Boxing
Events
- 17 April — one of the most famous fights of the bareknuckle era takes place at Farnborough, Hampshire, when English Champion Tom Sayers meets American Champion John C. Heenan in what is effectively a World Championship bout. After 42 rounds, the crowd breaks into the ring and the fight is stopped, both boxers having taken heavy punishment, although Heenan seemingly had the advantage. The result is a draw.
- 20 May — Sayers is awarded a special Silver Championship Belt to commemorate the fight and he now announces his retirement from boxing. Heenan is awarded a duplicate belt.
- But the brutality of the fight is widely publicised and gives rise to condemnation of the sport by a public that is increasingly influenced by Victorian ethics and morality. The legacy of the Heenan–Sayers fight is that it will bring about the demise of bareknuckle fighting in England.
- 5 November — Tom Paddock fights Sam Hurst for the vacant Heavyweight Championship of England at a venue in Berkshire. Hurst wins in only five rounds and is awarded the championship belt by Tom Sayers. This is Paddock's final fight.
Read more about this topic: 1860 In Sports
Famous quotes containing the word boxing:
“... to paint with oil paints for the first time ... is like trying to make something exquisitely accurate and microscopically clear out of mud pies with boxing gloves on.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing—for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)