James Figg The First Champion

Here's link to Buck and Page.
https://www.keithfarrell.net/blog/2018/08/thomas-page-and-timothy-buck/

 

And here's a couple of sites with all sorts of treatises:
http://middleages.hu/english/martialarts/treatise_database.php
https://archive.org/details/BoxingReviewed

Happy researching

 

Amazing thread. Bump.

 

Sullivan in his prime was in great shape, once he had the title, fame and money yeah he hardly train at all.

 

Here's a channel I found where the guy is going through the techniques/styles of old boxing manuals:

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Happy viewing.

 

Here's a video that covers the run up to the Figg era and what was on display.

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and this short

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Enjoy

 

He is the only champion I know of who resigned and named successors who fought for honors we ignore today.

I'm not real sure why James gets so much extra added to him. his story is pretty human in all reality

 

It's not easy finding techniques that Figg would have used but his student Jack Broughton is mentioned as having hit Jack Slack (his famous Peg blow to Slack's mark ((straight to the solar Plexus?)), and a blow to the side of the head that drops Slack:

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although in this version of the same fight by the same youtuber he says it's a blow to the throat that drops him (I love the high elbow guard by Slack):

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I've found a video below of someone showing a throat attack supposedly used by Broughton, we have to take his word that it's a Broughton move, but if it is it could have been something he was taught by Figg:

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and here is Mark Hatmaker talking about the build-up to a Broughton technique but who knows although Mark has been writing on fighting for a while and should know his stuff.

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Figg:

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book mentioned is here:
https://archive.org/details/fightsforchampio01hennuoft/page/n11/mode/2up

There was a gypsy fighter in Britain called Bartley Gorman, just to get an idea of how bare knuckle might have differed in striking style, here's some punches he used. I guess hitting into the armpit could disrupt the blood flow, l arteries which I think run under the armpit from coming down from the neck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYfFdSEarAI
Anyway, enjoy and happy researching.

 

James Figg KO 1 Prime Evander Holyfield

 

Love Holyfield, the real deal. Figg was a different era, also Holyfield would have had to box, fence and stick-fight during their bouts.
Good luck with that, but whatever...hats off to Holyfield.