Green’s Dictionary of Slang

buffer n.4

[SE buff, a blow]

a boxer; a fighter.

[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Buffer a Boxer/ Irish term.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Buffer. [...] in Ireland it signifies a boxer.
[UK]Sporting Mag. June XVI 126/1: The Mercantile Buffers [...] had beaten each other most unmercifully.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 7: The Buffers, both ‘Boys of the Holy Ground’.
[UK]T. Moore ‘The Milling Match’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 84: Yet, sprightly to the scratch, both Buffers came.
[Aus]Australian (Sydney) 7 Jan. 3/5: The native lads invariably beat every foreign buffer.
[UK](con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 258: Bold came each buffer to the scratch, / To make it look a tightish match.
[US]Matsell Vocabulum 125: buffer. A pugilist.
[UK]Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 37/2: Although none of the most valiant of ‘buffers’ at any time, he could not brook this insult.
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[Aus]Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 12: Buffer, a pugilist.
[Ire]Share Slanguage.