"That's because they were itinerant. But often it was the locals who blamed everything on the showmen," Sharman once said.

"We had the stigma, but not anymore.

"I've had women smash umbrellas over my head, break my glasses and throw shoes at me when they reckoned (as a referee) I didn't give the local lad a fair go against my boxer."

His remarks were made way back at the 1988 Newcastle Show, where he was being honoured with a special display of boxing-tent memorabilia in sideshow alley. The famous boxing trouper was recalling the glory days on the NSW show circuit decades earlier before television, mechanical rides and new laws on tent boxing made it tougher to survive as a business.

Ironically, by 1988, this rare breed of showman had all but lost interest in the art of boxing. Instead, he'd moved on to investing in dodgem cars and other rides, but the memories lingered.

Then aged 74, Sharman's career spanned truly another era, when tent boxing was a popular showground attraction in sideshow alleys everywhere. Today, such fisticuffs survive only on a shrinking circuit of remote outback towns from north Queensland cane fields to Cooktown. In this bygone era, sideshow alleys contained all sorts of colourful attractions not seen these days, including imported so-called "freaks".

Sure, today's shows, from the recent Newcastle and Maitland events, and even the current Sydney Royal Easter Show, all have enough thrilling rides, centre ring events, exhibits and showbags to satisfy kids of all ages. Yet, I still have a hankering for the smell of sawdust and liniment, the raw vitality, great variety and hinted danger in past sideshow alleys. But, most of all, I miss the ballyhoo of the scene.

For 60 years, the legendary father and son team of Jimmy Sharman Snr and 'Young Jimmy" Jnr ran boxing under canvas at city and country shows. And they were very popular, if brutal, tent attractions in their heyday. It was trial by public combat with the Sharman boxers pitted against all comers. Products of Sharman's troupe even eventually won at least 15 Australian boxing titles. Boxers included Mickey Miller and Billy Grimes to Tom Uren and Tony Mundine.

Picture the scene. On the platform normally above a big canvas tent would stand Sharman's hooded boxers awaiting their opponents. A bell would clang and a bass drum would boom. The curious would gather and the spruiker would challenge men from the audience to participate, daring them to lace up the gloves "for a round or two for a quid or two, or for the experience".

Inside later, under the glare of light bulbs hung between tent poles, two boxers would face off on a tarpaulin square surrounded by the noisy, partisan crowd. Soon the boxers would start hammering each other in short, sweaty jabs.

Second-generation boxing showman Young Jimmy Jnr followed in the footsteps of his father, Jimmy Snr, who began in 1911. In olden days, visiting film stars such as Errol Flynn and Victor McLaglen were reputed to have also sparred in the boxing troupe's tents. From 1945, Jimmy Jr helped his father until he later took over and toured the show circuit in the 'Red Terror', a red bus.

"Without being vain, Sharman was once a household name," Sharman Jnr told me in 1988.

"(Newcastle showmen) Greenhalgh and Jackson were famous too, now they're all gone."

The shows, not the rides, were the things Young Jimmy remembered.

"Other entertainers, singers, people like the Le Garde Twins, Slim Dusty, Tex Morton, Johnny O'Keefe and Normie Rowe were all glad of 52 weeks a year work on the show circuit. Today they live at home and do the clubs," Sharman Jnr said.

But touring in the old days could have its moments. Such as the time the showman put a large dead snake in the cot of Jack Hassen, a hard-hitting boxer. But he wasn't too happy with the prank "and cleaned up everybody".

In his era, Jimmy Jnr toured about 10 months of the year using a total of about 60 multiracial boxers to challenge the locals in the ring. He said he took over from his father in 1954, but by 1971 it all ended when new laws prohibited boxers from fighting more than once a week and specified a month's rest for any boxer knocked out, plus medical examinations.

But Jimmy Jnr said the travelling boxing troupe was licensed for 60 years and both he and his father never had an official complaint.

"Sometimes the most dangerous thing that happened was to me, from women, and I was refereeing."

His first real link with boxing though was one he hardly remembered. He said he was extremely young when his father's best friend, Maitland's famous Les Darcy, took him to a picture show on the boxer's birthday in 1914. Jimmy Snr died in 1965 and Young Jimmy in 2007. One of his sons became a successful stage director producing shows such as Jesus Christ Superstar and the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Meanwhile, what is claimed to be the oldest surviving boxing tent troupe in the world is apparently still operated by old-time promoter Fred Brophy in Queensland. His troupe avoids both NSW and Victoria though, where boxing regulations are tighter.

Raised under canvas, he's the fourth generation to manage the family business. Life's never been dull for this travelling showman either. He recalls his grandfather buying an alligator as a bizarre mascot to give the punters a fright.

Brophy was inducted into Queensland's Boxing Hall of Fame in 2009 but getting bums on seats to remain profitable has always required this last great showman to stay versatile. Besides the boxing lure, he's had other tent attractions such as Siamese twins, magicians and curiosities like the headless girl.

Years ago, Brophy told Australian Geographic writer Matthew Cawood that he had spent time in the ring himself until at age 25, a defeated opponent shot him in the leg.