I take it he was a heavyweight, eh?
"The Devil's Garden"
W. B. Maxwell
In Chapter 14 the author mentions Big Ben, but this is not the clock tower bell in London, which at the time of writing had not yet been rung; instead this is Benjamin Caunt, the bare-knuckle boxer who defeated William Thompson in 75 rounds to become heavyweight Champion of England in 1838. The bell may possibly have been named after him.
"Tom Brown at Oxford"
Thomas Hughes
The conversation had already run through the question of Votes for Women, progressive politics, and prize-fights, and before the card game began it had settled on the last-named, chiefly because of my own vainglorious description of adventures at Reno, Nevada, at the time of the Jeffries-Johnson battle for the heavyweight championship of the world.
"The Log of a Noncombatant"
Horace Green