Where did the first ever boxing match take place?

[gains40]

Name the place where the first ever boxing match took place?

[Willie Pep 229]

Ice World, Totowa, New Jersey ?

[HOUDINI563]

First boxing card I watched live was in NW NJ at the now defunct Playboy club. A local fighter who graduated from the high school I graduated from the year prior was making his pro debut.

I attended many closed circuit fights at the old Ice World...Ali Frazier 3, Holmes Cooney, Duran Leonard 1.

[Marchegiano]

Define your terms

Around these parts we argue over the origins of boxing because many assert that all forms of fight fighting is boxing. Do they consider BYB or Streetbeefs, etc, boxing? No. Do they see Conor McGregor as a boxing champion? No. But, they will tell you Mesopotamia started boxing because mesopotamia does depict the first fist fights in image form. Doesn't matter that when you read the text from Meso it will very clearly explain these are not even fights let alone limited to just fist.

So, that said, could be between the Tigris and Euphrates.


The first sport version of boxing comes from the Greeks. There's plenty of recorded matches prior to sport boxing in Greek history, but, if your measurement is taken from sport rather than martial art then our origin point is Olympia

Even the first Olympic matches can be considered less than sport given they had no defined rules. The first boxing Olympiad wrote the first boxing set of rules. IMO, that is when boxing was born, and it was born on Mount Olympus.

However, This sport is dead and revived and the reviving did not take great pains to mimic the rules, as, they didn't know them, and we wouldn't know them until around the 70s.

So while it is fair to say guys like Richard Dover inspired English duelists to take up boxing as he know it, he hardly knew the ancient stuff anyway and they were forced to repeat the process.

The first recorded fight to take place since the fall of Rome was in London when Figg rematched Sutton for the English crown.

We do not have record of their first interaction, though we do have account from Cpt Godfrey (I think), but we do have something of a round by round of their second and that round by round is the oldest round by round you can find.

I think it's damn fair to give it to Figg.

Then again I suppose one can claim boxing isn't boxing until the sanctioning bodies. Of them, BBBoC has the oldest routes, they're also London.

[Willie Pep 229]

Na! It's Totowa New Jersey, and if by chance it isn't then it's probably Secaucus.

[Gamer30168]

I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure that it goes back at least as far as the Roman times. See Melankomas on wiki. He was supposedly a master defensive boxer that never lost and was rarely even hit if you believe the myth. Fist fighting probably goes back as far as when people still lived in caves

[billeau2]

Define your terms

Around these parts we argue over the origins of boxing because many assert that all forms of fight fighting is boxing. Do they consider BYB or Streetbeefs, etc, boxing? No. Do they see Conor McGregor as a boxing champion? No. But, they will tell you Mesopotamia started boxing because mesopotamia does depict the first fist fights in image form. Doesn't matter that when you read the text from Meso it will very clearly explain these are not even fights let alone limited to just fist.

So, that said, could be between the Tigris and Euphrates.


The first sport version of boxing comes from the Greeks. There's plenty of recorded matches prior to sport boxing in Greek history, but, if your measurement is taken from sport rather than martial art then our origin point is Olympia

Even the first Olympic matches can be considered less than sport given they had no defined rules. The first boxing Olympiad wrote the first boxing set of rules. IMO, that is when boxing was born, and it was born on Mount Olympus.

However, This sport is dead and revived and the reviving did not take great pains to mimic the rules, as, they didn't know them, and we wouldn't know them until around the 70s.

So while it is fair to say guys like Richard Dover inspired English duelists to take up boxing as he know it, he hardly knew the ancient stuff anyway and they were forced to repeat the process.

The first recorded fight to take place since the fall of Rome was in London when Figg rematched Sutton for the English crown.

We do not have record of their first interaction, though we do have account from Cpt Godfrey (I think), but we do have something of a round by round of their second and that round by round is the oldest round by round you can find.

I think it's damn fair to give it to Figg.

Then again I suppose one can claim boxing isn't boxing until the sanctioning bodies. Of them, BBBoC has the oldest routes, they're also London.

Yeah I am pretty blown away by the ignorance of some regarding basic understanding and logic when it comes to researching the development of a sport form. Its like someone saying "Karate started in caves because we have cavemen depicted kicking each other." It an insult to rules of intellectual engagement frankly.

How do you feel about the Marquee of Queensbury? Was his insight important to the sport? On the surface it seems like telling rigidly honor bound individuals, who had to engage in life and death struggle to save face, that fists could be used was a great and purposeful endevour. But then again... often thing sound one way and are not as they sound.

Incidently... the concept of "saving face" seems like a very apt description for engaging in a boxing match to settle a dispute.

[Marchegiano]

Yeah I am pretty blown away by the ignorance of some regarding basic understanding and logic when it comes to researching the development of a sport form. Its like someone saying "Karate started in caves because we have cavemen depicted kicking each other." It an insult to rules of intellectual engagement frankly.

How do you feel about the Marquee of Queensbury? Was his insight important to the sport? On the surface it seems like telling rigidly honor bound individuals, who had to engage in life and death struggle to save face, that fists could be used was a great and purposeful endevour. But then again... often thing sound one way and are not as they sound.

Incidently... the concept of "saving face" seems like a very apt description for engaging in a boxing match to settle a dispute.

That's a fair point. Queensberry Rules are very different from anything seen before it.

In some boxing history books they define the bare knuckle period as MMA because it does in practice and in it's rules have more in common with MMA than Queenberry boxing.

If one disregards the cultural and training connections to the bare knuckle era than it's easy to see Queensberry boxing as an entirely new sport.

The only thing I find a bit puzzling about Queenberry is the transition is rather blurry.

To keep it short, Jem Mace kind of beat John L to being the first world heavyweight champion to fight under Queensberry rules in 1877. On the other side of that coin, I could easily see one taking the stance neither Jem nor John actually fought under QB rules but rather a hybrid system that lead into QB rules. Both John L and Jem Mace represent more the use of gloves in boxing than all the practices that would come from QB rules in the era between Sully and the sanctioning bodies.

For example, Sullivan used hard gloves when he fought in 1885 under QB rules.

Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Hart, Burns, Johnson, Willard, and Dempsey all used soft gloves in their title fights, most of them used soft gloves their entire careers.

Also, Jem never bothered to claim the QB title, he's just an unbeaten champion fighting under QB rules and exhibiting QB rules around the world. Sullivan claimed it but never bothered to defend it.

Could be fair to say that Corbett is actually the first QB champion.

[billeau2]

That's a fair point. Queensberry Rules are very different from anything seen before it.

In some boxing history books they define the bare knuckle period as MMA because it does in practice and in it's rules have more in common with MMA than Queenberry boxing.

If one disregards the cultural and training connections to the bare knuckle era than it's easy to see Queensberry boxing as an entirely new sport.

The only thing I find a bit puzzling about Queenberry is the transition is rather blurry.

To keep it short, Jem Mace kind of beat John L to being the first world heavyweight champion to fight under Queensberry rules in 1877. On the other side of that coin, I could easily see one taking the stance neither Jem nor John actually fought under QB rules but rather a hybrid system that lead into QB rules. Both John L and Jem Mace represent more the use of gloves in boxing than all the practices that would come from QB rules in the era between Sully and the sanctioning bodies.

For example, Sullivan used hard gloves when he fought in 1885 under QB rules.

Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Hart, Burns, Johnson, Willard, and Dempsey all used soft gloves in their title fights, most of them used soft gloves their entire careers.

Also, Jem never bothered to claim the QB title, he's just an unbeaten champion fighting under QB rules and exhibiting QB rules around the world. Sullivan claimed it but never bothered to defend it.

Could be fair to say that Corbett is actually the first QB champion.

I agree! Corbet never fought a bare knuckle match...yet all his techniques, and the sport that he was introduced to was bare knuckle, there is no question about that. The Marquee was perhaps an inovator, but I think his ideas were strictly in the same paradigm. Your examples of chamos like Mace and Sullivan are icing on the cake.

Karate is still karate when it came out of the Ryuki Islands and became Japanized with concepts of order and aesthetics added to it... It was just a development. I tend to view the Marquee in this matter. In both instances there is a direct line of transmission that is documented. Gloves were used as "mufflers" the difference being that in the bare knuckle fighting big emphasis was placed on how to punch without breaking the hands. Most people are clueless that if a modern boxer punched the way it is done with gloves, they would probably break a hand.

Its even in the targets. Dempsey's hook was brilliant because it was done in such a way that the hand hitting was at a 90 degree angle...

I asked you this question because when I look at the contribution of the Marque of Queensbury, I definitely see it in the same paradigm of what we call boxing, and what was separated from military endevours and developed (for personal glory) by the Greeks... I thought that it was a way to make boxing appeal to all classes, not just the working man. I also thought it was clever and humanitarian but did not know the Marquis' motive.

[Anthony342]

So what would be considered the first Marquess of Queensberry fight?