Robert James "Bob" Fitzsimmons was a British-American pugilist and professional boxer.
Background
Robert James "Bob" Fitzsimmons was born at Halston, Cornwall, England, on June 4, 1862, the youngest of seven boys and five girls born to James and Jane (née Strongman) Fitzsimmons. His family moved to New Zealand when he was seven years old and there he was apprenticed to a blacksmith.
Career
His first appearance in the boxing ring was at Timaru, New Zealand, in 1880, when he knocked out four opponents in one night, winning the amateur championship of New Zealand.
In 1890 he went to the United States, and on January 14, 1891, he fought the middleweight champion, "Nonpareil" Jack Dempsey (to be distinguished from the later boxer of the same name who was heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926), in New Orleans, La. , and knocked him out in the thirteenth round.
On March 17, 1897, at Carson City, Nev. , Fitzsimmons met James J. Corbett, the heavyweight champion. His "solar plexus" blow won him the fight and the heavyweight championship in the fourteenth round. At the Coney Island Athletic Club in New York City, on June 9, 1899, when he was thirty-seven years old, Fitzsimmons fought James J. Jeffries, then twenty-four, and was defeated in the eleventh round.
Three years later, seeking to regain his title, he was defeated again by Jeffries in San Francisco. In 1907 he was defeated by Jack O'Brien in San Francisco and in the following year by Jack Johnson in Philadelphia. His last fight, occurring when he was fifty-two years old, was with Dan Sweeney in Williamsport, Pa. Slightly knockkneed, moving with a shuffling, flatfooted gait, he was a perfect judge of defense and a master in the timing of his blows. Although he is reputed to have earned half a million dollars in the prize ring, Fitzsimmons died a comparatively poor man in Chicago in October 1917.
Achievements
Connections
Fitzsimmons was married four times. With his first wife, Louisa Johns, whom he married in Sydney on 14 October 1885, he had a son, Charles. The marriage ended in divorce. Fitzsimmons then married Rose Samnell, also known as Rose Julian, a well-known acrobat, in the United States probably in 1893. There were three children from the marriage: Robert, Martin and Rosalie.
After Rose's death in New York in April 1903, Fitzsimmons married a vaudeville singer named Julia May Gifford, at San Francisco on 25 July 1903, but they divorced in January 1915. He married Temo Ziller at Portland, Oregon, probably on 26 May 1915.