For most of the 19th century the sport of boxing was not really considered a sport so much as an outlawed activity. There were no professional fighters until late in the century, when the boxer John L. Sullivan became so popular that it was possible to find financial backing for matches.

Prior to Sullivan's emergence on the scene, fights tended to be scraps organized by neighborhood political bosses or outright gangsters.

And the battles were brutal affairs conducted with bare fists, with the matches going on for many rounds.

The London Rules

Most boxing matches of the early 1800s were conducted under the "London Rules," which were based on a set of rules laid down by an English boxer, Jack Broughton, in 1743. The basic premise of the Broughton Rules, and the subsequent London Prize Ring Rules, were that a round in a fight would last until a man went down. And there was a 30-second rest period between each round.

Following the rest period, each fighter would have eight seconds to come to what was known as the "scratch line" in the middle of the ring. The fight would end when one of the fighters could not stand, or could not make it to the scratch line.

Theoretically there was no limit to the number of rounds fought, so fights could go on for dozens of rounds. And because the fighters punched with bare hands, they could break their own hands by attempting knock-out punches to their opponent's heads. So matches tended to be long battles of endurance.

Marquess of Queensberry Rules

A change in rules occurred in the 1860s in England. An aristocrat and sportsman, John Douglas, who held the title of the Marquess of Queensberry, developed a set of rules based on the use of padded gloves. The new rules came into use in the United States in the 1880s.