I brought this up in another much more august thread but am still curious. Paddy Ryan fought William Miller in this fashion on our about May, 1, 1879. Joe Goss also fought at least one of these. Were these popular as contests during the 70's and 80's? The best articles I have read describe both opponents wearing white shirts (tho some state that only head shots count) and then donning large gloves blackened by dipping in buckets of lamp black. I have seen round limits of 3 minutes or when the first stroke of black is landed upon an opponent's face. In the former structure, rounds were scored by the number of blows that blackened the opponent's face, and won by having the higher total. In the latter structure, the first blow that blackened the opponent's face won the round.
1879-04-30 The Sun (New York, NY) (page 1) https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1879-04-30/ed-1/seq-1/
Certainly a strange side note in boxing history, interesting read for sure. That article that Senya posted is quite colorful in its prose, to say the least.
