Download or read book Bare Fists written by Bob Mee and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its heyday, which spanned the mid-18th to the late-19th centuries, the bare-knuckle prize-fight was a wildly popular sport. With contests lasting hours and going into over 100 thrilling, punishing rounds, the sport drew crowds both common and elite-from royals and politicians to writers like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope to Dickens and Thackaray, to the middle- and working-classes-all drawn together by the brutal excitement and the spirited wagering the sport generated. In Bare Fists, Bob Mee shows the fascinating evolution of bare-knuckle boxing, from the earliest days when there were no rules, to what was, for bare-knuckle fighting, the beginning of the end-the Marquess of Queensbury Rules, with their call for gloves and timed rounds. Rich in rare and exhilarating anecdote, Bare Fists recreates with thrilling immediacy all of the big bouts of the sport, including those of the legendary American champion of the 1880s, John L. Sullivan.