- — Plutor
Great Outdoor Fight 1880
From The Great Outdoor Fight
1880 sits in Fight legend mostly due to the great storm which rained its arse off onto the competitors over the entire three days.
The most accepted explanation for this freak weather event was that the North American Monsoon hit California several months early; furthermore, 1880 appears to have been an especially heavy monsoon season. By the end of the Fight, the Acres was flooded to an average depth of four feet. Many casualties were partially or entirely a result of drowning.
Several contemporary accounts speak of the endless rain and the difficulty of fighting under such conditions, but there was never any serious suggestion of calling the Fight off. Veteran Champion Don Fuller remarked: "The rain came as if to thwart the weaker of the contestants, seeking to whittle away the chaff from the solid wood. In this vocation it proved ultimately adept, undertaking to bring the previously unassuming Master Scot Dickinson to prominence through to absolute triumph." Some claim that Dickinson's victory was due to his more extreme than usual hatred of the rain, which appeared to act as a catalyst to his fighting.
The introduction of improved drainage systems to the Acres have since mitigated against further freak weather conditions adversely affecting the Fight. Lesser floods occurred in 1902 and 1947, but left the terrain merely hazardous, not almost entirely submerged.
The 1880 fight is also remembered as the last fight in which defeated fighters were not removed from the Acres other than under their own power. In subsequent years Gurneymen were employed to remove dead and unconscious competitors. The Gurneymen were replaced in 1919 by motorbikes and finally in 1928 "the Crane" was introduced and this is the system still in use today.
