Ole Miss will play host to Tulane in a first round college football playoffs game on Dec. 20 and some pundits already proclaim it the biggest, most important sports event to ever take place on Mississippi soil.

It’s huge, no doubt, and millions around the globe will watch on TV. The stakes are enormous. Win that one – and Ole Miss is a heavy favorite to do just that – and the Rebels then will play Georgia in the second round, which this year is the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Eve. Ole Miss would not be favored in that one, but the Rebels led Georgia midway through the fourth quarter on Oct. 18 at Athens. An upset could happen. Win that one and Ole Miss will be two victories away from a national championship – the proverbial pot at the end of the rainbow.

But we are getting far, far ahead of ourselves. Let’s get back to the original case in point: Will the Tulane-Ole Miss playoff game indeed be the biggest, most important sporting event in Mississippi history?

That’s a good question. We don’t have any real bowl games in the Magnolia State. The Egg Bowl, which got its unofficial name for just that reason, is pretty much our biggest sports event of the year, every year. We don’t have much in the way of professional sports. The NCAA never holds any of its championships in Mississippi.

Twenty-six years ago, the late, great George Bryan brought golf’s U.S. Women’s Open – the most important tournament in women’s golf – to West Point. I still can’t believe Bryan pulled it off, but he did. Hall of Famer Juli Inkster won it and more than 120,000 fans attended. Millions more around the world watched on TV. 

That was huge – probably the most important sports event of the past century in Mississippi.

But there was one bigger still, although there is nobody alive who would remember it. John L. Sullivan, were he alive, would surely argue that the biggest sports event in Mississippi history took place on July 8, 1889. Trust me, you would not want to argue with John L.

On a brutally hot summer day in Richburg, a tiny community just south of Hattiesburg, Sullivan fought Jake Kilrain for the world heavyweight boxing championship. Adding to its historical importance, the fight was the last world championship bare-knuckle fight. Sullivan – the son of Irish immigrants famously known as “The Boston Strongboy” – punished Kilrain, a New Yorker, for 75 rounds before knocking him out.

The fight was the lead story in the next day’s New York Times. The story began: “Never, during even a Presidential election, has there been so much excitement as there is now, even when the brutal exhibition is over and it is known that John L. Sullivan was successful and that 75 rounds were necessary to knock out Jake Kilrain.”

Clearly, this is some serious Mississippi history here, and here’s the deal: The fight was not supposed to take place in Mississippi. No, bare-knuckle fighting had been outlawed in all 38 states at the time. The fight was supposed to have taken place in New Orleans, but Louisiana’s governor threatened to call in the state militia to prevent the fight from taking place. Enter one C.W. Rich, a wealthy lumberman and namesake of Richburg, who owned 30,000 acres and a large sawmill. Rich invited the entire fight party to his land, and they came by the thousands on trains.

We could argue for days which is bigger: an NCAA championships playoff football game, the biggest women’s golf tournament in the world or the last bare-knuckles championship fight. Better to call it a draw, which is what Kilrain offered to do after 44 rounds when Sullivan, who was knocking back whiskey between rounds, began vomiting. Sullivan declined the offer and promptly knocked Kilrain down with a blow to the ribs to end the 45th round.

So let’s not argue. Better to relive as best we can what happened more than 136 years ago in an otherwise sleepy south Mississippi community. Some snippets:

• Mississippi Gov. Robert Lowry dispatched 25 armed men to the state line to stop the trains from crossing the state line. The trains plowed through, and no shots were fired. The county sheriff also tried to stop the fight at the site. But Bat Masterson, the legendary western gunfighter, gambler and sometimes lawman, not only refereed the fight but brandished his own firearms to dissuade the local lawman.
• Bleachers, hastily constructed from Rich’s freshly cut pine, provided the seating for more than 3,000 spectators. The heat, which reportedly reached 106 degrees, caused resin to seep from the pine and more than a few spectators reportedly lost the backsides of their clothing to the sap. It was so hot that spectators paid the then-exorbitant cost of 25 cents for a ladle of water.
• The fight was a perfect illustration of why bare-knuckle fighting had been banned. By the 34th round, both fighters were drenched in blood and sweat. Kilrain’s nose was broken, his lips split, and one eye was swollen shut. Sullivan’s fists suffered the consequences and reportedly were swollen to twice their normal size. He had a black eye and bled from one of his ears.
• During the 75th round, a doctor told Kilrain’s cornermen their fighter would likely die if the fight continued. When Kilrain stumbled out to the center of the ring for the 76th round, they threw in the bloody sponge, signaling the end to the last world championship bare-knuckle fight. Sullivan was carried away on the shoulders of his adoring fans, while Kilrain reportedly wept like a child. Both were later arrested, but penalties were minimal.

We shall see what fate awaits the Tulane Green Wave and the Ole Miss Rebels on Dec. 20. There are likely to be some tears, but hopefully no arrests.