Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about 19th Century bare knuckle prizefighting.
John Camel Heenan was known to 19th Century bare knuckle prizefighting fans as “the Benicia Boy”. Despite an 0-1-1 record as a professional fighter, Heenan claimed the World Prizefighting Championship based on a draw with Tom Sayer in an 1860 English prize-fight. Heenan’s first professional fight had been with the reigning World Heavyweight Prizefighting Champion John Morrissey’s last professional fight
Tom Hyer won the American Bare Knuckle Prizefighting Championship in 1841. Like most prizefighting champions of the Nineteenth Century, he did not fight very often. Hyer normally paid his bills as an enforcer for political parties in New York. Originally, Hyer employed his talents for the Whigs but would switch allegiances to the “Know Nothing Party” with his friend William
On October 12, 1853, 23 year-old John Morrissey would meet 40 year-old “Yankee” Sullivan for the American and possibly World Heavyweight Prizefighting Championship. Sullivan had been considered the champion since Tom Hyer, who had beaten Sullivan previously, retired instead of fighting Sullivan in a rematch. Sullivan claimed the title and was backed by Hyer, who had made peace with Sullivan.
In July 1854, the World Bareknuckle Prizefighting Champion John Morrissey, who also severed as Tammany Hall enforcer, challenged William “Bill the Butcher” Poole to a no holds barred street fight. The result was a terrible beating and several month recovery for John Morrissey. Morrissey would have likely won a bareknuckle prizefight with Poole, a part-time prizefighter himself. Morrissey made a
On July 26, 1854, the bare knuckle champion John Morrissey met occasional bare knuckle fighter William Poole in a no rules street brawl. What followed would be the worst five minutes of John Morrissey’s life. On October 23, 1853, the 22-year-old Morrissey beat Yankee Sullivan for the world bare knuckle championship in a disputed decision. Sullivan actually knocked Morrissey out