Tom Hyer vs. Yankee Sullivan: The First American Championship Fight
The rise of boxing as a popular sport coincided with the radical, democratizing shifts of the emerging modern world. By the late 18th century, the power of monarchy had forever been weakened by the English Civil War and the revolutions in the United States and France. The traditional position of the nobility was being jostled by the rise of the mercantile elite. The rise of industry was transforming much of the peasant rural class into urban laborers.
Boxing created a space where the old class divisions were both undermined and reified. The prize rings and sparring rooms were places of radical meritocracy and democracy, where a man stood stripped of all social distinction and was judged solely on his innate qualities and character. Coal porters and mechanics rubbed shoulders and traded punches with sons of the aristocracy in a mood of rough-spirited revelry. At the same time, through patronage and subscription to winner’s purses, the gentry could follow their tradition of currying favor with the rabble through acts of largesse.
The father of English boxing, James Figg, counted many men of noble birth among the students at his academy. As his student Captain Godfrey noted in his Treatise on the Defensive Arts, Figg handed out beatings without regard to class or station.
Figg’s immediate heir to the English title , Jack Broughton, established the first official code of rules for boxing, removing some of the more blood-thirsty practices such as eye-gouging and kicking downed opponents (known as “purring,” no doubt for the sound a human being often makes after being knocked unconscious). Broughton also instituted the use of “mufflers,” or gloves, for sparring sessions, to further make the practice more inviting to gentlemen who didn’t want to bruise or damage their hands. Broughton was patronized by the Earl of Cumberland, second eldest son to King George II, and even became a member of the royal entourage, serving as a personal body guard to the king when he toured the continent.
Boxing stars of the late 18th and early 19th century, such as “Gentleman” John Jackson and the African-American ex-pat, Bill Richmond, earned healthy incomes and social distinction as professors to the sons of the gentry and other economic elites. The famed poet Lord Byron was a student of both men. Publications like Pierce Egan’s Boxiciana and Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Times celebrated the prize ring and the mixing of social classes that made up “the Fancy.”
But in the United States, a nation founded on the principles of Republican Democracy, Enlightenment ideals and Protestant virtues, prizefighting struggled for decades to achieve anything like a mainstream appeal. Wrestling was a natural past-time of rugged farm boys and “rough-and-tumble,” any-thing-goes brawling provided both entertainment and resolution of disputes among the tough men of the frontier. But as an organized sport, with any kind of public presence, prizefighting simply didn’t exist. American newspapers occasionally reprinted stories from English papers about fights held over there, usually prefaced with editorial comments expressing disapproval. In 1816 in New York, a fight was held under Broughton’s Rules between Jacob Hyer and Tom Beasley. It’s the first “official” boxing match known to have been held in America. But mentions of boxing are sporadic in the records of American life for decades following.
To thought leaders in the young Republic, prizefighting represented the bloody excess of the old world. It conjured images of an idle, disreputable nobility corrupting the working class; of reckless gambling and slothful, drunken cavorting in taverns, rather than a productive life of contribution. In the United States, rich and poor alike were expected to labor hard and strive toward becoming respectable citizens in a participatory democracy.
But just as the urbanization and industrialization of England drove boxing’s popularity, similar circumstances led to the inevitable rise of the sport in the United States. Immigrants from Ireland and other nations filled the festering ghettos of New York, creating a rugged breed of working class men who had little concern or interest in the high-minded scolding of such Anglo-American intellectuals as Horace Greeley.
A tour of the United States by English champion James “Deaf” Burke in the 1830s was widely popular. By the start of the 1840s, the popularity of boxing was surging.
The scandalous nature surrounding early bare-knuckle boxing was intensified by its close connection to the gangs of ruffians who were associated with the rival political factions who used street-level muscle and intimidation to contest for control. The early years of prizefighting in the United States read like the real-life version of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Daniel Day Lewis’ character, “Butcher” Bill Cutting, was directly inspired by “Butcher” Bill Poole, a street-tough and leader of the “Bowery Boys” and chief enforcer for the “Native Americans, ” who fought Irish gangs backed by Tammany Hall in the streets, in order to seize control of ballot stations on election days.
Poole was a close associate of Tom Hyer, the first recognized American champion. Poole was murdered in 1855, most likely on the orders of John Morrissey, the man who won Hyer’s title. Morrissey was the leader of the “Dead Rabbits.” He was a self-educated man who made a fortune running gambling houses, played a central role in developing Saratoga as a premier vacation town and eventually served two terms in the United States Congress. In one History Channel documentary, Morrissey was also referred to as America’s first Irish mob boss.
Tom Hyer was the son of the previously mentioned Jacob. While Poole was recognized as the toughest street fighter among the Native Americans, Hyer was the groups’ champion for the prize ring. Meanwhile, the Irish factions associated with Tammany Hall rallied around the colorful Yankee Sullivan.
Sullivan was born as James Ambrose in Ireland and moved to England as a youth, where he began a career as a prizefighter and minor criminal. At the age of 25, he was shipped to the penal colony in Australia. Eventually he traveled back to England under the assumed name of Yankee Sullivan. He issued an open challenge in Bell’s Life in London, the era’s primary periodical for boxing and horse racing. After defeating the highly regarded Hammer Lane, Sullivan sailed to the United States, where his prizefighting reputation proceeded him.
Sullivan defeated an Englishman named Vincent Hammond in Philadelphia in 1841, creating a wild surge of enthusiasm among the Irish communities throughout the Northeast. Sullivan’s friend, John McCleester, was inspired by Sullivan’s victory to challenge Hyer and the two fought along the Hudson, just above the city. McCleester showed tremendous game, but was decisively over-matched. Hyer punished him for 101 rounds and over two hours, before Sullivan himself convinced McCleester to throw in the towel.
The stage was set for a thrilling showdown between Sullivan and Hyer. Yet,the fight itself went years without being made. Much like the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao drama of our own time, continual squabbles over terms delayed the fight for most of a decade. Even more dramatically, the death of Tom McCoy following his loss to Chris Lilly in 1842 led to a more vigorous enforcement of the laws against prizefighting.
But the partisan conflict both men represented only intensified during the 1840s, as tens of thousands more Irish immigrants settled in America. Demand for the fight never really waned. Sullivan’s 12-minute rout of Englishman Robert Caunt in 1847 drove enthusiasm to an all-time high. An impromptu bar-room brawl between Hyer and Sullivan took place in 1848, with Hyer getting the best of it. In the wake of their scrap, street toughs on both sides of the rivalry threatened to turn the streets of New York into a battlefield. If for no other reason than to provide a relief valve for the simmering unrest, a proper prizefight between Sullivan and Hyer became inevitable.
The Sullivan-Hyer fight was an illegal event and a proxy for the partisan street fighting bloodying cities throughout the Northeast. Yet it also provided the architecture for future high-profile boxing matches. The terms and rules for the conflict were clearly spelled out in cool, legalistic language — everything from the stakes ($10,000 a side) to the naming of umpires and referees, to the use of the London Prize Rules. The exact location and date could not be listed, due to the illegal nature of the event. But it was agreed that the battle would take place within six months. Both men withdrew for formal training camps, which were covered in great detail by the press.
The fight was set to take place in Maryland, but like many famous fights of the bare-knuckle era, the actual staging of the Sullivan-Hyer fight involved a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the authorities, as word of the fight’s location was passed carefully among gamblers and other members of the fancy, and multiple last-minute changes in venue were required to remain a step ahead of the authorities. At one point, friends of both men gave themselves up to law enforcement, passing themselves off as Sullivan and Hyer, in order to allow the combatants to escape so that the fight could go on.
The fight itself was hard-fought, but does not rank among the first order of classic ring wars. Hyer enjoyed a large advantage in size, standing about 5'11” and weighting nearly 200 pounds. Sullivan was the size of a modern middleweight, standing about 5'8” and weighing around 160 pounds. He had hoped to use a perceived advantage in technical ability, particularly on the grappling side, to weaken the bigger man by way of hard throws. When this proved ineffective, Hyer was able to use his reach advantage to deliver a mostly one-sided drubbing to Sullivan. The Irish hero fought gamely and for several minutes, the exchanges were bitter. Hyer’s corner men were forced to lance beneath his right eye, to prevent it from swelling shut. But within 18 minutes, the smaller man was bloody and swollen, and too weak to continue.
All the way back from Chesapeake Bay to New York City, Hyer was greeted and cheered by large crowds that lined the streets of cities and towns for victory parades. The first undisputed American Champion had been crowned. Prizefighting, legal or not, was entrenched for good within the popular culture of the United States.
