Bob Fitzsimmons was a freckled, balding blacksmith from New Zealand. He became the lightest heavyweight champion in history and boxing’s first three-division world titleholder.
Born in Cornwall in 1863, Fitzsimmons grew up swinging a hammer at his father’s forge in Timaru, New Zealand. That anvil built the most devastating punch of the 19th century. He knocked out four men in one night to launch his career, won the middleweight title from Nonpareil Jack Dempsey in 1891, then chased the heavyweight crown across a sandbar in the Rio Grande, past Wyatt Earp’s loaded revolver, and into a Carson City arena on St. Patrick’s Day 1897 — where his wife screamed the five most famous words in boxing history: Hit him in the slats, Bob. His solar plexus punch dropped Gentleman Jim Corbett and was captured on film in what became the first feature-length motion picture ever made. He went on to star opposite Clint Eastwood’s real-life counterpart of the Old West and later became the first man ever to hold world titles in three weight classes. He slept with lions. He died broke. And coaches still repeat his words today: The bigger they come, the harder they fall.
0:00 St. Patrick’s Day, Carson City
1:57 The Forge at the Bottom of the World
4:52 The Champion He Begged to Quit
6:20 The Title Fight on a Sandbar in the River
8:03 The Referee Who Brought a Loaded Gun
9:44 The Night He Almost Walked Away Forever
11:06 Hit Him in the Slats
13:22 The Punch That Invented the Movies
14:52 The Champion Who Slept With Lions
16:25 Two Broken Hands and One Unbroken Will
18:03 The First of His Kind and the Fortune He Threw Away