Jimmy Carroll the 1870's, 1880's and 1890's lightweight

Sure did, and thanks.

McAuliffe defenitely warrants a second look for anyone who's interested in the history of the lightweight division. He gets the **** end of the stick because of his era on ocassion, I believe. I believe he was unquestionably a great fighter.

Carroll's ranking - very, very hard. First of all, most of his bare-knuckle fights seem to have been swallowed in hisotry, and we've really no way of knowing whether he was genuinly undefeated in that time (my source for that is pretty weak) or what level of competition he was tackling (Though it seems fairish to presume he was taking on the best available in the UK around his weight class at that time, I think). The first few years of his American adventure are lost too, perhaps, and are there any losses in there? Hard to say, but I do feel he gets a hard time of it on boxrec - two losses are listed I don't think happened.

Having said that, he'll very obviously have additional wins, too. At some point he became a legitimate contender for the top honour, and his Boxrec record doesn't tell that story.

As to his longevity; it may be close to unequalled. He faced top-line competition in three decades when the sport was at it's toughest. Special.

As a final word on his ranking, i'd only say that he'd rank below my last turn-of-the-century era lightweight obsession Elbows McFadden at this time, so probably not as high as you have suggested.

 

Yeah, that's right, they didn't happen. I'm as sure as it's possible to be.