Quickie History X Fustigation Fury: Gussie Freeman, Barroom Brawler and Badass Bitch

Quickie History X Fustigation Fury: Gussie Freeman, Barroom Brawler and Badass Bitch

“Her legacy remains one of a joyfully unique woman who lived as she wished to live without adhering to the social standards of the day.”

In 1891, a broad-shouldered, whiskey-chugging, cigar-smoking Long Island socialite named Gussie Freeman first entered the boxing ring to lump someone up. Known as the Slasher of the Ropewalks, Freeman was huge for the time, standing almost 6 feet tall and weighing in at a lean and mean 175 pounds, and her size allowed her to take on both male and female challengers with ease. To give you some perspective, that was considered massively tall and heavy even for a man of the era, as the average US senator around that time was 5’9.5″ without shoes on and were five pounds lighter than Stewart even if they were considered “heavy” for their height.

Freeman, though high-born, descended into the lowest rungs of the American social order to ply her trade, but she fit right in due to her contempt for social mores. Never one to let society dictate “proper” behavior for a lady, Freeman was one of the highest draws of the era, fighting both men and women in 4 ounce gloves that resembled modern MMA gloves. And as with every male boxer of the era, Freeman had a hell of a time controlling her weight, and by the end of her career was tipping the scales at a thoroughly robust 250 pounds, which she used to publicly beat the brakes off of men in the street if they offended her or shortchanged her in a mercantile exchange. In 1882, Freeman fought the acknowledged female champ of the time, Hattie Leslie, though the fight was declared a draw after it was broken up by the police. Boxing, called prize-fighting at the time because it was contested for a small prize (in this case a $25 purse), was still highly illegal at this time, and social outrage at chick fights made the outrage at male fights look like a Republican “denouncing” date rape. As such, no fighter of the day got their due, but Freeman less than others due to the fact that she never officially held the title.

New York’s Hattie Leslie was the first female boxing champion, crowned in 1888 after defeating a Pennsylvania woman named Alice Leary in a brutal affair that left both women fairly mangled. Thereafter, Hattie “had a standing offer to pay $50 to any woman who could last four rounds with her or any man who weighed 125-lb. beat her in four rounds. Hattie also continued to do boxing exhibitions with her husband on the vaudeville circuit, billed as the champion female pugilist of the world or the female John L. Sullivan. She was on one of those engagements in Milwaukee in September 1982 when she fell ill with typhoid fever and died at the age of 23. Additional fun fact about her- she was also one of the first female professional wrestlers about whom I could find information.

After Leslie died of typhoid fever at the tragically young age of 25, Freeman fought the next-most regarded champion, Hattie Stewart, though she lost in spectacular fashion after apparently going berserk in the ring when her hair kept falling into her face. The fight, however, was apparently so brutal that the crowd nearly rioted in excitement. Thereafter, she opened a bar and began boxing immensely popular exhibitions against a portly male boxer named appropriately named Fatty Langtry. Langtry was long a vaudevillian, having married one of the hottest broads on the circuit two decades earlier, and the pudgy pair of pugilists made a great draw. Never one to assent to following social mores, Freeman lived out the remainder of her life as the whiskey-chugging, foul-mouthed, barroom brawler (but definitely not a whore, which was the common belief at the time and often correct) with whom no one in their right mind wanted to fuck with, and whom many non-high society women considered a beacon of sensibility in an otherwise nonsensical world of corsetry, anemia, breathlessness, and general misery.

Fatty and his French import of a wife, Lillie Langtry.

So there you have it- social mores are fucking stupid, especially when they pertain to illiterate men with hard PDWs and very limp dicks and their opinions about how women should live their lives. Ladies, the next time some fatass opens his yap – use your fist to close it. It’s not like any of those Pepe-Le Pew-loving nothings will ever put their hands up against a game opponent, and if they do it’s just a free pass to stab them in the fucking throat.

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4 responses to “Quickie History X Fustigation Fury: Gussie Freeman, Barroom Brawler and Badass Bitch”

  1. Rodrigo Guazzelli Avatar
    Rodrigo Guazzelli

    Hey Jamie great content as always. Its been awesome to read on some of your more politically and historically informed views, thats one of the best eras of this blog (even in this shitty days). You added a lot of depht to your work over the last years. Been following this shit since 13 or so, feel like i’m your bro already haha. Thanks man, keep on

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      I really appreciate that, bro! Thanks! Frankly, much of my new bent has been driven by the same thing that led me to throw in porn and gore in the first place- as a general rule, the subject matter and individuals typically profiled are just recycled trash, and I genuinely can’t write about the same thing more than once due to catastrophic boredom 🤣 🤣. It occurred to me that my time would be better spent actually explaining why the lifters of yore were so impressive, beyond their numbers. I mean, even I mostly forget what it was like to drive around using maps, and I crossed the country twice without GPS- trying to do it on dusty, unmarked, ditch-filled dirt roads would be insane… and then you consider you had to do that and then possible sleep on a park bench the night before competing and you’ve got lifting feats no modern person could match just out of discomfort, most likely.

      You have no idea how glad I am to hear people share my view on that, because my interactions with most lifters these days are almost uniformly shitty. Thanks again bro!

  2. Gino Garcia Avatar

    Have you heard of Amanda Serrano? Simultaneously, she’s a professional boxer with championships across 9 different weight classes, a professional mixed martial artist with 2 wins and 1 loss, and is undefeated in every BJJ tournament she’s entered. While I’m unsure of her belt, she’s only been doing the art since 2018. In addition, she’s hot as fuck. She’s an ideal candidate for your blog.

    1. Jamie Chaos Avatar
      Jamie Chaos

      Damn! No, I hadn’t. She’s definitely on my radar now. Thanks! I’ve got rad new shit on the way- what was intended to be a single article has turned into at least two, of course. Hopefully I’ll have the first one up tomorrow. i tore my tricep last week, so I’ve not been writing just to rest the thing. With no insurance I’ve gotta baby it so a partial doesn’t turn into a full.

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