The Helston-born pugilist who broke all kinds of records as well as a few noses. Boxing’s first three-division world champion, Britain’s first World Heavyweight boxing champion and the lightest Heavyweight champ of all time, his name was Bob Fitzsimmons, and he was as Cornish as a tin mine.
Born in Cornwall but raised in New Zealand, Robert James Fitzsimmons was the youngest of twelve, born on May 26, 1863 to James Fitzsimmons and his wife Jane whose maiden name was aptly ‘Strongman’, precisely what her youngest would be.
Not long before Bob’s birth the family had moved from Ireland to England’s far south-west, Jane’s home county, where James sought work as a copper whilst the latest addition to the family would receive his early schooling at Helston’s National school. The cottage where the famous boxer was born is still extant in Helston and sports a blue plaque proclaiming: ‘Robert Fitzsimons, champion of the world 1897, born here in 1863’. Yes, they came up with an alternative spelling for Bob’s surname.
It was in 1873, when Bob was ten, that the five youngest children, Bob included, departed Cornwall and accompanied their parents on a three-month voyage to New Zealand for a crack at a better life. They may have uprooted him from his Cornish home, but Bob’s religious parents instilled in him the need for integrity and a moral compass.
James took up a new calling as a blacksmith in a port town largely inhabited by Cornish immigrants. Bob tried his hand at a number of jobs before becoming apprenticed at his Dad’s forge where the physical work helped develop the upper body, arms and shoulders that would serve him so well in the ring.
He already had it in mind that boxing was where he would make his living and there are stories, perhaps apocryphal, that Bob’s preferred method for resolving disputes, including with customers, was with his fists. It was in the early-1880s that Fitzsimmons began boxing as an amateur, taking it up professionally in 1883 by which time he would have been 20. His earliest bouts were of the bare-knuckle persuasion.
Fitzsimmons picked up some decent monikers which seems essential for any self-respecting boxing bruiser. He was ‘Ruby Robert’ and ‘The Freckled Wonder’ and was apparently quite chuffed with his lack of scars. He’s also been referred to as ‘The Fighting Blacksmith’.
His opponents often fared less well as the relatively lightweight Fitzsimmons was reckoned one of the hardest punchers of all time despite his underwhelming physical presence. Balding and pale he may have been, but he had iron in his fists. He was 5ft 11½ and had an ‘orthodox’ stance which means he jabbed with his left and slugged with his right. Arriving at a definitive set of stats is not easy when Bob boxed so long ago but he appears to have had around 80 professional bouts in a 30-year career that lasted until 1914, winning over three-quarters of them, with over 70% of his contests finishing with a knock-out courtesy of that punching power Bob possessed. He’s been judged by some as ‘the greatest knockout puncher in boxing history’.
Fitzsimmons boxed well over 300 rounds in his career which only averaged about four rounds a bout, rather underlining the fact that his punching prowess saw many matches over in the early stages. It’s no wonder he was short on scars.
Bob travelled to the States to contest and win the World Middleweight Championship from Jack Dempsey in New Orleans in 1891, aged 28. Just in case there’s any lovers of the sport of fisticuffs reading this, well, I hasten to point out that we’re not talking the famous Heavyweight Jack Dempsey there. The other, less famed Dempsey was knocked about the ring for 13 rounds when the unequal contest was finally stopped, the defending champ having been decked a dozen times.
As soon as he’d won the title Bob began competing against Heavyweights, often conceding 70-80 pounds to his opponent, which seemingly mattered not, nor did his aversion to training such was the ferocity of his punching, that combined with his courage, willpower, skill, accuracy and all round cleverness.
Fitzsimmons was good enough to transcend those weight divisions and on March 17, 1897, he took the World Heavyweight crown from ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett in Carson City. Bob was canvassed in round six but prevailed in round 14 with a ferocious left-hook body blow that ended the contest. The fact it was a left-hook shows how versatile Fitzsimmons was, for we’d normally associate this punch with a ‘southpaw’, a left-handed boxer who leads with the right and clubs with the left. Bob, being ‘orthodox’ did it the other way round but on this occasion it was a left-hook which presumably Corbett didn’t see coming.
The loser’s verdict on the new champion was simply that: ‘for his weight and inches, [Fitzsimmons] was the greatest fighter that ever drew on a glove’. This was back in the day when the Heavyweight champion was ‘undisputed’; the UK would have to wait forever and a day (almost) for its next Heavyweight champ.
He eventually lost that prestigious title to a fighter who outweighed him by some 40 pounds, James J. Jeffries in Coney Island on June 9, 1899 after a reign of 814 days. The fight was stopped in the eleventh round. Undeterred, Fitzsimmons continued fighting and beating Heavyweights, albeit he did lose a rematch against Jeffries in eight rounds in 1902. Bob became a record-breaker the following year when he picked up the new World Light-Heavyweight crown, defeating George Gardner on points over 20 rounds, the third weight division in which he’d reigned supreme. He was the first boxer in history, and the only one in Europe, to achieve this triple crown. He’d lose this final title to Jack O’Brien in 1905. He’d retire in 1914 aged 51.
Bob married four times, firstly to Louisa Johns in 1885, then an acrobat, a vaudeville singer, and finally to Temo Ziller in 1915, and had four children, including ‘Young’ Bob Fitzsimmons who followed his father into the boxing ring; he was more handsome but less successful.
With all those marriages, a gambling habit and proving a soft touch for con artists, Fitzsimmons did not die a wealthy man. He appeared in vaudeville, was a travelling evangelist and continued to give exhibition bouts after his retirement. In short, he’s surely Helston’s most famous son. Bob Fitzsimmons died of pneumonia on October 22, 1917 in Chicago aged 54.
CHRONOLOGY
1863 – Robert James Fitzsimmons born in Helston, Cornwall (May 26).
1873 – Bob moves to New Zealand with his mother, father and four of his siblings.
1883 – Having cut his teeth in amateur boxing Bob turns professional.
1885 – The first of Bob’s four marriages to Louisa Johns.
1891 – Bob wins the World Middleweight Championship, the first of his three titles.
1897 – Bob takes the World Heavyweight Championship from ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett.
1903 – Completion of Bob’s triple crown as he wins the Light Heavyweight Championship.
1914 – Retirement from boxing although Bob continued to appear in exhibition bouts.
1915 – Bob marries for the final time to Temo Ziller.
1917 – Death of Bob Fitzsimmons in Chicago, Illinois (October 22) aged 54.
