It’s a strange thing that the move from bare knuckle boxing and London prize ring rules to gloves and Queensbury rules exactly coincided with the introduction of photos and then film.
There are to my knowledge only 3/4 photos of bare knuckle title fights being the ones taken at Sullivan vs kilrain in 1889.
I wonder if the view of boxing as a whole would be different if there were photos and film of bare knuckle fights of say 1860-80 existed. Would the barbaric nature of those fights turn the general populous off? The damage they took was so great as to often make the fighters unrecognisable. There are drawings and illustrations of a lot of fighters post matches that show this.
Often thought the timing of film and the change to gloves was quite a coincidence as they are not connected.