Once Upon a Time Boxing Actually Looked Like MMA

By Dave “Madcap” Mroczek

Any fans of boxing or MMA have heard the same old arguments from countless people about why one discipline is superior to the other, and vice versa, ad nauseum. I, of course, am a boxing man, but I do enjoy the bigger UFC cards when they are on. I also enjoy the irony that when watching UFC with a bunch of people, they remain mostly bored watching the grappling style fights until a stand up fight breaks out. Either way, and whichever fighting discipline you prefer, my intention is not to drag that tired, old and never-ending argument off the backburner. My intention is to take a look back in history at a time when boxing looked….a lot like MMA?

When going back into the history of MMA most people will point to a few one-off fights that took place, usually between boxers and wrestlers. Jack Dempsey almost killed professional wrestler Cowboy Luttrell in a fight that took place when Dempsey was 45 years old. Muhammad Ali took on Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki in a bizarre publicity stunt in the 1970s. Then of course there was the WWF shoot tournament won by Bart Gunn, and the early Ultimate Fighting tournaments which was the original manifestation of today’s UFC. What if you look farther back, past your daddy’s day, and your granddaddy’s, to your great great granddaddy’s day?

Back before there was gloved boxing there was the bareknuckle days. Modern fans marvel at tales of old timey fights lasting seventy or eighty rounds, without realizing that these fights took place under rules that were totally different from what we call boxing nowadays. For centuries fights took place outdoors, on grass. The bareknuckle rules were called Jack Broughton’s Rules, and later London Prize Ring Rules. Rounds had no time limit, only ending when a fighter went down. The fighter then had thirty seconds to rest, and eight seconds to get to the middle of the ring, the scratch, at which point the fight would continue. If they could not make it, the fight was over. No ten counts here! Actions like butting, kicking, biting, and hitting while down were not allowed.

Many things were allowed, however, that made this a very different sport. Grappling, throws, holds, were all allowed, and the bare hand made it much easier to use these tactics. Throwing your tired opponent to the ground was a great way to get yourself a short rest, and win the round. Elbows were not forbidden, nor was kneeing to the torso. A referee, most often, was not present in the ring, and since clinching was permitted, there was never any attempt to break the fighters.

Fights took the form of long attritional struggles. A fighter’s ability to grapple with and throw his opponent were as important as his ability to land strikes. John L Sullivan, the last bareknuckle champion, was a puncher who was trained by world wrestling champion William Muldoon in an effort to improve his grappling. Often large portions of the fight would be spent leaning against one another and trying to get the upper hand. Round by round accounts read more like a modern MMA fight than a boxing match. The fighters were not allowed to go to the ground, other than that the fight very nearly resembled something out of the UFC.

What happened to those old rules? Well in the late 1800s there was still a legitimate wrestling championship of the world. It did not produce very interesting contests as a spectator sport, but was legal. Boxing was illegal in most areas, but was much more interesting to the public. Once American John L Sullivan defeated the British champion Paddy Ryan, becoming the first world champion, the potential arose to build boxing into a proper sporting event and no longer an illegal back alley sideshow.
America was fifteen years out of the Civil War, and rebuilding. Boxing had room to grow as a legitimate sport. America favored a different set of rules for boxing, the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Profitable exhibitions began to take place under these rules. The Queensbury rules were designed to make boxing strictly a fist fight, and a more sporting and less brutal fight. It removed the long periods of grappling that people found undesirable. Because of the padded gloves the fighter’s hands were protected, and they were able to stand up to more blows. This in turn forced more action, more trading, more punching, and essentially gave people what they wanted while eliminating what they didn’t want.

Sullivan, a known puncher who won the title from a known grappler, Paddy Ryan, toured America holding his exhibitions under Queensbury rules. Every once in a while he would peel off the gloves and defend his crown under London Prize rules in a serious fight, in the old way. Things changed in 1892 when Sullivan accepted a serious challenge from James Corbett. This time it was a real live fight, and would take place under the new rules. Corbett would use athleticism and cunning to out-fox the seemingly unbeatable champion, and in a terrific effort knocked him out in the 21st round. Corbett became the “father of modern boxing”, and boxing continued on in this manner until the present day. From then on the fights would occur under Queensbury rules, and modern boxing was born.

Sports were starting to become big business, and in those days the big fights were some of the largest sporting events going on. Professional wrestling, due to lack of fan interest had to be staged to make the shows entertaining for fans. Boxing had to remove all the grappling and wrestling to make the fight entertaining and action packed, and so it could become a legitimate, mainstream, and fully legal sport. Before long boxing was a huge draw in America, giving rise to legends like Jim Jeffries, Jack Johnson, and Jack Dempsey within the first few decades of the new way. The pure fistfights proved more entertaining to the public, who did not miss all the grappling and wrestling for another hundred years.

Now with the rise of the UFC as an another mainstream fighting championship on the sports landscape, it’s easy to overlook this seemingly ancient convergence of boxing and wrestling. The UFC is basically a return to the grappling fights of the bareknuckle days, with the addition of wrestling on the ground. It is essentially what so many WWE fans have wanted for so long – a legitimate wrestling championship of the world. No need to argue about it.

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