Fireworks boxing is the greatest sport that never caught on

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.

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]