerged to fill the void created by Tyson’s fall, and the heavyweight title remained fractured for almost all of the 1990s and into the 21st century. The top heavyweights during this era included Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, and, in an improbable comeback in his 40s, George Foreman.

As with the period just after Muhammad Ali retired, however, smaller fighters filled the heavyweight vacuum. Boxers such as Roy Jones, Oscar de la Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley, and Felix Trinidad became some of the sport’s most popular attractions. Though they did not attract the same level of heavyweight money, these fighters proved to be stars in boxing’s new pay-per-view world, where individual households generate the payouts. De la Hoya, in particular, became a huge draw with the growing Hispanic audience for boxing.

G.

Women’s Boxing

Boxing has been overwhelmingly a male pursuit throughout its history. Fights between women were staged as early as the 18th century in London. However, women’s boxing was mostly outlawed until the bans were challenged beginning in the late 1980s. In 1993, following a well-publicized lawsuit against it, USA Boxing began to implement a female amateur boxing program. Major professional sanctioning bodies began to recognize and promote women’s bouts around the same time, and women fighters such as Christy Martin developed strong reputations.

Women’s boxing attracted even more attention as the relatives of former boxing greats began competing, culminating in a match in 2001 between Laila Ali and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, the daughters of former heavyweight champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. However, this bout was perceived as a publicity stunt and did little to generate long-term interest in the sport. The first Women’s Amateur World Boxing Championships were held in 2001, and officials hoped to qualify the sport as an Olympic event in 2004 or 2008.