The most popular and most widely available teeth retainer on the market is the sporting mouthguard, which is used to help avoid painful and potentially dangerous dental injuries via the use of a protective material that reduces impact and movement similar to a crash helmet.

A mouthguard, sometimes known as a gumshield, is a standard part of equipment in a huge number of team sports, including boxing, mixed martial arts, cricket, rugby and gridiron football, and in such sports is often mandatory.

The road to dental protection was long, however, and whilst mouthguards predate this one infamous day on 3rd March 1927, this was the moment that combat sports started to consider mandating gumshields.

On this night in Madison Square Garden, Jack Sharkey faced Mike McTigue in a boxing match that would controversially end just 91 seconds before the conclusion of the final round, with referee Billy “Kid” McPartland stopping the fight.

Jack Sharkey was declared the winner by technical knockout, although Mr McTigue was later found to have been leading on all three judge’s scorecards. 

Mr McPartland reasoned that Mr McTigue had suffered a dangerous cut of the upper gum, later found to have been caused by a chipped tooth slicing at it, and the referee thought it would be too dangerous to continue.

This decision, whilst correct, was controversial at the time and led to an enactment of change, albeit potentially not for the right reasons.

After the fight and the suggestion by sports doctors and dentists that a protective mouthpiece would have stopped this from happening and let Mr McTigue box the last part of the fight, the perception of mouthguards would change.

Instead of being dismissed as vain as had been the case in some boxing circles in the first part of the 1920s, it became the norm, and later boxing commissions and sports authorities would make them mandatory.