Bare-knuckle fighting: Tom Sayers vs John Heenan

This edited article about sport originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 952 published on 19 April 1980.

Bare-knuckle fighters

Excited crowds, among whom were clergymen, magistrates, MPs and famous novelists, gathered outside Farnborough in Hampshire in 1860. They were there to see what has been described as the greatest bare-knuckle battle of the prize ring.

So keen were MPs to see the fight that they are said to have left the House of Commons empty and deserted.

The battlers were a little Englishman, Tom Sayers, and the giant-sized American champion, John Heenan. Sayers was probably the most famous of the old-time pugilists.

Early in the morning of 17th April, the two men started the torrent of blows that was to continue for 37 rounds. In a frenzy, the crowd called for more. But Sayers was covered in blood and had a useless right arm. Heenan could barely see through his badly swollen eyes. And his battered right arm was useless. Heenan ran for his life from the bloodthirsty mob, and the fight was abandoned as a draw.

Sayers lived only five more years and was buried in Highgate cemetery, London, where a monument was erected to his memory.