Quote Originally Posted by Smashup
MRS Smash got me a bareknucle legends book a few years back and one fight in the late 1800's went on for nearly an hour and a half with one fighter dead afterwards.
The saying "your not up to scratch" comes from this era where instead of 3 min rounds when there was a knockdown if the fighter couldn't get back to the chalk line across center ring ready to fight he would lose.
that was considered a 'Round'-a KO so you could have 5,6,7 etc within 5 mins.
This is why we used to have 90 rounders etc
One chap even trained his bareknuckles by using an oak tree as a punchbag giving him 'Horny spikes' on his knuckles so as to inflict more damage.
I'll dig it out and let you know the name.
Great book
Thank me later
Love always
The Proffesor
Posted at the same Time Smashup !!

That fighter i believe you refer to is Tom Cribb!

He fought a legendary Black fighter Bill richman andl Tom Molynuex both Americans ( Spelling might be wrong )

Tom Cribb fought TM in a field in East Grinstead in West sussex the fight was mentioned on the front page of the Times all this whilst around the time of the battle of trafalgar.

Bill RIchmand was one of the 1st Black men to be Knighted and become a Lord .

The story has Holywood written all over it .