I've read ridiculous number of rounds like seventy-five for one fight in the old boxing era so what is the most, and how long was each round?
In Harry Mullan's 'Ultimate Encyclopedia of Boxing' it claims that the longest fight under MoQ rules was one from April of 1893 between Andy Bowen and Jack Burke, which took place in New Orleans. It went to the 110th round, and apparently lasted 7 hours and 19 minutes of total time.
Yes that is what I found also. A fight for the vacant Lightweight Championship for a 'winner take all' purse of $2500. Neither fighter would come out for round 111 & the ref called it a 'no contest'atsch (They were 3 minutue rounds). Burke nevr fought again & Bowen died after a 18 rd KO in his ver next fight.
thats the one i would have sayed too could you imagine Sam Peter and Hasim Rachman going that distance i dont think any fighter today could go that long
Under London Prize Ring rules a round ended with a knockdown so a 70 round fight could be shorter than a 15 round fight under queensbury rules. A fight like Tyson Spinks could go 10 rounds and be a breif masacre. Having said this there were fights under LPR that lasted three hours or more.
A lot of these very long fights under Marquis of Queensberry became very tame at certain point, where (according to reports) whole rounds sometimes went without a single blow struck. It is no coincidence that most of these ended in a draw, most of the time the referee warning the fighters that he gives them several more rounds to do something, and if they don't start fighting, he'd stop it. This was either because both were too exhausted, or because of hand injuries which happened quite often. Only very few of these fights were filled with action for long.
That was my guess. I was just thinking there is no way fighters would have the stamina to trade blows for that long at any pace.
