just read in wikipedia about a man from ireland named simon byrne. he was irish champion and went to fight in england. he killed a man in the ring called alex mckay then lost to a bloke called jem ward.was unfit. then fought a guy called james burke who killed him. that has got to be the only time that could of happened surely. kill some one then two fights later being killed yourself. mental what happened in those days. type bare knuckle boxing into google and click on wikipedia and read very interesting, there is a list of prizefighters there you can click on and read about too.
Very dangerous and dodgy game. I have read a few books and storys online of bare knuckle fighter's and seen a few fights online before. The fighting is usually ugly, (hardly the sweet science) but i take my hat of the people who participate in it. They are all brave and tough or usually just ****ing crazy. Not only do you have the potential to get hurt or even killed by a man hitting you bare knuckle but because there are no definitive laws from a governing body and just general rules set up by who ever organises the fights there can be confussion by both fighters over what is and isn't allowed. Some bare knuckle fights are like boxing; knock a guy down and he gets a 10 count. Others are like MMA and anything goes so if a fighter doesn't know this and gets knocked down he will not bother to cover up on the ground as he thinks he is safe and will get an unsuspecting kick to his expossed head. Weight issue and competitiveness is also a problem. They generally try and match people of similar weights and ability but not always. If two fighters who maybe, say, are 20lbs apart and are the only two people in that area that can fight that night then the 'managers' will sometimes just set the fight up anyway. Also, these 'managers' will do their homework on opponents but if they know their man is not good enough for a certain fighter and will take a pasting this may not stop them from setting up the match anyway. I have read stories of these 'managers' taking back handers of the rival 'manager' to set up the fight and when their man gets brutally knocked out this 'manager' will **** of in his car and leave his unconcious and sometimes dying fighter literally in the gutter. And i thought boxing promoters were the most money-orientated people in the world, lol. Don King and Frank Warren have nothing on these guys. A lot of the fighters i heard about, especially in the old days, said that, because of a drink fuelled crowd and obviously no policing or real security then there was actually more chance of you being hurt or killed by the crowd after a fight if you KO'ed the home town fighter. I even read one story of an 'away' fighter being knocked out and his unconcious body being put into his car and his car being burned there and then. Because of this crowd trouble a lot of 'away' fighters have to make a quick exit and so they generally don't know what has happened to their opponent. One autobiography by a bare knockle fighter i read said that after he KO'ed his opponent in the guys home town someone in the crowd pulled out a gun and started shooting. The author and his 'manager' then had to scarper quickly. He said that it was something like 6 months later he actually found out that he had killed his opponent that night. It really is a scary, crazy business.
mad...tough as nails them days though. they would keep going until one was ko`d or threw in the towel which was unlikely as they had a lot of pride. reading through the wikipedia it say "they won in the 51st round" or "he had to throw the towel in on the 75th round".absolutley mental. read about John L Sullivan.he was the first ever hw champ of gloved boxing but fought bare knuckle first.
agree with all been said here...although, a 'round' in the days of john l sullivan was over when someone went down...so you could have a 20 second round..
Then just imagine how tough Billy Collins Jr must have been. Full rounds, getting hit like that. But completely unaware.
Read the book King of the Gypsies by Bartley Gorman. Amazing insight into this super interesting world. Really, you won't put it down until the last page.
They still do this kind of thing out in the English countryside. It's really illegal though. Called field rage, it's a winner take all series of bare knuckle fights. I've never been to one but the longest i've heard one going was about 25 minutes, not the 70 odd round fights of the old days.
you can also youtube these keywords: Dan Rooney vs Aney McGinley Bernie Ward vs Michael Sweeney and go from there...
Ye I know, doesn't excite me whatsoever. I think the film Snatch made it fashionable again for a little while, but it's so low on skill it must only be people who just crave violence or the excitement of doing something illegal that get involved.
