Did the old timers really use to dip their hands in gasoline?

I don’t know, but I managed a fighter who used to soak his face in brine (salt water) every night to toughen up the skin as protection against cuts.

I have no idea if that has any basis in science, but he never got cut when I was working with him, haha.

 

Haven’t heard of the petrol soak tbh.

The brine yes - Dempsey also did it back in the day.

Makes sense I guess but likely not empirically proven.

A million and one brine baths probably wouldn’t have helped fighters like Henry Cooper or Chuck Wepner.

As to whacky, back in the days of Jeffries and Co., fighters were offered sips of champagne between rounds to “pep” them up.

A very cultured lot they were back then. I would’ve passed on the champers and asked for a beer instead - but only a lite beer of course.

 

It's a gypsy bare knuckle thing. Quite sure it's 100% nonsense in impact.

 

I believe I read in my Grandfather's "Fireside Book of Boxing" that John L. Sullivan soaked his hands in brine for the upcoming Jake Kilrain fight.

 

I don't know, sounds suspicious to me.
Soaking your face or sake in salt water (seawater) or brine is one thing; similar thing. And it is possible that it creates some small, additional firmness of the skin.
But dousing sake in gasoline sounds idiotic because it destroys the skin.
The fact that they lived a century or more ago does not mean that they were morbid.
Our age is more morbid.

 

I dunno, I just like dipping my hands in random ****.

 

Never heard of the gasoline dip

 

Besides his brine soaks, Dempsey also apparently chewed pine gum for the intended purpose of strengthening his jaw.

For whatever reason, I believe Jeffries chewed gum DURING his fight against Jack Johnson.

Eventually Jeffries had to spit the gum due to the blood constantly filling in his mouth.

 

Playing hand ball to sharpen hand/eye coordination seems to have been practiced by quite a few fighters of the distant past.

Also, at least as depicted in the old news reels, pushing the old manual grass cutters was implied to comprise the training regime of a number of well known fighters.

Killing two birds with one stone, eh?

 

Where I grew up, in Thailand, fighters would wrap their hands and dip them in resin, and then in broken glass. The old ways.

 

We have people drinking their own pee for Christ sake…we have not evolved lol