What was the catalyst that helped make boxing widely popular in the states?

[Ivich]

- - Rector acting as an agent for Edison as he also did for the Maher fight. Edison did the distribution of the fight. Maher fight was filmed, but has never been released to the public no matter the weather conditions and doubtless lost by now forever like most of the Corbett fight...duh.

OK, U can cite all the ABCs til' the cows come home.

Listen you cretin,there were three bidders for the right to film the Corbett v Fitzsimmons fight.
Edison, Vitascope ,and Rector, EJ Rector won the bidding and then bought out Corbett and Fitz's shares of the film, rights. for $13,000 each.
I think you actually know this is true,but can't bring yourself to admit you were wrong,it doesn't matter its easily proved by the primary sourced contemporary newspapers,contained in Pollack's book on Fitzsimmons.
I can cite all the proof I need you're exactly right on that one! And that's the only thing I've ever seen you be right on! lol
The Fitz Maher fight was not filmed .Stick to trying to be amusing, because you embarrass yourself when you attempt to debate with the adults here.

It was Rector who tried to film the Maher v Fitzsimmons fight not Edison as the information below clearly states ,as well as the reason it was not filmed.


Boxer

Born at Helston, Cornwall, the distinctively freckled Bob Fitzsimmons moved to New Zealand as a boy. His first fights were in New Zealand and Australia, but he moved to America in 1890, defeating Jack 'Nonpareil' Dempsey to become world middleweight champion in 1891. He worked his way up to heavyweight bouts, knocking out Peter Maher, briefly Jim Corbett's successor as world champion, in the first round on 21 February 1896 (dark skies and rain had already ruined Enoch Rector's attempt to film the fight) before challenging Jim Corbett for the world championship at Carson City, Nevada on 17 March 1897. The film of this match, covering all fourteen rounds before Fitzsimmons knocked out Corbett, was taken by Enoch Rector for the Veriscope Company and aroused considerable interest and controversy, being shown widely throughout the States and abroad. For two years after his victory Fitzsimmons controversially fought no-one but instead toured the country with his theatre company. When he returned to the ring it was to lose to James Jeffries in 1899. Fitzsimmons fought on, becoming world light heavyweight champion in 1903, later fought Jack Johnson, before retiring and returning to the stage.




Veriscope was an early film studio which produced The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), directed by Enoch J. Rector.

Veriscope was a large, human-powered camera created by Enoch Rector. The camera operators were inside the camera, which was a tight wooden structure.^[1]

The term is also used for the widescreen 63mm film format used to produce this feature film, which was about 100 minutes long.

[QueensburyRules]

Listen you cretin,there were three bidders for the right to film the Corbett v Fitzsimmons fight.
Edison, Vitascope ,and Rector, EJ Rector won the bidding and then bought out Corbett and Fitz's shares of the film, rights. for $13,000 each.
I think you actually know this is true,but can't bring yourself to admit you were wrong,it doesn't matter its easily proved by the primary sourced contemporary newspapers,contained in Pollack's book on Fitzsimmons.
I can cite all the proof I need you're exactly right on that one! And that's the only thing I've ever seen you be right on! lol
The Fitz Maher fight was not filmed .Stick to trying to be amusing, because you embarrass yourself when you attempt to debate with the adults here.

It was Rector who tried to film the Maher v Fitzsimmons fight not Edison as the information below clearly states ,as well as the reason it was not filmed.


Boxer

Born at Helston, Cornwall, the distinctively freckled Bob Fitzsimmons moved to New Zealand as a boy. His first fights were in New Zealand and Australia, but he moved to America in 1890, defeating Jack 'Nonpareil' Dempsey to become world middleweight champion in 1891. He worked his way up to heavyweight bouts, knocking out Peter Maher, briefly Jim Corbett's successor as world champion, in the first round on 21 February 1896 (dark skies and rain had already ruined Enoch Rector's attempt to film the fight) before challenging Jim Corbett for the world championship at Carson City, Nevada on 17 March 1897. The film of this match, covering all fourteen rounds before Fitzsimmons knocked out Corbett, was taken by Enoch Rector for the Veriscope Company and aroused considerable interest and controversy, being shown widely throughout the States and abroad. For two years after his victory Fitzsimmons controversially fought no-one but instead toured the country with his theatre company. When he returned to the ring it was to lose to James Jeffries in 1899. Fitzsimmons fought on, becoming world light heavyweight champion in 1903, later fought Jack Johnson, before retiring and returning to the stage.




Veriscope was an early film studio which produced The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), directed by Enoch J. Rector.

Veriscope was a large, human-powered camera created by Enoch Rector. The camera operators were inside the camera, which was a tight wooden structure.^[1]

The term is also used for the widescreen 63mm film format used to produce this feature film, which was about 100 minutes long.

- - I'll just start with I've never been so ****** as to claim Edison filmed the Maher fight...duh!

Rector did, and your source does not indicate any other result. The bout was an hour before twilight in alternating gray mist and sunshine. A rainbow broke out over the the Rio Grande at the time of the fight. Maybe dreary Brits never seen a rainbow much less a Texas rainbow, but after over a month of being yanked here and there in El Paso under the guard of the heavily armed Texas Rangers and Texas Militia with shoot to kill orders, it's the height of Monte Python to think the fight wasn't filmed. Since this was a first effort in uncertain conditions, not a stretch to think the film was not serviceable enough to be released and was filmed over as happened all through the pathetic history of Hollywood. No matter, nothing about the film has surfaced near as I know. Rector returned to El Paso at the request of El Presidente Diaz to film a bull fight in Juarez under more favorable conditions, but nothing of that film survives to my knowledge either.

And my library is a lot bigger than Pollack's and your's combined and certainly not confined to the low brow history of boxing.

Y'er welcome!

[Willow The Wisp]

Pretty good toe to toe between the knowledgeable Ivich, my buddy, and the worthy when he allows himself to be QueensburyRules. If I get into a set-to like that because I'm defending a long held belief of mine or my sources have been corrected, I simply absorb it as a leaning opportunity. That's not always easy of course. Pivoting back to the question posed by thread starter Rockin'1, and prefacing that the question calls for an opinion, really; I call it the epic Heenan-Sayers fight of April 17, 1860.
The tall, muscular John Camel Heenan challenged the far more experienced English Champion looking every bit the bold, brawny American that was increasingly admired and envied the world over.
This was a transatlantic showdown of massive importance attended by the likes of Charles ****ens, WM Thackeray, Prime minister Lord Palmerston, several members of Parliament, the Duke of Sutherland (upon whose property the bout was staged), the Marquis of Stafford, and even Colonel Peel whose policemen were the ones trying to stop the bout from going ahead; and of course; the Prince of Wales himself. It marked the beginnings of the next round of rules change for boxing, as John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry sponsored the "Dozen Rules", written by John Graham Chambers and drawn up by the London Amateur Athletic Club, and later accepted by parliament, as a result of this fight. It marked also the beginning of the end of British dominance in Boxing, coinciding with Britain ceding leadership in steel production, manufacturing output, scientific development, as well as military and economic strength to their former colony in the years that followed. Following their bloody Civil War between the North and the South, the American century would quickly commence.
Boxing's center resides, be it Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, England or the United States, in the place of world leadership. As to whether or not Tyson Fury's emergence will reestablish the Empire; we shall have to wait and see.

[Willie Pep 229]

Catalyst: a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.

Catalysts of prize fighting:

1. ATHLETIC CLUBS: Embracement of Muscular Christianity and along with various forms of conditioning, the martial art of boxing.

2. MOTION PICTURES: The box office success of the Fitzsimmons-Corbett fight.

3. JACK JOHNSON'S BLACK SKIN: Social controversy making Johnson-Jeffries the first nationally embraced prize fight, i.e. the first fight the century.'

3. RADIO: Dempsey-Firpo becoming the first 'day after water cooler moment at work' as radio allowed the excitement to be experienced first hand by millions.

4. JOE LOUIS: Louis-Schmeling II, the second fight of the century; prize fighting became synonymous with national pride and a Champion symbolic of national prowess (all on the eve of WWII).

5. TELEVISION: Prize fighting, unlike circular baseball and linear football, was perfectly suited to the small square screen and the immobile cameras used to film it. Sold millions of TV sets and every network carried fights every week.

6. PAY TV (PPV): As with all the other audio-visual technological innovations boxing was the first to deploy it successfully, creating opportunities for $100 million plus 'gates.'

7. ALI: The charisma and controversy that was Muhammad Ali.

Nothing important since then.

BUST OUTS:

Women's boxing and the attempt to promote prize fighting as an athletic event, i.e. a sport, (has driven an entire generation into the hands of MMA, where they realize that it is unarmed combat that sells tickets, an not punch counting boxing.)

[Rockin'1]

Catalyst: a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.

Catalysts of prize fighting:

1. ATHLETIC CLUBS: Embracement of Muscular Christianity and along with various forms of conditioning, the martial art of boxing.

2. MOTION PICTURES: The box office success of the Fitzsimmons-Corbett fight.

3. JACK JOHNSON'S BLACK SKIN: Social controversy making Johnson-Jeffries the first nationally embraced prize fight, i.e. the first fight the century.'

3. RADIO: Dempsey-Firpo becoming the first 'day after water cooler moment at work' as radio allowed the excitement to be experienced first hand by millions.

4. JOE LOUIS: Louis-Schmeling II, the second fight of the century; prize fighting became synonymous with national pride and a Champion symbolic of national prowess (all on the eve of WWII).

5. TELEVISION: Prize fighting, unlike circular baseball and linear football, was perfectly suited to the small square screen and the immobile cameras used to film it. Sold millions of TV sets and every network carried fights every week.

6. PAY TV (PPV): As with all the other audio-visual technological innovations boxing was the first to deploy it successfully, creating opportunities for $100 million plus 'gates.'


You touched on what I believe the answer to be
7. ALI: The charisma and controversy that was Muhammad Ali.

Nothing important since then.

BUST OUTS:

Women's boxing and the attempt to promote prize fighting as an athletic event, i.e. a sport, (has driven an entire generation into the hands of MMA, where they realize that it is unarmed combat that sells tickets, an not punch counting boxing.)

You touched on what I believe the answer to be, but it would prove to be the down fall of the local fights. (which is huge in building the sport).............Rockin'

[Willie Pep 229]

You touched on what I believe the answer to be, but it would prove to be the down fall of the local fights. (which is huge in building the sport).............Rockin'

Yea, unfortunately it has.

I wonder if there is a way where Internet broadcasting of 'small venue' fights can generate enough cash flow to bring back 'local fights?'

[Ivich]

- - I'll just start with I've never been so ****** as to claim Edison filmed the Maher fight...duh!

Rector did, and your source does not indicate any other result. The bout was an hour before twilight in alternating gray mist and sunshine. A rainbow broke out over the the Rio Grande at the time of the fight. Maybe dreary Brits never seen a rainbow much less a Texas rainbow, but after over a month of being yanked here and there in El Paso under the guard of the heavily armed Texas Rangers and Texas Militia with shoot to kill orders, it's the height of Monte Python to think the fight wasn't filmed. Since this was a first effort in uncertain conditions, not a stretch to think the film was not serviceable enough to be released and was filmed over as happened all through the pathetic history of Hollywood. No matter, nothing about the film has surfaced near as I know. Rector returned to El Paso at the request of El Presidente Diaz to film a bull fight in Juarez under more favorable conditions, but nothing of that film survives to my knowledge either.

And my library is a lot bigger than Pollack's and your's combined and certainly not confined to the low brow history of boxing.

Y'er welcome!

This is your post.

"March 17, 1897-Fitz vs Corbett in a unification with Thomas Edison Black Mariah Studio providing the first ever full length feature film and blockbuster that turned out to be an International Blockbuster, the first KO "

AND ITS WRONG!

Edison's bid for the fight was not successful, he had nothing to do with the fight.
Just grow a pair and admit you were wrong!
Adam Pollack is an acclaimed author,referee, boxing coach and Attorney ,numb nuts!? While you are doing that, produce a primary source that states Edison filmed the Corbett v Fitz fight.
You've a bigger boxing library than either Pollack and myself? Really ,and just how do you know that? I've over200 books on the subject.How about you?
Fella you're not even remotely amusing anymore,you're just a sad ,pathetic,inadequate ,who mugs himself here on a daily basis.

[QueensburyRules]

This is your post.

"March 17, 1897-Fitz vs Corbett in a unification with Thomas Edison Black Mariah Studio providing the first ever full length feature film and blockbuster that turned out to be an International Blockbuster, the first KO "

AND ITS WRONG!

Edison's bid for the fight was not successful, he had nothing to do with the fight.
Just grow a pair and admit you were wrong!
Adam Pollack is an acclaimed author,referee, boxing coach and Attorney ,numb nuts!? While you are doing that, produce a primary source that states Edison filmed the Corbett v Fitz fight.
You've a bigger boxing library than either Pollack and myself? Really ,and just how do you know that? I've over200 books on the subject.How about you?
Fella you're not even remotely amusing anymore,you're just a sad ,pathetic,inadequate ,who mugs himself here on a daily basis.

- - Double Barreled Scattershot Idiocy seems to be your trademark. I said my library ain't restricted to lowbrow boxing, and it is indeed bigger than yours and likely Pollack's combined by a substantial margin.

Edison was the mover and shaker behind the new kinescope developments centered primarily on the film and format needed for a fight that might last 2 hours or more. Rector was part of his team and sent forth with equipment and film for the Dallas Fitz/Corbett hook up aborted by the Texas Legislature, and later on to Langtry and Judge Roy Bean via more than a month lay over in El Paso, and finally to Carson City where no doubt Edison provided a ghost entity to double team Vitascope as happens in any auctions of note to this day. Of course Rector had a free hand and financial guarantees to insure they got the fight. As always, Edison's equipment was used for the filming, the developing, projection, and it was Edison or other agents in the field first renting the traditional play theaters to show the film while authorizing the building of the first film centric theaters that U idiocy uses for visual pabulum today. What with Jim Jeffries that followed, movie making through fight films were the height of popularity as well as a goldmine. It was several years later when the first "movie" was shown on film that featured actors that made Bronco Billy a huge star, but it was only 12 min.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000439/

And as stated, conditions for Fitz/Maher were evening hours after an arduous escape from El Paso that was staged with alternating gray misty conditions in between breaking sun shine that created a rainbow joining the banks of the Rio Grande back when rainbows were spectacular visual proof of of the beauty of nature and not a gender flag for the usual suspects making a witch's brew over politics.

Y'er Welcome!!!

[Ivich]

- - Double Barreled Scattershot Idiocy seems to be your trademark. I said my library ain't restricted to lowbrow boxing, and it is indeed bigger than yours and likely Pollack's combined by a substantial margin.

Edison was the mover and shaker behind the new kinescope developments centered primarily on the film and format needed for a fight that might last 2 hours or more. Rector was part of his team and sent forth with equipment and film for the Dallas Fitz/Corbett hook up aborted by the Texas Legislature, and later on to Langtry and Judge Roy Bean via more than a month lay over in El Paso, and finally to Carson City where no doubt Edison provided a ghost entity to double team Vitascope as happens in any auctions of note to this day. Of course Rector had a free hand and financial guarantees to insure they got the fight. As always, Edison's equipment was used for the filming, the developing, projection, and it was Edison or other agents in the field first renting the traditional play theaters to show the film while authorizing the building of the first film centric theaters that U idiocy uses for visual pabulum today. What with Jim Jeffries that followed, movie making through fight films were the height of popularity as well as a goldmine. It was several years later when the first "movie" was shown on film that featured actors that made Bronco Billy a huge star, but it was only 12 min.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000439/

And as stated, conditions for Fitz/Maher were evening hours after an arduous escape from El Paso that was staged with alternating gray misty conditions in between breaking sun shine that created a rainbow joining the banks of the Rio Grande back when rainbows were spectacular visual proof of of the beauty of nature and not a gender flag for the usual suspects making a witch's brew over politics.

Y'er Welcome!!!

Listen ****** Rector created the Veriscope camera!

"Veriscope was an early film studio which produced The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), directed by Enoch J. Rector.

Veriscope was a large, human-powered camera created by Enoch Rector. The camera operators were inside the camera, which was a tight wooden structure.^[1]

The term is also used for the widescreen 63mm film format used to produce this feature film, which was about 100 minutes long.
Edison created the Kinetograph camera which was not used for either the Fitz v Maher fight or the Fitz Corbett fight,let that sink into your lonely little brain cell!

The Kinetoscope Exhibiting Company had gone bust by this time. Rector would hook up with a Dallas-based promoter named Dan Stuart going forward in a concern called the Veriscope Company. Stuart’s plan was to arrange a title fight between Jim Corbett and loud-mouthed contender Bob Fitzsimmons and to have Rector film it with his new apparatus. Ticket sales to the contest would thus be only the start of the financial bonanza. They would then be able to show the film of the fight again and again to paying customers all around the country.

The initial plan was to hold the contest in a gigantic arena in Dallas, Texas, billed as the second largest in history, surpassed only by the Coliseum in Rome. Construction was already underway when the Texas legislature passed a law against prizefighting and the venue had to be relocated. It was now becoming increasingly difficult to hold a prizefight due to the rise of moral forces and resulting anti-fight legislation. Stuart was not easily discouraged, however. After a herculean effort, he succeeded in organizing a bout between contenders Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher near Langtry, Texas, on a Rio Grande sandbar just across the Mexican border. Ticket sales were abysmal, for to prevent interference the contest’s location had to be kept secret until the last minute. But that wouldn’t matter if Rector could record it. The plan was to show the resulting film on a truly gigantic Kinetoscope that would hold a three-minute loop of film, a monster fifteen feet long and equipped with five peephole ports along its length so that five customers could simultaneously watch. Had this device been built, it would have pushed the Kinetoscope as far as it could go.

Rector’s attempt to film the Fitz-Maher fight ended in failure. The day was too overcast to get a decent exposure on the light-insensitive Blair film he was using and the fight itself did not last even one round, Fitz decking Maher in under two minutes. Rector’s five-person Kinetoscope also never was built, for the projector was now on the rise. Why use costly Kinetoscopes that could accommodate only five people when, with a single projector, you could cater to a whole theater full of people at the same time? Projectors made irresistible business sense.

It would take more than a year, but Rector would try again, this time at the heavyweight title bout that Dan Stuart arranged between Bob Fitzsimmons and Jim Corbett in Carson City, Nevada on March 17, 1897. He had simplified his Veriscope by this time to make it more reliable and had also acquired more sensitive film stock from George Eastman. It was not the standard 35mm, 1:1.3 aspect ratio film normally associated with the silent era. Instead it was a whopping 63mm wide and had what we would recognize today as a wide-screen format. Rector had it custom-made so that he could place his Veriscope apparatus closer to the action and still encompass the whole boxing ring.7

The filming of the Corbett-Fitz fight was a tremendous achievement of organization, synchronization, and hard physical work. The three machines inside the Veriscope held 1,200-foot reels of film, enough to film for eight minutes at a rate of twenty-four frames per second. The first machine was started as the fighters entered the ring, one man cranking, two men manually turning the reels. The team on the second machine began cranking four minutes later, then the third after another four minutes. In this way two machines were kept filming at all times, giving Rector a duplicate record of the fight, fourteen rounds of action ending in the stunning “solar plexus blow” that Fitz used to drop Corbett and on into the scrum of bodies that subsequently poured through the ropes. When it was all over, Rector had exposed 21,600 feet of film. In the space of only three years, the movies had been pushed from a mere 50 feet to just over four miles.)



Notice that Edison's Kinetiscope company had gone bankrupt by the time Rector filmed the fight?





Got it now?
No wonder nobody debates with you,they can't possibly learn anything except how to be the village idiot!
So go away, you waste of space ,if you had double the braincells you have now you would still be a half wit!

I'm ashamed I wasted so much time on a fool!

.

[Marchegiano]

My quick answer is the 1820s-40s American anti-immigration movement that highlighted boxing as a violent european sport that is unfit for America similar to how the border wall makes Mexico way more popular and spoken about now than it was when I was a child.








It has to begin with Molyneaux because Molyneaux is why black men kept going to England for fights after Molyneaux. Not much flow of white american interest in boxing but a good flow of black americans coming to England trying to meet Richmond. Langham and Oliver would train a few but from memory even those dudes came to meet Bill they just didn't get on well.

Meanwhile, on the white side of things the English boxing industry has grown tired of the way champions abuse their titles. So the Englishmen set up an all European title fight in the US.

In vague terms we could call both eras 1820s-30s

Right around the time Ireland is kicking off their great Irish invasion of the US. Bringing with them, boxing.

In my own opinion this is your source for the popularization of boxing in the United States. There was boxing prior, there is training coming in from England prior, but the public's interest is low. When English Burke fought Irish O'Rourke most of the audience was European. It was a means of avoiding the English champion's demands. The black fellas coming to England to learn boxing and make coin fought in England. It's not much fan fair stateside for them.

See, everyone who is American know we had a bit of a struggle with my ancestors coming here being all Irish and ****. Dirty lazy drunken violent leprechauns and what have you. Irishmen like boxing. Irishmen use boxing as a means to make money and settle disputes.

The Young Americans, similar to like a Tea Party, not a political party per-se more like a party in a party. Young Americans were anti-immigration and often used boxing as proof of European immigration ruining good wholesome American values.

It wasn't boxing writers who followed guys like Yankee Sullivan around the US to print all his exploits. It was dudes more similar to Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, or Anderson Cooper. Dudes whose job is to stir **** for views.

That made boxing super popular

Tom Hyer made boxing okay. Because Tom Hyer was a Young American and something like the logic of using boxing to prove superiority over the Europeans took root.

Now we're in the 1840s

Right around the time Bill Fuller and Aaron Molyneaux began their training facilities open to the public. Fuller was first and served more rich white clients. Hewlett by the mid 1850s was training black men in boxing and was pretty popular on the sparring circuit.

Sparring was not yet a standard in training for practice. Sparring was just testing. Both Fuller and Hewlett sought to make sparring its own sport. Boxing is still to the finish but sparring was done by points. This is the birth of the points system.

This is what made boxing popular enough in the USA to have a sizeable industry worth mention in England. We had a belt, public interest, trainers, and fighters now and could put on all American shows without any Europeans. I say we because I am American but my folks wouldn't be yet. So I guess they is more correct.

The birth of the World title rolls on in by 1860s and imo it the main focus of big time boxing until at least the 1870s. America had become so important English dudes fight for American titles but wasn't big enough to outright control boxing.

1870s is when Mace began his let's teach the world boxing campaign, which just made boxing huger and got Australia and Canada more up to snuff, the raise and fall of Joe Goss, and the whole maybe we should use gloves and points in boxing and sparring for practice bit. I believe mostly done by Mace.

Joe Goss was pretty popular, even though he's English he was well known in America and even featured in some play or some such nonesense.

Paddy Ryan whoops Goss's ass

John L whoops Paddy's ass.

The rest is pretty well covered and seem well known here.





I don't think you have much of any interest in America if not for fear mongering.

Cricket?

Rugby?

Y'all know I can go on for a minute like that. America has proven for centuries she does not give a damn about European sports and far, far, less than other former European colonies. There's no reason to believe without American immigration fear making it more popular and focused on the mainstream boxing would have been any more popular in the USA than soccer, darts, and pool. Sports most don't watch habitually here.