You are a sissy...

Imagine a boxing match like the one in Rocky -- 15 rounds of two men beating the shit out of each other until they can barely stand. Now imagine two guys doing that five consecutive times without stopping. Oh, and one of them is drunk the entire time. That was the absolutely insane 1889 bout between John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain.

Though formal championships didn't exist outside the world of hoop rolling in those days, John L.Sullivan was nationally recognized as the king of the boxing world. At a time when the sport was so raw they could have called it "murder-hits'' and nobody would have blinked, Sullivan was the best. And leave it to the Gilded Age to somehow translate his fame into a mustache so powerful it actually started over at the eyebrows:

We can't help thinking he means that literally. It's in his eyes.

As insanely masculine as Sullivan was, he was also insanely addicted to alcohol. So when a relatively young and fit family man named Jake Kilrain challenged Sullivan to an illegal match for a $20,000 purse, he did what any man with a mustache like that would do: he continued binge drinking. And this was while battling a host of ailments that, according to him, included typhoid fever, gastric fever, inflammation of the bowels, heart trouble, liver complaint, an "incipient paralysis," a "mysterious itch" and delusions of phantom rats. So, he was not in fighting shape is what we're saying.

The Standoff:

The Sullivan/Killrain match lasted over two hours and 75 excruciating rounds. Oh, and the fight was outdoors, in July, in Mississippi.

It turns out Sullivan was too drunk or too brain damaged to feel pain, even after his face was split and his ear was ripped. The fourth round alone lasted over 15 minutes, and there were still 71 more to go. Thanks to the whiskey Sullivan was swilling in his corner, a 44th round punch caused him to vomit on the ring ... and he kept on fighting.

By round 75, both men were sporting sunburn blisters on their backs, Sullivan's eye was swollen shut and neither man could hardly stand. Yet it was Kilrain's team that threw in the towel, not because Kilrain wanted to quit, but because his coach was pretty sure he'd die if he continued.