Unpopular Beginnings.

While there have always been amateur fist fights in which contestants for recreation or in anger match skills in the "manly art of self-defense," the sport of boxing for money, or prizefighting, did not enjoy wide popularity for much of America's history. Until John L. Sullivan popularized the sport in the late nineteenth century by using boxing gloves, fights were staged with bare fists under London Prize Ring Rules. Such encounters, held in isolated spots and watched by small crowds, were illegal, and the police were constantly alert to trouble.

The Sport Looks Ahead.

By the beginning of the century's second decade the sport had gained a measure of popularity and legality if not respectability. In 1910 Johnny Coulon defeated Jim Kendrick, the British bantamweight titlist, in nineteen rounds in New Orleans. Both weighed in at 116 pounds, and after their fight that became the...