"I'm not a 12-round fighter, look at me, I'm a new breed of heavyweights ... I'm 18 stone, I'm heavy, it's hard work." - Anthony Joshua (only somewhat regrettably).
If a draw can be considered akin to kissing your cousin, punintentially speaking, then the ultimate result of Andy Bowen vs. Jack Burke on 6 April 1893 could be seen as a pair of cousins settling down with one another and reaching their golden anniversary. Marriage is, after all, much like boxing in the way they both can be seen as wars of attrition. I do not support marriage between blood relatives, for the record. And speaking of record, this match is the longest in all of history. It lasted a full 110 rounds or seven hours and 19 minutes with the final bell ringing at 4:34 in the N'awlins morning.
All this for the Lightweight Championship of the South and a cool $2.5K winner-take-all purse. I am one for stopping a match early. I have never once said that I believe a match was stopped too soon. But maybe interesting things do happen if allowed to continue, seeing as though it would appear Burke (the favorite coming in) handily whooped Bowen for the first 24 rounds. At the close of the 25th, Bowen (9.5 stone) scored a knock-down but the bell rang, the count stopped, and the match marched on. At some point perhaps not too far from then, both of Burke's hands were busted from pummelling the continuously advancing Bowen.
The audience began filing out at around midnight, feeling they'd well-gotten their money's worth. Not too long after that, punches had stopped being thrown nearly altogether. Then, a bit after, altogether. Bloodied and exhausted, the two combatants circled each other, broken and spent. I like to think some wonderful trash-talking occurred, particularly from Burke who was known for that sort of thing. Although I cannot imagine what it might've consisted of, and most likely sounded like a pair of obscene phone prankers dialing each-other up on accident. Finally, the third man in the ring, John Duffy, disconnected the call, ending the fight after warning to do so a couple rounds prior.
A helluva wait-and-see attitude was exhibited by Duffy throughout. Particularly once the fans in attendance began singing 'Home, Sweet Home.' The fight was ruled an immediate no-contest and then later switched to a draw and the weary fellows split the purse. The no-contest was at least partially put in place to avoid rioting amongst the either not-there or sound asleep on-lookers. Burke was back in the ring a month later, winning a mere 85-round bout. Bowen fought four more times, the fourth tragically found him killed at the hands of Kid Lavigne in that bout's 18th stanza.
I know what you're thinking. It was promised in the title of this article. The shortest boxing match ever occurred in September of 1994, when Jimenez (8.6 stone) flattened Geier in 17 seconds flat.
::: very :::