[Syd Thrift]

Less than a year after the Civil War came to its bloody conclusion, the city of New York was still rife with dissension. The Irishmen hated the blacks, the old rich hated the nouveau riche, the supporters of the Union hated those who called themselves "Copperheads" and supported the Confederate cause. There would, decided the corrupt Tammany Hall, be only one cure for this chaos, and it would come in the form of a brand new sport known as boxing.

No, this would not be ordinary old prizefighting; an English chap known as the Marquis of Queensbury had placed rules down governing 10-second knock-outs, the "technical knockout", and even judges who decided who *would* win a fight if it went to 45 rounds. Hopefully, there would be less death. The country had had plenty of that.

The first fights in this new sport were held in Frank's Gym out near where old man Bronck's farm used to be. Jesse "Laffy" Jaffe scored a bloody technical knockout over Jesus "The Messiah" Horne to assume control of the 5 Boroughs Boxing Syndicate Class Ring. Everyone agreed that the tourney was exceedingly well-fought, not to mention well-represented: each borough sent their best man and were accompanied by 2 gents from upstate and a brawler from across the Jersey shore.

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This is going to be a 100% fictional heavyweights-only universe. I create each boxer using a fairly detailed Python script that's based on the active heavies that come with the game. I'm sort of using that as a way to learn the language as well, so I may or may not be able to wrap it up and release it as a program. I really like the way that it works, though: first it determines whether a fighter is a boxer, slugger, or either, then it determines 4 base attributes based on those classes (boxers are more likely to have higher control ratings but lower hit power, for example), then it determines all the others based on a detailed analysis I ran using a combination of correlations, regressions, and artistic license. It seems to be working pretty well. Modern heavies aren't exactly the pinnacle of boxing, so the best fighters I've seen get 7s and 8s overall (if you look, that's exactly what the Trunzos and co. gave to the best of the best), which is actually kind of cool because it means the division is going to stay really close.

I'm also using a mishmash of the rules that others have come up with regarding resting after fights, matchups for the larger leagues, regional championships, and so on. I plan on starting it small and adding a few new boxers every month until it's large-ish; I don't expect it to ever be as big as CC's monster league but I want to have several regional championships in time.

Since I like the way The Ring summarizes TV bouts, I'll use their format month by month.