Professional boxing has long been viewed askance by the respectable elements of society. Generally banned by law in earlier days, the fighting was usually done with bare fists, and bouts often lasted forty or fifty rounds.

In 1882 John L. Sullivan, a slugging fighter of great power, won the world heavyweight championship from Paddy Ryan in a bare-fisted battle marked by hitting, wrestling, scratching, and biting. Five years later, while fighting Patsy Cardiff at Minneapolis, Sullivan broke his right arm in the third round, but he continued fighting to a six-round draw. In 1889, Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain in the last bare-knuckle championship fight, winning twenty thousand dollars and a diamond prize belt. His admirers talked then of running him for Congress, but he traveled to Australia for a boxing tour instead, coming back only to lose his title in a twenty-one-round bout with a young Californian named James J. Corbett.

“Gentleman Jim’s” victory in this bout marked a turning point in professional pugilism, for it demonstrated the superiority of scientific boxing over sheer brute strength. But Corbett’s reign ended in 1897, when his opponent, Bob Fitzsimmons, accomplished three epochal feats in less than three seconds. Fitzsimmons knocked out an Irishman on Saint Patrick’s Day, won the heavyweight championship of the world, and invented the terrible “solar plexus punch”.