Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
“Humphries had several hits which drew blood
under his left arm; his right eye was closed
early in the battle, and he had a severe cut
over his left. He had a wound clear as a razor
cut by the left side of his nose by a
straight-forward springing blow of Mendoza’s.
The same hit also split his upper lip. He was
carried through the crowd on the shoulders of
his friends, who conveyed him in a post-chaise
out of the town. Mendoza walked on the
race-ground on the Town Moor for some time after
the combat, ‘the observed of all observers.’”
“Money was collected from the spectators and amateurs present, as a
prize to be fought for between Aaron Mendoza, a cousin of the successful
champion, and Packer, a West-country boxer; the former was seconded by
Johnson, and the latter by Ward. It was a most severe contest; they
fought for an hour with the greatest violence, when on closing, they
fell, and when down, Aaron being uppermost, Packer raised his knee, and
so threw him a perfect somerset against the railing.[53] This decided
the battle, and Packer was declared the conqueror.”
Dan spent the year 1791 in a sparring tour; for like most of the
“prophets” he had an eye to the “jewels of gold and the jewels of
silver” to be collected from the Gentiles. He crossed from Liverpool to
Ireland, and there we find one “Squire Fitzgerald,” a swell of “great
weight” and little prudence, tried his “prentice han’” on Dan. He soon
found he had a workman to deal with, for Mendoza soundly thrashed him in
twenty minutes, on the 2nd of August, 1791, fully demonstrating the
striking difference between professionals and amateurs in boxing as in
most other arts and sciences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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