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Originally posted by Willie Pep 229
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As far as precedence though, I've a bit of a story but I think I now the first time.
In Figg's era champion meant more like representative than best. Figg represented English boxing when he fought a bare knuckle contest, he was more of a showman, like a fair act or vaudeville act, or maybe even a bit WWE might be fair to say in that Figg was the teacher of English boxing and what he was using those shows for was to sell his training. So as a well renown and nearly unbeaten duelist of broadsword, quarterstaff, cudgel and fist Figg took on untrained strongmen and the sort. Figg as a duelist was amazing but as a boxer and champion he's really more like a dojo sensei than a champion from any other era. He had no interest in legitimate fights during his time promoting boxing as the English martial art.
In Venice they were doing their bridge wars and by the 1720s weapons had fallen out of fashion for a few hundred years and because of Venetian wars their numbers had dwindled so they had turned to duels on the bridges rather than all out gang wars. Often rich folks and nobles would hire what they called li honorati which is what it sounds like, honored fighters, as their gondoliers.
The first time one of these gondoliers made his way into testing Figg's boxing Figg renounced his ability to fight a well trained fighter and put his pupil in place. Figg was still boxing's champion in that he represented boxing knowledge, which is why almost no one recognizes Whitaker as an English champion and jump straight to Broughton. Bob Whitaker was the champion, in that he represented England and Figg in the match against the gondolier but Figg was still seen as the man who knew boxing so fellas at CBZ keep Figg as champion through some years when other men were fighting for him.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying Whitaker was the champion, I'm saying everyone in his era used that term to refer to representation, including when they covered his fights.Champion = best comes kind of late actually but hell so does man who beat the man.
Anyway Robert beats up the Venetian then Figg takes the stage to immediately embarrass Whitaker by telling the crowd to come back in a few weeks and they will see their English champion toppled by an even finer example of Figg's training.
Weeks pass and a fella named Nathan Peartree actually beats the dog **** out of Bobby.
Peartree would suffer a similar fate being bested by yet another Figg student in John Gritton.
Our first pupil-champion comes back hard and not only beats Gritton, but, Bob Whitaker killed the man in the ring.
With Whitaker's victory he retired from live fighting for money and took a managerial role in Figg's venue.
This left a vacancy for Figg's best student. Tom Pipes, Bill Gretting, George Taylor, and Jack Broughton looked to fill that vacancy. I'll just let these records speak for themselves, keep in mind there are 0 fights for any of these men inbetween.
1729
Gretting defeats Pipes
Pipes defeats Gretting
1730
Gretting defeats Pipes
Pipes defeats Gretting
1732
Gretting defeats Pipes
1733
Pipes defeats Gretting x2
1734
Broughton beats Pipes x2
1734
Taylor beats Gretting
1734-5
Broughton defeats Gretting x2
1736
Broughton beats Taylor
Then CBZ goes with Slack after Broughton but Broughton had retired and during his retirement Taylor fought out of Broughton's academy, was seen as champion, and beat Slack in his bid for the title. Then Broughton came out of retirement and reclaimed the title only to lose to Slack months after Taylor had beaten him.
Taylor himself retires in 1751 but also does what Broughton did and unretired and claimed the championship.
So by 1757 Taylor had a claim to being the champion. He beat a guy called Tom Faulkner, twice of course because folks loved rematches then Taylor would lose the third fight with Faulkner in 1758
All that to explain from 1729 - 1758, damn near 30 years, most title fights in boxing were immediate rematches.
Willie Pep 229
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