Talk about gruelling. With one big G. And not only for the two fighters, but for the referee, the judges, and the audience. Some fight fans, along with avid readers of The Guinness Book of Records, may be familiar with the names Andy Bowen and Jack Burke, as they may be familiar with the date of April 6, 1893.
Because it was on this day, some 131 long years ago, that Burke and Bowen fought what is listed as the single longest recorded gloved fight in boxing history. The two men met in New Orleans, home of Bowen, and the fight began at 9.15 PM that night, with the legalised violence lasting, unimaginably, until 4.34 AM the next day. Nobody who had entered the arena at the Olympic Club would ever be quite the same again upon exiting it.
The two fighters, fighting for both the lightweight championship of the south and a purse of a then huge $2,500, would experience a different kind of hell to any modern day boxer. Reports vary (and no wonder), but the fight is said to have been an exciting affair for a while. For a long while, actually. For around 30 rounds (!) the fight on Royal Street was a captivating affair. Both men hit the mat, both men hit the floor, while Texan Burke opened a cut above one of Bowen’s eyes. Bowen, the older man by a year at 25, was the more experienced fighter, and of course he was boxing at home.
The large crowd, who had paid an entrance fee of either $1 or $3 dollars, and comprised of a record 11,000 (by some accounts, the actual number again being hard to nail down), enjoyed the spectacle. For a while. By round 30, with the pace of the fight inevitably slowing, fans grew restless. And restless. And restless. Soon, the only three people interested in the fight seemed to be the two warriors and the referee. Some people had fallen asleep, the historic significance the boxing match would achieve lost on most who were there.
But the fight was brutal in other ways than being far too, ludicrously, inhumanly long in length. Burke was almost knocked out in round 48 (!), while he also suffered the disgusting pain of two forearms that were supposedly swollen to twice their size. Also, Burke’s hands were broken, both of them. Reports say a piece of bone protruded from Burke’s hand. Yet on he fought, refusing to do that which many members of the paying audience had done, and quit.
At this point, Bowen could have bailed out, the fight offered to him as being declared a draw, the purse to be split down the middle. But Bowen said no way, and on the fight went. Burke’s hands were said to have been injected with cocaine at this spell.
Burke, a clever boxer who must have had nothing but an incredible fighting heart and an insane pain threshold, bobbed and weaved, and feinted and slipped shots as he sought to run down the seemingly infinite clock. Bowen was unable to land a significant blow. On and on, and on and on, the fight went. By round 93 (!), the referee was exhausted and had to be replaced. Yet on the the two fighters went.
In round 105 – yes, round 105 – Bowen fell after missing with a punch, the momentum sending him crashing into his rival’s elbow, jaw-first. Down the stricken, shattered fighter went. Only to get back up! Finally, mercifully, the fight was stopped after the conclusion of the 110th round. Neither man had anything left to fight with, and the officials at last did what they should have done rounds ago, long, long minutes ago, and that’s stop the bout.
And in the end, who won?
No man did, the fight instead scored a draw. With dawn approaching, this after the fight nights of all fight nights, both unimaginably weary fighters were carried home, with Burke in far worse physical shape than Bowen. In fact, Bowen had enough strength to shout how he had been robbed. Certainly, Bowen was far less busted up than was Burke.
Reports say Burke suffered the following: two broken hands, swollen forearms, a swollen stomach, puffy eyes and ears, and violent welts on his side and back. Burke was bedridden for weeks after the fight, while Bowen was, quite astonishingly, unmarked aside from the cut above his eye that he had suffered so many hours previously.
Of course no fight should ever have been permitted to have lasted anything like as long as this one did, and the lesson was indeed learnt. But both men fought on.
Bowen tragically died in 1894, this after hitting his head on a non-canvas floor in the 18th round of another war.
Burke passed away from a heart attack in 1913.
Together, these two stupendously brave fighting men hold a quite unique, indeed untouchable, place in boxing history.