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You May Fight With a Limp, but Fight You Should

John L. Sullivan had tried various careers to make a living, but he found all the vocations he encountered unfavorable. His mother wanted him to be a priest, but his personal choice for making a living was to do so with his fists. As a young man, he was arrested a number of times for boxing in places where it was outlawed; as a teenager, he would fight in Boston barrooms, claiming boldly that he could “lick any man in the house;” and he actually went on tour offering money to people who would fight him. He was known as The Boston Strongboy, and during one tour across the U.S. between 1883 and 1884 was able to knock out eleven men. He lost only once his entire career.

Perhaps his most famous match came on July 8, 1889, where he fought a man named Jake Kilrain. Before this time, he had been out of practice, choosing not to box for over a year. He not only stopped training and boxing, but became so sick that he was bedridden for months in 1888. Partly because of this, he was completely out of shape and overweight. Many people thought he was washed up, that he was no longer the fighter he had once been. One New York newspaper said his legs would fail him after only 20 minutes, even though he was a slight favorite to win. The actual fight was scheduled for 80 rounds and lasted 75 (well over two hours) under a sweltering Mississippi sun (it was reported to be 104 degrees in the shade, and both fighters were burned red by the sun). Both men were beaten. Kilrain had a split lip, he had welts all along one side of his body, he had a broken nose, and his eye was swollen shut. After every round, despite the beating he had taken (he had a black eye and he was bleeding), Sullivan refused to sit. Instead, he stood in his corner while his rival rested in his. After 75 rounds, a doctor told Sullivan’s opponents that their man would die if he continued fighting, so Kilrain’s coach threw in the towel, and Sullivan again won, despite the heat, the injuries, and the criticism. This was, in addition, the last boxing match fought without boxing gloves. Thereafter, all matches would be played under the more humane Queensbury rules, which required gloves.

To me, Sullivan is an example of someone whose signal story is one in which an imperfect person defies the odds and proves to himself and others that he's capable of more than what others thought. I can't speak for Sullivan's valor or character outside the ring, but inside it, his story shines as an example of an underdog; and frankly, underdogs are just cool.

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