Pugilist T-Shirt

Cribb’s fights drew an enormous crowd and rewarded him celebrity status amongst all classes of England. His name was mentioned in poems, songs and works of literature. With England anxious about potential defeat at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte, Cribb was seen as a patriotic exemplar of the virtues of strength, courage and fortitude. The words of the poem ‘A Boxing We Will Go’ even imagined what would happen if Napoleon dared to take on England’s premier boxer, concluding that Cribb would “beat him like a drum; and make his carcase sound.”