THE first world title fight in boxing — as acknowledged by most boxing historians — took place at Capthall Common in Sussex on December 18 1810. 

It was fought between Tom Molineaux, a former slave from Virginia who began boxing when he arrived in New York as a freeman at the age of 20, and English champion Tom Cribb. 

The occasion was preserved for posterity in the writing of the most popular English sportswriter of the period, Pierce Egan: “The pugilistic honour of the country was at stake,” Egan wrote, “the national laurels to be borne away by a foreigner — the mere idea to an English breast was afflicting, and the reality could not be endured — that is should seem, the spectators were ready to exclaim…”