Welcome to Erin Mankie's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Bear Knuckle Boxing was a rather peculiar sport.

Two men, usually with high trousers and thick mustaches, would step into a ring with no

protective equipment whatsoever and, as the name suggests, use their bear knuckles

to subdue the other.

It is, as they say, a sport of gentlemen, the origin of modern day boxing, and a romanticized

image of 19th and early 20th century manliness.

After all, historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt actively participated in it, and he certainly

had the mustache to make the grade.

The fact that bear knuckle boxing originated in prison fighting shouldn't be that surprising.

By most estimations, the sport arrived in Australia in 1788, with convicts from the

British First Fleet of Prisoner's scent there, within a few years the first recorded

fight took place in New South Wales.

After a few more decades, the sport had finally become a more gentlemanly affair, just

two fellas, Knuckles primed, ready to beat on each other until the other gives up.

The sport found such a footing in Australia that by the mid-19th century, boxers the world

over were flocking to the rings of Victoria, and that's where one of the most peculiar

...