He won his first world title in 1891 when he knocked out Jack Dempsey (not to be confused with the later heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey) to win the world middleweight championship. In 1897 at Carson City in Nevada – the first fight to be filmed – he knocked out James J Corbett to win the world heavyweight title, which he held for two years. Fitzsimmons, known as Ruby Bob, gained a third world title when he beat George Gardner over 20 rounds in San Francisco in 1905, when 42 years old, for the light-heavyweight crown. Fitzsimmons followed up his unique boxing career with a career on the vaudeville stage. Return to the Inductee list