Lanky Bob Fitzsimmons

Robert Fitzsimmons was not as fortunate as his predecessor, who ruled his kingdom for five years. "Freckled Bob's" reign lasted only two and a quarter years. He was shorn of his crown by a comparative novice, James J. Jeffries, a twenty-four-year-old California boilermaker to whom Fitzsimmons spotted thirteen years.

Fitzsimmons was born on June 4, 1862, at Elston, Cornwall, England. When he was nine years old his family moved to Lyttleton, New Zealand, where Fitz went to school and distinguished himself in athletic lines, specializing in sprinting and football.

Below the waist Ruby Robert looked like a featherweight. One could scarcely believe that in bruising fights his sketchy legs could successfully bear the weight of his muscular upper frame.

His first ring battle was with a huge blacksmith named Tom Baines, better known as the "Timaru Terror." The youngster tamed the "Terror" by knocking him out in less than a round, after which Fitzsimmons was selected to represent Timaru in a boxing tourney promoted by Jem Mace, world's champion then touring the Antipodes.

Bob weighed only 140 pounds, but he was large of frame and loose-jointed, with sinewy arms and fine back muscles, and in that tournament the young blacksmith knocked out four men in a row.

A year later, Mace again made his appearance with a show of fistic stars. Mace at that time was grooming Slade, the Maori heavyweight who he fancied had the making of a champion, and he arranged for his charge to box Fitzsimmons, who pounded the Maori so fast and viciously that Mace stopped the battle in the second round. Fitzsimmons now proceeded to take up fighting professionally.

He made a fine beginning, knocking out Arthur Cooper in three rounds, Jack Murphy in four, and Jim Crawford in three.

There was little money to be made in Timaru and Fitzsimmons decided to go to New South Wales. On December 17, 1889, he whipped Dick Ellis in three rounds before a Sydney club and was matched with Jem Hall for February 10 of the following year, a bout in which Fitzsimmons was counted out in the fourth round.

In his, first fight in America, Fitzsimmons met Billy McCarthy at the California Athletic Club for a $1,250 purse and stopped him in the ninth round.

On June 28, 1890, Fitzsimmons met Arthur Upham and stopped him in five rounds before the Audubon Club of New Orleans. "Freckled Bob's" fame as a new star was now sufficiently established to warrant a match with middleweight champion Jack Dempsey, the celebrated "Nonpareil." He stopped Dempsey at the Olympic Club in New Orleans, January 14, 1891, and won the world's middleweight crown. The end came in the thirteenth round of a vicious battle in which Dempsey was dropped several times.

Dempsey answered the call of time in the thirteenth, but was dazed after the severe punishment he had received in the previous sessions. Fitzsimmons sent the "Nonpareil" down with a right-hander to the mouth and then followed with a vicious dig to the right side which hurled Dempsey panting to the ropes. Fitz landed on Dempsey's jaw and put him down - again. Weak and exhausted, he tried to regain his feet but could not, and his seconds threw up the sponge.

During the next two years, Fitzsimmons, who had almost fought himself out of opponents in the middleweight division, stopped Peter Maher, Irish heavyweight champion, in twelve rounds. He also scored a signal revenge on his old rival and former conqueror, Jem Hall, by knocking the latter out in four rounds before the Crescent City Club of New Orleans.

A bout between Joe Choynski and Fitzsimmons at catchweights on June 17, 1894, was stopped by the Boston police in the fifth round, after Choynski, repeatedly floored, was about to be counted out. The following September, Fitz fought his last battle as a middleweight, knocking out his fellow countryman Dan Creedon in two rounds.

On February 21, 1896, Peter Maher, chosen as successor to the heavyweight title by Jim Corbett when the latter retired, was knocked out again by Fitzsimmons near Langtry, Texas.

In December of the same year, Tom Sharkey was declared winner on a foul over Ruby Robert in eight rounds at San Francisco. This was a flagrant example of ring robbery, the verdict being rendered by Wyatt Earp, a Western marshal, after Sharkey had been knocked out by' a blow which landed fairly above the belt.

Fitzsimmons won the world's heavy weight championship from Corbett, as already stated, in fourteen rounds on March 17, 1897, at Carson City, Nevada. Fitzsimmons' weight was officially given as 167 pounds, Corbett's 183.

For more than two years after winning the heavyweight championship, Fitzsimmons toured the country with a theatrical show. Then he put his title on the line in a bout with young James J. Jeffries at Coney Island. The unexpected result of the battle, a knockout of Fitzsimmons -in the eleventh round, was a stunning surprise.

Knockouts of Jim Daly, Ed Dunkhorst, Gus Ruhlin and his oldtime enemy, Tom Sharkey, qualified him for a second chance with Jeffries.

They clashed on July 25, 1902, at San Francisco and for nearly eight rounds Fitzsimmons hammered the giant mercilessly with both hands, breaking his nose, cutting both cheeks to the bone and opening gashes over each eve, until it seemed as though the downpour of blood and consequent blindness must compel the big fellow to surrender.

But Jeffries, a mountain of a man, all solid bone and sinew, a miracle of endurance, kept pressing doggedly forward and suddenly sank a terrific right to the stomach, followed with a crashing left hook to the jaw, and Fitz was counted out.

Fitzsimmons had seen his best days but obstinately refused to retire. In 1903, he defeated George Gardner in twenty rounds at Mechanics Pavilion, San Francisco, winning the title of light heavyweight champion, a newly constituted class only recently recognized by sporting authorities. This was the third crown he had gained, the first fighter in ring history to gain such laurels.

On December 20, 1905, with the light heavyweight title at stake, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, one of the fastest and most scientific fighters of his day, stopped Fitzsimmons in thirteen rounds at Mechanics Pavilion, San Francisco.

Two years later, Jack Johnson knocked out the sturdy old veteran in two rounds. Revisiting Australia, Bob engaged in a contest with Bill Lang, then champion of his country, and was defeated in twelve rounds at Sydney. His final ring appearance was at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where Dan Sweeney and Fitzsimmons (now fifty-two) fought a no-decision six rounds bout.

Fitzsimmons retired and went into vaudeville. He died from influenza in Chicago on October 22, 1917, at the age of fifty-six.