John Joseph Killion (February 9, 1859 – December 22, 1937), more commonly known as Jake Kilrain, was a famous American
bare-knuckle fighter and
glove boxer of the 1880s.
Early life
Kilrain found employment as a teenager in
Somerville, Massachusetts
Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81,045 people. With an area o ...
. As a country boy from
Long Island, he had to learn how to stand up to the workers in the rolling mills. By the age of 20, he had been recognized as the toughest fighter in the mill. Kilrain was also a champion rower having won the National Amateur Junior Sculling Championship in 1883. He was later stripped of that honor when it was discovered that he was a prizefighter and thus could not be considered an amateur.
In 1883, Kilrain took up prizefighting as a profession and quickly established a reputation as a very tough fighter.
Professional career
World Championship fight with Jem Smith
By 1887 Kilrain already has been recognized as the U.S. National Champion, that gave him an opportunity to fight for the Championship of the World and silver belt versus the British Champion
Jem Smith, scheduled to take place in December 1887, in France, at a little island on the
River Seine
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, called St. Pierre d'Autils. The bout was attended by about a hundred of the upper class spectators and journalists, mainly from England, being covered by the major international media of the day, such as ''
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was esta ...
'', ''
Gaulois'', etc. They fought 1-minute rounds with 30 seconds break between the rounds. At the outset the men fought evenly. After the 3rd round Kilrain scored several knockdowns, and wrestling formed the principal mode of operations for the rest of the fight. Before the 106th round had started, after two hours and a half of fighting (roughly three times the
full duration of modern-day 12-round championship fights,) when darkness set in, the bout was stopped due to technical reasons, as no
artificial lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...
of the scene has been arranged the outcome was called a draw due to darkness.
Clearly dominant throughout the fight (even the English newspapers wrote that "the Englishman was no match for the American crack",) upon his return to the United States, Kilrain was pronounced by Richard K. Fox of the
National Police Gazette
The ''National Police Gazette'', commonly referred to as simply the ''Police Gazette'', is an American magazine founded in 1845. Under publisher Richard K. Fox, it became the forerunner of the men's lifestyle magazine, the illustrated sports w ...
as Heavyweight Champion of the World for his bout with Jem Smith. The awarding of the belt to Kilrain was part of a strategy by Fox to draw Sullivan into a fight.
Any remote claim he had to the title of world champion was lost in 1889 after his loss to John L. Sullivan.
Bout with John L. Sullivan
Kilrain is perhaps best known for challenging champion
John L. Sullivan in 1889 in the last world
heavyweight championship prizefight decided with bare knuckles under
London Prize Ring rules
The London Prize Ring Rules were a list of boxing rules promulgated in 1838 and revised in 1853. These rules were based on those drafted by England's Jack Broughton in 1743 (known as the Broughton Rules) and governed the conduct of prizefighti ...
in history. They fought 1-minute rounds with 50 seconds break between the rounds. In a hard-fought contest, Kilrain lost at the start of the 76th round (after 2 hours 16 minutes
) when Mike Donovan, his second, threw in the sponge. Kilrain had not wanted to give up thinking that he could outlast Sullivan, but Donovan defended his actions insisting that Kilrain would have died had the fight gone on. In any case, the Kilrain-Sullivan fight can rightly be listed among the greatest fights of the pre-modern era.
Later career
Kilrain continued on for 10 more years after the Sullivan fight with gloves under
Marquess of Queensberry rules with some success. His most significant win was a 44-round
knockout of Boston's
George Godfrey in 1891. He retired with a record of 18 wins (3 by KO), 6 losses and 12 draws along with 1 non-decision.
He lived in his later years as a devoted family man with his wife and children as proprietor of a
saloon in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. After his saloon burned down, he moved back to Somerville and was given a job with the parks department. After government cutbacks during the
Great Depression he became a night watchman at a
Quincy, Massachusetts shipyard.
In his later life, Kilrain became good friends with John L. Sullivan. When Sullivan died in 1918, Kilrain served as a pallbearer at the funeral. He was also godfather to the English boxer
Charley Mitchell's son Charles Mitchell.
Death and honors
Kilrain died on December 22, 1937, in a local hospital from complications of old age and
diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...
, aged 78.
Kilrain was elected to the
Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame
The Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame is a museum and hall of fame in Belfast, New York, dedicated to the sport of bare-knuckle boxing. It is housed in barns that were once owned by the Greco-Roman wrestling champion and physical culture pioneer Wi ...
in 2009 and to the
International Boxing Hall of Fame
The modern International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), located in Canastota, New York, honors boxers, trainers and other contributors to the sport worldwide. Inductees are selected by members of the Boxing Writers Association of America. The I ...
in 2012.
Scottish boxer and welterweight champion
Henry Owens would later fight under the name "Jake Kilrain".
Professional boxing record
All information in this section is derived from
BoxRec,
unless otherwise stated.
Official record
All
newspaper decision A newspaper decision was a type of decision in professional boxing. It was rendered by a consensus of sportswriters attending a bout after it had ended inconclusively with a "no decision", as many regions had not adopted the National Sporting Club ...
s are officially regarded as “no decision” bouts and are not counted in the win/loss/draw column.
Unofficial record
Record with the inclusion of
newspaper decision A newspaper decision was a type of decision in professional boxing. It was rendered by a consensus of sportswriters attending a bout after it had ended inconclusively with a "no decision", as many regions had not adopted the National Sporting Club ...
s in the win/loss/draw column.
References
External links
In the Shadow of John L. Sullivan
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kilrain, Jake
1859 births
1937 deaths
Bare-knuckle boxers
Heavyweight boxers
Sportspeople from Somerville, Massachusetts
American male boxers
Deaths from diabetes