This blurb appeared in a 1937 issue of Popular Science. In London, two fellows donned asbestos suits and feigned a boxing match while their pyrotechnic doppelgangers exploded alongside them, like some sort of spontaneously combusting conjoined twins.
Advertisement
Somewhere in a shady warehouse on the wrong side of the tracks, I bet the forbidden art of fireworks boxing is still practiced, its clandestine, detonating pugilists courting third-degree burns and mesothelioma with every jab. But sweet victory! I wager it tastes like thermite.
[Via Ptak Science Books]
DISCUSSION
I would have thought with a suit made from a suitable kevlar/nomex composite and some carefully chosen fireworks this could be pulled of relatively safely. Then add some shoulder-mounted rocket launchers to put some spice back in to it.