Tom Sayers - The Big Fight

The Big Fight

By this time the prize ring was in utter disrepute – and virtually ignored by everyone outside the ranks of the Fancy, as the followers of boxing were known – yet the Sayers–Heenan fight caught the public imagination on both sides of the Atlantic. In the words of The Times, “this challenge has led to an amount of attention being bestowed on the prize ring which it has never received before”, while in America, the New York Clipper observed that “‘Whate’er we do, where’er we be,’ fight, fight, fight is the topic that engrosses all attention”.

Efforts of a number of concerned citizens to have the illegal event prevented came to nothing, and the battle took place at Farnborough in Hampshire on the morning of Tuesday, 17 April 1860. It was on the face of it an unequal contest: Sayers was conceding forty pounds in weight, five inches in height and eight years in age.

To make matters worse, his right arm was damaged early in the action, and he had to fight one-handed for most of a ferocious contest which went on for more than two hours. Heenan, however, was also handicapped, Sayers having succeeded in closing his right eye, and making of his whole face a bloody mess.

After more than forty rounds, the fight ended in chaos when the ropes were cut, the crowd invaded the ring, and police moved in to put a stop to proceedings. The referee finally declared a draw, but hostilities continued for some weeks outside the ring, with the American camp claiming that Heenan had been cheated of victory, and the British insisting that Sayers had been on top.

In fact, a careful study of newspaper reports of the fight and the subsequent controversy leaves little doubt that Heenan was on the verge of victory when the action was stopped. No American ever admitted that Sayers had been on top, but a number of British commentators broke ranks to say that Heenan had not had fair play. In the guarded words of the highly authoritative Saturday Review, “We are not without our suspicions that the ring would have been better kept, if the English Champion had been fighting a manifestly winning battle.”

Differences between the two men were finally patched up, and both were awarded a championship belt. The tour of England, Ireland and Scotland which they then undertook together was, however, only a partial success.