Historic and hefty

Boxing matches in Ireland at the turn of the 20th century were gradually adopting the Queensberry rules devised in England in the 1860s—padded gloves, three-minute rounds, no wrestling or holding, no hitting a man who is down, technical knockouts declared after ten seconds on the canvas—but the sport clearly retained much of its accustomed savagery. In a 15 June 2021 Irish Times article, Frank McNally notes that in his heyday, the 1890s, "the sport was in transition from the bare-knuckle variety to Queensberry rules. But it was still a rough business, even for the spectators." McNally observes that the spectators at Myler Keogh's 1895 fight against Dan Kenny aggressively intervened because the boxers "were initially too sedate"—in the words of a Times reporter, "they appeared at first not to be inclined to kill each other."

Joyce evokes such ferocity in Cyclops when Alf Bergan says that Keogh gave Bennett "the father and mother of a beating. See the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made him puke what he never ate." This "puck," or punch, evidently hit the Englishman in the stomach hard enough to take away his breath. The OED gives one definition of "wind" as "That part of the body in front of the stomach a blow upon which takes away the breath by checking the action of the diaphragm."

The parody uses the technical terms and decorous clichés of boxing reportage to portray a more gentlemanly bout of fisticuffs: "It was a historic and a hefty battle" in which the Irish champion, "Handicapped as he was by lack of poundage," compensated with "superlative skill in ringcraft," "his footwork a treat to watch." The hammering of the Irishman's face's becomes "some neat work on the pet's nose." Stinging blows become "a brisk exchange of courtesies." Drawing blood is tapping "some lively claret" (i.e., red wine). The last round is "The final bout of fireworks." "It was a fight to the finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high." The "puck in the wind" becomes "a terrific left to Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean and clever."

Slote, Mamigonian, and Turner note that some of these expressions were standard fare in boxing reporting and popular speech. The phrase "on the ropes" is still current, as is "flooring" someone. Coming "to handigrips" is seldom heard now, but was once common. Eric Partridge recognizes "To tap one's claret" as a way of saying "to make one's nose bleed," and Pierce Egan's Boxiana (1829) quotes its use in a report of a match: "Belcher, by a sharp hit, made the claret fly copiously from his opponent." The parody's observation that Keogh "had been receivergeneral of rights and left" echoes another common expression cited in Boxiana: "It was evident McDermot was doomed to be a Receiver-General."

Although much of the language in the parody has precedents in common usage, Joyce uses them to produce a passage of impossibly purple prose. Slote and his colleagues quote from a Freeman's Journal article of 30 April 1904 that evidently gave him one journalistic source to work with. It is considerably more matter-of-fact: "J. Keogh (Dublin) beat "Private Garry (6th Dragoons). The former had the advantage in reach, and though Garry attacked for the first half minute Keogh had the best of the exchanges, and towards the close of the round Garry was in trouble. In the second round Garry did better but Keogh landed several times on the body and early in the third round knocked Garry out with a right hand punch on the mark." This language would not sound out of place in ring reporting today, more than a century later. Joyce's sounds like it belongs to another era and another social class.