BoxRec

I am being pointless and obtuse.

There is a British folklore called Spring Heeled Jack, a mystical figure who supposedly bounced about the country side frightening the local population (circa 1837). In time the legend so grew that he took on super natural powers, with eye witnesses swearing he could leap over houses and such. At first glance it's not really a big deal, it looks to be just another tale passed down through the generations, and you figure it's just the product of a vivid imagination.

But then you look at the Marquis of Queensberry Rules and rule #11 looks quite odd.

MQB Rule #11: That no shoes or boots with spikes or springs be allowed.

Now the prohibition against spikes makes sense, you can see how in a bare knuckle fight appearing in the pitch (dirt ring) with spikes could be advantageous. But why springs?

There is a rule of thumb in historical study, when a society sees fit to enact a law you can usually assume they are addressing a real problem not an abstraction (unfortunately that's not always true, but most often it is).

So assuming that at least some bare knuckle fighters were appearing with springs in their shoes, you have to ask two questions: How did they do that? - Why did they do that? The latter question then makes me ask, what were they trying to achieve; what did the end result look like: a young Cassius Clay on steroids?

The MQB rule suggest that somebody, somewhere had figured out how to put springs in his boxing boots. Has anyone ever run across such a mention?

Oh, which also brings us back to Spring Heeled Jack. Should we assume there actually was some loon bouncing around the country side frightening the locals? How did he do it?

I can only see springs being beneficial on hard surfaces (ie, wood floors, concrete, stone) in the bareknuckle era. I'm sure that such occurrences happened prior to 1865 when the MQ rules was adopted, but probably not in major contests otherwise we'd have a paper trail.

Back then, everyone tried to find loop holes in the rules and/or figured that if something wasn't stated in the rules that you could do it. For example, the "round ends when a fighters knees touch the canvas" rule in London Prize Ring contests was blatantly abused with people throwing themselves down on purpose to avoid punishment and give them an additional minute to recoup.

That particular rule more than enraged John L. Sullivan in fights with Mitchell and Kilrain because they did it 20-30 times or better in his matches with him.

I imagine a man did once try a prizefight with springed shoes and managed to win, and was able to "bounce" away from danger. Or maybe a man was caught wearing springs, which didn't help him one iota anyways, and it was talked about: therefore included in the new rules.

APerno wrote: ↑22 Apr 2018, 21:12 The MQB rule suggest that somebody, somewhere had figured out how to put springs in his boxing boots. Has anyone ever run across such a mention?

Oh, which also brings us back to Spring Heeled Jack. Should we assume there actually was some loon bouncing around the country side frightening the locals? How did he do it?

There were many people who tinkered around in work sheds in those days... They tried to invent new stuff that could make them rich like the Wright Brothers or Edison... Some tried to put springs on shoes to allow you to run a lot faster, and jump a lot higher... Just as there were thousands of attempts at making an airplane before somebody came up with a functional design, there were people hopping around on springs. falling down, and injuring themselves severely.

As transportation, the horse, bicycle, and car worked better than springs on the shoes... The Marquis was trying to get ahead of the curve cuz you never know where technology will take us... If somebody solved all the problems we might be hopping around on springs today... Here's an iteration, but I've seen much better ones out there... Few people are interested in springy shoes to date. All of them have sucked so far. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5V356k-9a8