Bare Fists - Softcover

Bob Mee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0952080745 ISBN 13: 9780952080749

Publisher: Ragged Raven Press, 1998

Synopsis

In its heyday, which spanned the mid 18th to the late 19th centuries, the bare-knuckle prize-fight was a wildly popular sport which, as gloved boxing does now, produced some extraordinary characters and legendary bouts, both in Britain and the United States. With contests lasting hours and going into over 100 thrilling, punishing rounds, the sport drew crowds both common and elite-from royals and politicians to writers like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope to Dickens and Thackaray, to the middle and working classes-all drawn together by the brutal excitement and the spirited wagering the sport generated. Much like gloved boxing today, average men could become superstars overnight, and they could lose the accolades and their health just as quickly.

In Bare Fists, Bob Mee shows the fascinating evolution of bare- knuckle boxing, from the earliest days when there were no rules, to the introduction of the Broughton and London Prize Ring Rules, to what was, for bare-knuckle fighting, the beginning of the end-the Marquess of Queensbury Rules, with their call for gloves and timed rounds and their banishment of such brawl-like moves as wrestling holds. Rich in rare and exhilarating anecdote, Bare Fists recreates with thrilling immediacy all of the big bouts of the sport, including those of the legendary American champion of the 1880s, John L. Sullivan. Bob Mee brings the coverage full circle, with a report on how this strange sub-culture continues to flourish, fueled by films like Brad Pitt's Fight Club. Bare Fists is an exciting and important addition to the literature of boxing.

About this title

About the Author:

Bob Mee has written on boxing for more than 20 years. Currently boxing correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, he also wrote for the Independent on Sunday. He was assistant editor of the trade paper Boxing News and has worked on the production teams of both ITV and Sky Sports. This is his fourth boxing book, his previous books being: Boxing, Heroes and Champions; Lords of the Ring with Peter Arnold; and Twenty and Out: A Life in Boxing, with promoter Mickey Duff.

From Publishers Weekly:

Focusing on the gloveless champions that dominated the early history of the sport from the early 18th-century English fighter James Figg through American John L. Sullivan in the late 19th Mee (Lords of the Ring, etc.) provides well-researched, blocky accounts of these fighters, their transnational bouts and the way modern boxing developed through their hits and misses. Combing primary sources (from which he culls 50 b&w illustrations and portraits), Mee, who has covered boxing for more than 20 years for the British Daily Telegraph and Boxing News, situates these men in their times. But while the portraits of the champions are excellent, the off-periods, when there were no great champions, run together indistinguishably. Still, diehards will want to know about Jem Burn, who "lost to Neale after a brave struggle lasting six minutes short of an hour at Moulsey Hurst in December 1824" and will want to distinguish him from Jem Ward, who "was probably the best of the fighters who followed Tom Spring." The end of the book sketches the period after professional boxing adopted Marquis of Queensberry rules, requiring its combatants to don gloves and forcing bare-fist pugilism underground. Mee carries off the whole with enthusiasm and devotion, but he won't be able to lay a glove on the unconverted.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ragged Raven Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0952080745
• ISBN 13: 9780952080749
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 234