Shortly afterwards, Hall planned to leave Australia for the United States, seeking a title match with World Champion Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey.

Forced to stay and recuperate in Australia while Fitzsimmons went to the US and won the world title, Hall lost his Australian belt to Owen Sullivan in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

By the end of 1890, however, Hall had recovered his Australian championship in a match against Starlight Rollins, before losing it to Billy McCarthy on 18 January 1892 – he embarked for America three days later aboard the ship Alameda.

The bout was anticipated as "one of the fiercest battles ever fought by middleweights" in the US, and one newspaper reported that the "bad blood" between the pair was incentive enough for them to fight, regardless of the money on offer.

On the day of the fight however, Minnesota Governor William Rush Merriam ordered four companies of National Guardsmen to surround the amphitheatre and prevent the event from occurring.

Hall went through 1892 undefeated in the ring - which included a trip across the Atlantic to England, where he won the British version of the World middleweight title from Ted Pritchard.

Kline worked Hall hard in training, but the fighter resisted, with The New York World newspaper reporting that he ate what he pleased and continued to drink a quart of Burgundy a day.

An admirer called Patsy Callahan arranged for Hall's burial at Oak Hill Cemetery in Neenah, Wisconsin, but did not mark the grave with a headstone.

Writing in The Ring magazine, George T. Tickell described Hall as "a remarkably brilliant boxer ... [with] the ability to think and act simultaneously, [making] him a perfect specimen of the bruising glove artist."