The First Superstar: Bareknuckles: John L. Sullivan

By Gary K. Weiand

The First Superstar tells how John L. Sullivan forged the link between media and sports by being such good copy that the papers of the 1880s couldn't help but report his every move. What Babe Ruth's homeruns were to baseball, Sullivan's knock-outs were to boxing, and Sullivan came first. The heavyweight title was created for him.

He toured the country at the then-fabulous total of $500 per night, routinely offering a thousand dollars to anyone who could last just four rounds. His country loved gentlemen, so he always insisted on gloves, which was protection against the law. Toasted, first in America, then around the world, he called Teddy Roosevelt and Prince Albert "friend."

The greatest fighting man ever, he tried to be the greatest drinker and profigate, too. After binging all day, he'd revive on his way to a fight, knock his opponent out as if he were a distraction, then head for the nearest bar. He'd slam down C-notes, buy drinks for the house, and leave the change. Between bars he'd scatter coins to the kids. Lines formed on his trains, because everyone knew he gave to anyone who asked.

But it caught up to him. Sick and broke, he agreed to an illegal bareknuckle fight to be held in New Orleans in July of 1889 against Jake Kilrain. It was got up by an editor who wanted to cook the drunk to death. He promptly went on a four month bender that left him totally unfit, with less than two months to go.

Only William Muldoon, a wrestling champion and the founder of the physical culture movement, could rescue him. Together they dominated America's front pages with its greatest story. The outlawed 72 round fight became legend, its popularity leading to the legalization of boxing. Muldoon became America's first fitness guru.

Sullivan returned to drinking, and infamously drew the color line against Peter Jackson, who might have become the first Black champ. Then, after touring for three years, he lost to Jim Corbett. Sullivan drank away a fortune, actually going bankrupt, but in the end became a temperance lecturer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 24, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462844081

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Copyright © 2008 by Gary K. Weiand.

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Contents

Chapter I

World, Meet John L. Sullivan

Chapter II

London Rules, the Fox, and Paddy Ryan

Chapter III

The Championship Belts and the Bottle

Chapter IV

A Fox Can Spring a Trap

Chapter V

William Muldoon, Wrestler

Chapter VI

The Training at Belfast

Chapter VII

Kilrain and Sullivan Take on the Law

Chapter VIII

The Great Bare-knuckle Fight at Richburg

Chapter IX

Aftermath: Trials, Tribulations, and a Tour

Chapter X

Peter Jackson and the World Title

Chapter XI

The Great Fight and Boxing History:

Appendix I

Governor Lowry Expresses His Feelings on Prizefighting

Appendix II

The Tribune and the Picayune discuss the fight in its Broader Implications

Appendix III

Ban Johnson describes round three

Appendix IV

A Little Quarrel Between Sullivan and Muldoon

Appendix V

Two letters from Teddy

Bibliography

A tilt or tournament, the martial diversion of our ancestors, was however an unlawful act; and so are boxing and swordplaying, the succeeding amusements of their posterity: and therefore, if a knight in the former case, or a gladiator in the latter, be killed, such killing is felony of manslaughter. But if the king command, or permit such diversions, it is said to be only misadventure; for then the act is lawful.

Commentaries on the Laws of England

Sir William Blackstone, Knt.

(13th ed., vol. IV., chapter 14.)

Chapter I

World, Meet John L. Sullivan

Modern American sports first flowered in the spring of 1889, when heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan,—after years of unprecedented adulation that had raised him to virtual godhood in the eyes of millions—abruptly realized that he faced imminent disgrace and irretrievable public ruin.

Seven years earlier he had emerged as the greatest boxer in history—and by such a margin that comparisons with the past were impossible. He became the living emblem of America as his contemporaries saw her—new, democratic, and fated for invincibility. In the process he inadvertently revolutionized a news industry that only slowly realized that readers actually wanted to read about this Irish ruffian.

But like many an athlete to come, Sullivan assumed he would never grow old. He set out to prove himself the biggest drinker in America, and by 1888 had pretty much done so. He remained unchallengeable—some thought because he insisted on the new-fangled Marquis of Queensberry boxing rules, which stipulated gloves and encouraged early knockouts.

Yet by the end of that year illness and alcohol had reduced him to a broken down drunk—and the news threatened to leak out to his public through the efforts of a newspaper publisher eager to force him into a bare-knuckles fight, an endurance contest no alcoholic could be expected to win. Sick, addicted to the bottle, and afraid for the first time in his life, he nonetheless rose from what many had thought his deathbed to accept the challenge.

At stake were his title, his honor, and, given the fact that he seriously believed himself to be a patriotic institution, his very life. He couldn’t mount a comeback because he hated to train, and no ordinary man could make him. Though most of the nation loved him to the point of idolatry, the memory of his legendary dissipation convinced millions that his health had been irretrievably lost.

Only one man, William Muldoon, had the necessary strength—of body, mind, and will—to rehabilitate him. Muldoon’s efforts to restore The Great John L. generated headlines for weeks, troubled the courts for over a year, and reshaped American sports forever.

The national frenzy awakened in 1889 by Sullivan’s crisis sold so many newspapers that the relationship between sports and media had to be entirely revamped. Once America’s editors learned how immense an audience thirsted for news of his every breath, they set themselves to creating the publicity process that now defines America as the land of the millionaire athlete.

The story proved too big to die, and reporters who never saw him fight pursued its consequences into the first third of the twentieth century. In the process the press created an official world heavyweight champion, America imposed a color line against black contenders for that prestigious title, and the inchoate physical culture movement found a leader who would help propel physical fitness into a national preoccupation.

The story began on a Friday night in Boston in 1880, where for sports-conscious men the Howard Atheneum hosted the event of the evening. A great middleweight, Mike Donovan, thirty-three and undefeated, was scheduled to conclude his series of scientific boxing exhibitions—glove fights held according to Marquis of Queensberry Rules—against the unknown Sullivan. To stay within the law banning prizefights Donovan would receive compensation for his appearance, but would fight no more than five rounds and would not receive an official winner’s purse. These limits differentiated legal boxing exhibitions from the illegal prizefights that the civilized world had banned.

For purposes of the law, prizefights meant fights held for a purse—and were legally synonymous with bareknuckle bouts conducted under the London Rules. These featured unlimited rounds (hence tonight’s five round limit) and existed solely for the benefit of gamblers. Decent Victorian folk—who dismissed prizefights as the barbarous and cruel entertainment of the debased classes, viewed exhibitions—safe, clean and well regulated—as healthy exercise for the athletically inclined cream of American society.

Donovan, nicknamed The Professor because of the education he frequently administered with his fists, stood in one corner. Knowing that his career must someday end, he meant to establish himself as the premier middleweight in North America; and to clinch that position he had scheduled a match in June with another top middleweight, George Rooke.

Though fighting with gloves tonight, the Professor had formerly fought bare-knuckles. A dozen years ago he’d ridden seventy-five uncomfortable train miles to a secret location for his first illegal finish fight, then slogged through drifted snow to a ring of hay-ricks. On that windy, snow-spitting December day, he and his opponent were often reduced to staring balefully at each other while slapping their sides to get some feeling, risking their lives to gratify a handful of drunken gamblers. In the thirty-third inane round Donovan threw his man so that they both knocked themselves silly on the frozen barnyard mud. The fight would have been drawn with all bets canceled, had not Donovan astounded all by retching his way back to center ring in time for round thirty-four—thus winning the bets for his backers.

That, thank God, was behind him—now Donovan was strictly a glove man, as close to the right side of the law as professional fighters could get. It was an easier life, and later proved smarter as well, for in 1883 the ultra-prestigious New York Athletic Club would hire him as its permanent boxing instructor. When star pupil Theodore Roosevelt left New York for the White House, he invited Donovan along as his personal sparring partner, and when the boxer died in 1918 (still undefeated middleweight bare-knuckle champion) club members reportedly seemed as much affected by his death as by World War I.

But on this night Donovan was still an active champion, accepting the all-male audiences’ cheers as does a man who stands at the height of his powers, and is confident that they will not soon fade.

Against him stood what he took for a typical overconfident bruiser, a big, arrogant, darkly handsome young man known as The Highland Strong Boy. They said that while still a teenager the Strong Boy used to show off by hoisting kegs of nails over his head, and rumor had it that he’d placed a derailed trolley on track single-handed, after six grown men together had failed. He played a good game of baseball and had the professionals eyeing him, which was fortunate, because he took to normal work like a wild stallion to a bucking strap.

By the time he was twenty, this boy had proven himself absolutely incapable of taking orders. After littering Boston with the broken remains of supervisors and fellow workers whom he’d imagined had crossed him, he began applying himself professionally to the manly art of self-defense. Colorful and in a small way a draw, his name was John Lawrence Sullivan, a man destined, though Donovan couldn’t have guessed it, to be the first and greatest sports superstar in American history.

Donovan hit with lightening quickness, landed combinations most men couldn’t even see, and counter punched with cruel accuracy. He possessed extraordinary courage and intelligence, plus such unsurpassed ring experience that not even the best heavyweights could say for certain they could beat him. Never in his life would he ever lose a bare-knuckle fight. Yet as soon as Sullivan learned Donovan was in town, he raced to his hotel in hopes of arranging a match, sped by the supreme self-confidence shared by idiocy and genius.

Donovan had opened his door to a raggedy young Irishman who rumbled a seemingly deferential request for pointers from the master. Touched, he invited Sullivan inside, where the visitor’s gruff charm quickly put them on familiar terms. But then Sullivan’s tone of adulation altered, as with touching candor he confided that Donovan now stood in the presence of the greatest heavyweight in the world—a fact of course largely unknown, because no one who’d seen him fight would get in a ring with him. Everyone in Boston was afraid of him. No one had the nerve to give him a shot. The kid neglected to exclude present company.

Donovan was too keen a competitor to miss the implicit challenge, too Irish to ignore a countryman, and too amused by Sullivan’s naive egotism to deny the request. This greenhorn boy had confessed to never having taken boxing lessons, yet here he was challenging Mike Donovan. This was rich. Everyone needed lessons. The Professor reserved the last night of the exhibition, which would draw the biggest crowd, for Sullivan, who bounded off in ecstasy while Donovan calmly lit a cigar.

On the great night Sullivan outweighed him by at least thirty pounds, which impressed Donovan less than the coronation of a Balkan prince. In 1880 there were only three weight classifications—lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight—and middleweights qualified to fight heavyweights by getting up to 158 pounds. They made the transition without batting an eye, expecting to compensate for lack of size with speed and stamina. Jem Mace, the last universally recognized heavyweight champion (before gambling and the law sent that division to hell), rarely weighed over 160 pounds; nonetheless, he spent a decade battering big awkward tanks into burned-out hulks. His career convinced authorities that the ideal weight for heavyweights was 165.

Donovan, if he gave it a thought at all, must have believed that he held every advantage, because Sullivan seemed much too big to move quickly. No one his size ever had. Everyone knew that big equaled ponderous.

This was the first time Donovan had seen his opponent stripped. Sullivan wasn’t overly tall, maybe 5’11," but his powerful body seemed much bigger than it had in street clothes. Sullivan glowed in the full flower of his youth, unmarked by the years of fights and dissipation to come. His upper torso stuck out, amazingly thick and strong, with little division between chest and stomach, yet without a speck of fat—and his muscled and light legs looked strung for speed. His arms were thick and smooth, not bulging, and the shoulders were round, sloped, and powerful. Combined with massive upper back muscles and connected by an obviously flexible system, they were as war-worthy as two catapults loaded with boulders.

But Donovan was confident that the boulders wouldn’t land, because psychology decides fights as much as brawn, and he who intimidates his rival has already scored the moral equivalent of a knockdown. However fine a physical specimen Sullivan might be, he remained an inexperienced boy meeting greatness. Fear of failure would make him tentative and mistake-prone, an unwitting human sacrifice for the Professor to offer up to the gods of self-promotion. He would embarrass Sullivan by planting a few hard ones on his big Irish face, dance away, punch again, move away, whirl in and out and step side to side, always keeping out of reach, until the giant grew flustered. When Sullivan lashed out in confused fury he would be wide open to a barrage of counter punches, and Donovan would be as the matador to the spent bull. A comparatively merciful matador, no doubt, as this was only an exhibition.

Donovan shot a pro forma glare across the ring. The bell rang, and he advanced confidently into the face of a man who suddenly resembled a ferocious onrushing tiger. He got one punch home, then ducked as a right fist the size of a baked ham whistled past his jaw. An equally porcine left followed, then a smorgasbord of wild lefts and rights delivered with a force he’d never seen or even imagined. He hit back and connected, but his razor sharp punches seemed to just bounce off. Sullivan remained totally committed to the attack, and every black-eyed inch of him quivered in anticipation of knocking Mike Donovan clean out of the ring.

At once, the Professor made a great and unpleasant discovery. Sullivan was fast, much faster than any big man Donovan had ever seen, faster than most middleweights—and he was also by far the strongest man Donovan had ever met. His rush, which continued pell-mell around the ring for the entire round, negated Donovan’s attack and kept him, for all his science, on the defensive. Sullivan threw punches down like Indian clubs, and when a glancing blow finally landed across Donovan’s shoulders and head he nearly fell flat. For now there could be no thought of trading blows with this behemoth—here was the most dangerous antagonist Donovan had ever met, and, exhibition or no exhibition, that man meant to knock him out.

Later Donovan recalled the next few rounds as the hardest fighting of his life, for Sullivan never stopped swinging and punished even while missing. The Professor decided to run and jab until the wild man wore himself out, after which the temporarily postponed sacrifice could proceed as scheduled. After all, no big man could possibly keep up with a smaller one, especially when he was expending so much energy. But the end of round two found both panting, Donovan exhausted from fending off the onslaught, Sullivan from delivering it.

Donovan assumed that as the smaller man he would recover faster, and in round three stood up and fought toe to toe with the theoretically tiring Sullivan. This proved a major miscalculation. John might have been surprised to find an opponent still standing after two rounds, but it would have taken ninety more to tire him out. His punches were neither well aimed nor timed, but they didn’t need to hit flush to do damage. A wild roundhouse right that missed its target smashed against the back of Donovan’s head, knocked him on his face, broke his nose and right wrist, and dislocated a thumb.

Donovan picked himself up and fought frantically with his left, still poking away at John’s face, but powerless to win. For the rest of the fight he relied on cunning while John L. stormed and thundered around the ring like an aroused Thor subduing malevolent Frost Giants. Donovan took other heavy punches and saw stars, but gained the courtesy of a draw by keeping his feet as the fight ended.

The great Mike Donovan, and he was truly great, had not only failed to beat an inexperienced kid, but had also been reduced to a bloody mess with half of Boston looking on. Technically it had been a draw, but Sullivan had broken his bones and very nearly knocked him out. Sure, he had been ambushed by a man who planned to turn their scheduled exhibition into a real fight, but things like that happen in boxing and are no excuse for losing.

To a great competitor this was all very depressing. But as he remembered what it had been like in the ring with Sullivan, the Professor appreciated that what had nearly run him over was history. What a fighter Sullivan was, what an incredible natural talent! I have just fought a draw, he told himself, with the coming heavyweight champion of the world.

Too damaged to train for the Rooke fight, which he had to cancel, Donovan returned to New York full of Bunyanesque stories of a young Irishman destined to be the greatest fighter of all time. Everyone knew that Donovan had a high regard for his own abilities, so when he admitted that an untrained young slugger had nearly decapitated him two young men listened—Billy Madden, a lightweight contender, and William Muldoon, the Graeco-Roman wrestling champion. Muldoon accompanied Madden to Boston to manage the young phenom, prophetically advertising him as The coming champion of America.

Madden quickly arranged another exhibition against an old war horse past forty, Joe Goss, North America’s last officially recognized bare-knuckle heavyweight champion. Public apathy and ring corruption had made his title meaningless, but Goss was still considered a formidable fighter, so much so that Richard Fox had scheduled him to fight Paddy Ryan a few months hence to reconstitute the American title (in the event, Goss would acquit himself very well). This appearance in Boston (April 6) was only a benefit for an old star. Goss and Sullivan planned to spar for a few rounds without inflicting damage on each other.

Since John L. was a very generous man he planned no surprises, understanding that it was just some fund raising for an old fighter nearing retirement. Round one passed peacefully. But in round two the old warrior got frisky and foolishly aroused John from his noble pacifism with a smashing right to the face, a mistake he never repeated. Stung to homicidal fury by Goss’ indiscretion, John metamorphosed from gentleman companion to wrathful god and pummeled the guest of honor with complete disregard for his gray hairs. Goss bounced and reeled around the ring for a few painful seconds before landing flat on his back.

Many at ringside had missed Goss’ punch and booed Sullivan lustily, worrying his handlers, who cautioned him that this was supposed to be a benefit for nice Mr. Goss and not his funeral. They underrated Sullivan. Completely unabashed at being the villain, John raised his hands and his mysterious self-assurance seemed to compel silence.

Don’t worry, gentlemen, he declared, I ain’t going to hurt Mr. Goss, I’m hitting him as easy as I can.

Still woozy from a punch that felt like the kick of a mule, Goss lingered in a corner where he felt understood for several minutes and, upon reemerging made no move more aggressive than a stumble. His complete demolition had required mere seconds.

Since Donovan remained incapacitated, Sullivan inherited the Rooke match, a prizefight masquerading as a legal exhibition by using Queensberry Rules. That was how to stay out of legal trouble in 1880—put on gloves, pretend no intent to do bodily harm, and be discreet about the money. There was confusion about the law, and the police usually gave fighters the benefit of the doubt. Even if they didn’t you at least had a defense in court. Intent is difficult to prove in the absence of definite stakes. Many a genuine exhibition turned hot, as had the Donovan-Sullivan match. Who could tell the difference?

The Donovan-Rooke fight carried a (thinly disguised) five hundred-dollar purse, but without Donovan it was John L. Sullivan who climbed into the ring on June 28, 1880. Rooke was supposedly very good, but before the authorities stopped the slaughter John had knocked him down seven times and pounded him clean over the ropes twice. It took two rounds. The spectators were electrified, but wise Professor Donovan was hardly surprised. In describing his own fight with the Highland Strong Boy the Professor said, It wasn’t like boxing, it was like being hit by a runaway horse.

For the next several months John seemed only an extraordinary young athlete. His next significant match was in December when he fought John Donaldson, Champion of the West, in Cincinnati. In their first match Donaldson quit after a disastrous start, pleading that he’d had no idea how good Sullivan was and needed more time to prepare. After a couple of weeks they met again in a match later described under oath as a foot race. Donaldson managed to stay ahead until round ten, when Sullivan knocked him out.

The next day the law hauled John into court for prizefighting, but fortunately the presiding judge had attended the fight. After listening to Sullivan’s counsel contend that that there had been no fight but only a race, the judge obligingly ruled that the alleged prizefight had in fact been a foot race, at the finish of which Donaldson had accidentally knocked himself cold. Court was adjourned in favor of champagne for everyone in a nearby tavern.

On December 9, 1880, John followed up by making the following challenge to the new heavyweight champion through the Cincinnati Enquirer:

To the Editor of the Enquirer: I am prepared to make a match to fight any Man breathing, for any sum from one thousand Dollars to ten thousand dollars at catch weights. [No weight limits.] This challenge is especially directed to Paddy Ryan and will remain open for a month if he should not see fit to accept it.

Respectfully yours,

John L. Sullivan

Nothing came of this gambit, so John spent early 1881 fighting exhibitions with Goss, who had just lost to Paddy Ryan in the fight that recreated the American heavyweight championship. Since John could have destroyed Goss in seconds, he considered himself the rightful champion, and those hardy few who did challenge him took the beatings that he intended for Ryan. One giant of a man known as the Champion of Canada quit in the second round, so enraging Sullivan, who considered fisticuffs the truest test of manhood, that he kicked the coward off the stage.

In March, Madden and Muldoon got him a big break in New York City at Harry Hill’s bar, the leading sports establishment in America. John, though virtually penniless, astounded New York by promising fifty dollars to anyone who could last four rounds with him. A pro named Steve Taylor answered the challenge, and John’s New York debut became a smashing success when Taylor went down in the second round. This was vital to Sullivan’s career, for then as now prominence in New York meant more than prominence anywhere else.

His popularity increased as he unaffectedly passed the hat for the fallen fighter and tossed in his own fifty dollars, the first manifestation in New York of a generosity that became legendary. The city’s sporting circles were as overcome by John’s massive talent as Mike Donovan had been, and witnesses to the ease of his triumph prepared to inaugurate a new champion.

But at that point something so extraordinary happened that John ceased being merely an extremely talented fighter and began to emerge as America’s first superstar. He was sitting at a table in Harry Hill’s tavern, boasting about what he would do to Paddy Ryan if the champion ever got up the nerve to fight him. Hill’s tavern attracted fighters and wrestlers, who performed there for elite drinkers as well as the sloshed flotsam of New York. If you were hunting the elephant (slumming) in 1881, Harry Hill’s was the first place to go—it was the most famous concert saloon (reformers would have called it a hell) in New York. It stood east of Broadway on West Houston Street, and its proprietor enforced what passed for decorum with his fists. Hill ran a wicked place where men had to shout out their orders immediately upon entering, and keep ordering after every dance session. Notorious female waiters, his main attraction, served the tables, while entertainers, including fighters, performed on stage.

As the best establishment of its disreputable kind, Harry Hill’s clientele included at various times P. T. Barnum, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Edison, and the Reverend T. Dewitt Talmadge. One such distinguished person led a group of young men to a table near Sullivan. Richard Kyle Fox was a self-made millionaire, publisher of the National Police Gazette (which had just emerged as the nation’s leading sports paper), and Paddy Ryan’s chief backer. He owned the championship Sullivan coveted, because he owned Paddy Ryan. Slender, dapper, beautifully mustachioed, top hatted and silver-caned, he exuded gentlemanly assurance that other men would obey him, which those who accompanied him always did. He meant to add Sullivan to his collection of sycophants and anticipated no problem in making the acquisition.

Fox noticed Sullivan—John was hard to miss anywhere but especially in a bar—and decided that it was time to meet the sensation from Boston who seemed Ryan’s natural challenger.

That was how fights were made—over drinks at Harry Hill’s—and certainly Sullivan knew it. So his golden opportunity had arrived, or so it seemed. But though still a young man and newly come to wealth, Fox had already learned to affect a gentlemanly