Bowen–Burke Lasted 110 Rounds and 7 Hours 19 Minutes

The longest recorded boxing match by duration was Andy Bowen vs. Jack Burke. Their gloved fight lasted 110 rounds and 7 hours 19 minutes at the Olympic Club in New Orleans on April 6–7, 1893.

That is the duration record, not the record for the most rounds. An earlier fight reached 276 rounds under rules that defined a round very differently.

Bowen vs. Burke at a glance

Record detail	Bowen vs. Burke
Date	April 6–7, 1893
Venue	Olympic Club, New Orleans, Louisiana
Duration	7 hours 19 minutes
Rounds	110
Round format	Three minutes, followed by one minute of rest
Recorded result	No contest
Record category	Longest recorded fight with gloves

Guinness World Records identifies Bowen–Burke as the longest recorded fight with gloves, running from 9:15 p.m. to 4:34 a.m.

The round structure accounts for the full elapsed time. There were 330 minutes of boxing—110 rounds multiplied by three minutes—and 109 one-minute intervals between rounds. Together, that is 439 minutes, or 7 hours 19 minutes.

Why there was no 1,100-point scorecard

It is tempting to imagine judges adding 110 rounds under the modern 10-point must system. That is not how this contest was decided.

Bowen and Burke were fighting to a finish, not toward a scheduled final bell followed by three judges’ totals. After 110 rounds, referee John Duffy stopped the contest because neither man had produced a finish. Guinness records the result as no contest, while noting that it was later described as a draw.

An archive-based account from New Orleans reports that Burke had broken both hands and increasingly relied on movement to remain in the fight. It says Duffy warned after round 108 that he would allow only two more rounds before stopping it. The fighters then split the $2,500 purse. The account describes Duffy’s ringside ruling as no contest but also says the fighters agreed to a draw, helping explain why both results appear in retellings (NOLA.com).

For record-book purposes, the clearest notation is:

Andy Bowen vs. Jack Burke — NC 110, 7:19:00.

It should not be reconstructed as a points draw: the bout did not end with judges totaling 110 scored rounds. The distinction between a round score, an official result and a viewer’s interpretation is also central to understanding modern boxing scorecards.

The 276-round fight was shorter

The record for the most rounds belongs to Jack Jones vs. Patsy Tunney in Cheshire, England, in 1825. Guinness records 276 rounds in 4 hours 30 minutes, with Jones winning (Guinness World Records).

That bout predates the 1867 Queensberry rules. Under the earlier format described by Guinness, a round ended when a fighter went down rather than after a fixed three-minute period. Many rounds could therefore be extremely short. That is why 276 rounds took considerably less time than Bowen and Burke’s 110:

Fight	Round format	Rounds	Duration	Relevant record
Andy Bowen vs. Jack Burke	Gloved, timed rounds	110	7:19	Longest by duration
Jack Jones vs. Patsy Tunney	Rounds ended when a fighter went down	276	4:30	Most rounds

Why regulated professional boxing cannot approach it today

Modern professional bouts have a fixed scheduled distance. Exact limits depend on the governing jurisdiction and contest. In Kansas, for example, current regulations allow professional bouts of no more than 12 rounds, with men’s rounds lasting no more than three minutes and one-minute rests (Kansas Secretary of State).

A 12-round men’s fight under that format contains 36 minutes of scheduled action and 11 minutes of between-round rest—47 minutes from the opening bell to the end of the final round, excluding pauses. Bowen–Burke lasted more than nine times as long.

So the direct answer is Bowen vs. Burke, 110 rounds and 7 hours 19 minutes. If “longest” means the greatest round count rather than elapsed time, the answer changes to Jones vs. Tunney, 276 rounds.