Advance, brave Broughton! The giant who casts a shadow on all of boxing. It is unclear when exactly Broughton's reign started, seemingly some time in the 1730's, and he would not lose until 1750. Likely no boxer has been the greatest in the world for so long, and likely none will ever be again. The weak era, and the dominant champion go together like salt and vinegar, but in Broughton we have just pure vinegar, for he dominated an era of boxing perhaps as strong as it'd ever be until a century and a half later.There were numerous top fighters, Taylor, Boswell, Dimmock, &c, who would together have countless fights stacked upon multiple bye battles. Even the bye battlers like Buckhorse could gain a reputation that many later fighters could only dream of. And yet Broughton remained untouchable, perhaps for as much as twenty years. Broughton was not just a great champion, perhaps the greatest champion, but Broughton was boxing, for decades after to be a boxer was to be a Broughtonian. His amphitheatre would become the dominant venue for boxing for years, where fighters would compete by the rules he created, and he would teach boxing all the way from his days as champion until the 1780's. When we talk of the sports greatest champions, Broughton is rarely part of the discussion, but his time at the top matches any of the great champions, his impact on the sport outshines them all. Much of Broughton's reign is lost to the mist's time, but his exellence shines through.
Father time beats everyone eventually. Slack built a respectable reputation in his own right, but he wasn't a quarter of what Broughton was.
