18th Century Boxing

First up, the earliest recorded international boxing contest and most likely the first in actual fact.

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LOL seriously if you are not interested in reading this you need to question your love for boxing history... or literature.

 

LOL seems there are not as many fans of real boxing history as I thought.

 

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Seriously ? you don't see it ?... OK then, this is almost the first ever boxing book in history. Some of the information is a first hand account of Captain Godfrey who had written a treatise on boxing and the other arts associated with boxing in Figg's day, Back-Sword and Cudgel fighting. I do not think Godfrey's treatise still exists but the author of Boxiana, Pierce Egan saved much of it.

The fight between the Gondolier and Whitaker was the first international boxing contest and this was one of the first ever stand alone boxing bouts, in other words there were no rounds fought with sword or staff or cudgel, just two men on a high stage with bare hands and NO RULES whatsoever but there does seem to be an etiquette where certain things were frowned upon. In Lancashire at this time there were fights called Up and Down fights... these were totally brutal and usually ended only with the death of one of the combatants. The name of these contests refers to the fact that they started on their feet and when one fighter went down the other would mount him and proceed to gouge eyes out and batter the unlucky one to death unless the crowd stepped in to stop it and the rarely did.... often though the winner would be charged with wilfull murder.

This was unacceptable in London, the Venetian Gondolier had sent his challenge to fight any English pugilist while he was still in Italy.

The Slack vs Pettit fight was the first international title fight, the winner basically the world heavyweight champion, both Slack and the Frenchman were big lads.

The Broughton vs Stevenson fight was the most significant of all, it was due to this fight that Jack Broughton formulated his ten rules for boxing... These were the FIRST RULES ever in boxing. Without Broughton who knows if we would even have boxing today, I seriously doubt it would be anything like we are used to I can tell you that. Not only did Broughton bring rules into the sport which eliminated half of the most brutal aspects of the sport but he also invented gloves and was the first boxer to have a scientific approach, before him fights were purely toe to toe set to's. Broughton had a degree of elusiveness, something never seen before.. elusiveness...... he was the first fighter to not rely on a favorite punch, he parried, he blocked etc..... There was still more needed but he was the beginning of the sport as we know it. The sport still needed a true scientific approach and that came with the genius of Daniel Mendoza, perhaps the single most important boxer to ever live... he used feints, left hooks, the jab and virtually every technique and punch we know of MENDOZA EMPLOYED, from his time onwards it looks doubtful that there has been a single new type of punch invented.

This is why this stuff is important, it is ESSENTIAL, without this era boxing DOES NOT EXIST... thank you for asking Kool.

 

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The date I have quoted comes from Boxiana.