The Corbett–Fitzsimmons Fight (1897)
Filmed in Carson City, Nevada, this actuality captures the 1897 heavyweight title bout between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons, who wins by a solar-plexus knockout in the fourteenth round.
The Corbett–Fitzsimmons Fight was the first film ever made of a championship prizefight, shot in an early widescreen format on an original run of well over 100 minutes; its traveling theatrical screenings functioned as boxing’s first pay-per-view event. It entered the National Film Registry in 2012.
Background
The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight is widely credited as the first film ever made of a championship prizefight, capturing the 1897 heavyweight title bout between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons in Carson City, Nevada. It was shot by Enoch J. Rector using a specially built wide-film camera system designed to capture the full ring at a scale unusual for the period, and the original footage ran well over a hundred minutes, an extraordinary length for a film of that era.
What to watch for
Watch for how the film functioned less like a traditional movie and more like an early version of pay-per-view: it was shown in traveling theatrical screenings around the country, and audiences paid specifically to see the fight play out on screen rather than attend a standard variety program. Fitzsimmons’s dramatic fourteenth-round knockout of Corbett became one of the most famous moments in boxing history partly because so many people who could never have attended the fight in person were able to watch it captured on film. It entered the National Film Registry in 2012.
