guardian.co.uk - Boxing 16:13 Tue, 13 Apr 10
The first 'world title' international boxing match 150 years
ago was an illegal affair that lasted two hours and 27 minutes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 ... ers-boxing?
On the morning of 17 April 1860 boxing's inaugural "world title"
international boxing match took place and, illegal as it may have been,
sporting historians on each side of the Atlantic accept that Heenan v
Sayers, US v England, in a Hampshire field, was the one and only true
beginning – the very first of many thousands of "fights of the century".
The two men shared the "purse" of £400. Sayers also dodged
the police and entrained "to drink champagne at The Swan in the Old
Kent Road". He never fought again and was dead at 39, more than 30,
000 attending his Highgate funeral in November 1865. Post-fight,
Heenan spent 48 hours "in a totally darkened room in Osborne's Hotel
in the Adelphi"; he died in poverty in Wyoming in 1873, aged 38.
Who also beat a hasty retreat that morning was the 19-year old Prince
of Wales, Charles Dickens, WM Thackeray and the prime minister, Lord
Palmerston, who, within days, was being asked pertinently sharp
questions in the House of Commons. The outcome was a serious call
for new codes of conduct, and by 1865 the "Dozen Rules", drawn up
by the London Amateur Athletic Club, was accepted by parliament –
in essence those we know today: three-minute rounds with a minute's
interval; gloves worn and ringside stanchions padded; 10-second counts
at any knockdown, and "no cross-buttock throwing whatever". John
Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry sponsored the new
disciplines and said he'd be very happy for them to bear his name.
