No Holds Barred The Sweet Science Of Bare-Knuckle Boxing

The blood-splattered truth behind Britain’s underground fight club that attracted crowds of thousands – including kings and prime ministers – even after it was outlawed.

- Paul Edwards And Robert Lock

On the morning of 17 April 1860, boxing’s first-ever ‘world title’ match took place in a field near the small town of Farnborough, Hampshire. Billed as the ‘fight of the century’, the bout was between all- American champ John Heenan and England’s reigning champion Tom Sayers.

The greatest of his generation, at 1.7 metres (5 foot 8 inches) tall and weighing 67 kilograms (147 pounds), Sayers had managed to punch his way up into the heavyweight division. Here he demolished his lumbering opponents through a combination of incredible skill and tenacity. However, that was in the 1850s, and ‘Brighton Titch,’ as Sayers was nicknamed, was now 33 – old even by modern boxing standards. In contrast, Heenan was in his mid-twenties and at the height of his powers. He was about 1.9 metres (6 feet, 2 inches) and 43 kilograms (195 pounds), with an apparently lethal left hook. Known as the ‘Benicia Boy,’ Heenan grew up in New York State, but learned to fight in California, where he worked as an ‘enforcer’ for a San Francisco gang, before taking up the sport. Still, Heenan’s training had been sporadic – unlike Sayers – and he didn’t have the old pro’s experience to fall back on.

The title fight gripped the imagination on both sides of the Atlantic. As Harper’s Weekly put it: “The bulk of the people in England and America are heart and soul engrossed in a fight compared to which a Spanish bull-bait is but a mild and diverting pastime.” Meanwhile, in Britain, the Manchester Guardian observed that “no pugilistic contest ever decided has excited so great an interest, both in this and other countries.”