Bare-knuckle prizefighter John L. Sullivan became a symbol of ethnic pride and working-class masculinity to the nineteenth-century, Irish-American community from which he emerged. Because of his boisterous claims to "lick any son of a bitch in the house" and his ability to back up his claim, many Irish Americans saw in Sullivan a way to take revenge upon the unwelcoming American society. The working-class Irish took pride as Sullivan knocked out his Anglo-Protestant opponents, yet Sullivan's popularity went beyond mere ethnic and class identity; the rest of American society slowly began to accept Sullivan as well. Because of his mass appeal, Sullivan became one of the first cultural heroes and sporting celebrities of the nineteenth century. Along with his rise in popularity, boxing earned a measure of respectability as a sporting endeavor. When Sullivan began boxing, prizefights were against the law. By...