William Thompson (boxer)

William Abednego Thompson (18 October 1811 – 23 August 1880) was an English bare-knuckle boxer.

Born in Sneinton, Nottingham in 1811, Thompson was one of a set of triplets named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, after the young men in the Book of Daniel who emerged from the fiery furnace of Babylon. He was the last of 21 children born in the slums between Long Row and Parliament Street. From an early age, Thompson developed well and was noted as having an ability with sports. When he was 15 his father died and William was sent to the Nottingham Workhouse with his mother. After leaving the Workhouse, Thompson sold oysters in and around the streets of Nottingham before obtaining a job as an iron turner.

By the age of 18, he was already fighting for money to provide for his family. He defeated his first eight opponents — including the champion of the nearby town of Bingham. At age 21 he was a regular prize fighter. Thompson was a southpaw (for a bet he once threw half a house brick over the River Trent with his left hand) boxer who compensated for his lack of height (he was barely 177 cm or five feet, ten inches tall) with an incredible ability to punch hard and fast, and was said to be devoid of fear. He was also very agile, earning the name "Bendy" because of his constant bobbing and weaving around the ring; his nickname evolved and "Bendy" Abednego became "Bendigo".

Though it was his speed and agility that won him his fights, it was Thompson's personality and sense of humour which endeared him to the crowd (or "fancy" as fight fans were then known). He would make up rhymes about his opponents during the fights, and distract them with insults and tall tales of their wives and mothers while pulling funny faces at them. It wasn't long before Thompson was drawing crowds of over 10,000 people to his illicit fights, held secretly out of town in barns or fields.

Thompson's career is mostly remembered for his fierce rivalry with the Hucknall-born boxer Ben Caunt. In 1835 the two met for the first time for a purse of £25. This fight lasted 22 rounds, which at the time did not last a set amount of time, but was called whenever a fighter was knocked down. Bendigo, who was 19 kg (three stone) lighter and 15 cm (six inches) shorter, got into difficulties during the fight and started to stumble frequently. This, along with his constant manic laughter and free flowing insults, frustrated Caunt, who finally struck Thompson while he was kneeling and so lost the match on a foul. A writer at the fight described Caunt as "full of trickery and treachery — he has no ethics" and Thompson "as deadly and as poisonous as a rattlesnake with about the same ethics."

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