Top ten head to head heavies pre-Dempsey

Well - he was, and he wasn't. In the end, he failed to fight his most dangerous contender. From a certain point of view, that makes him the least dominant (at least Corbett met the man). Arguably he was only tested at the VERY highest level by Corbett who beat him. I accept though, that if he had flattened Jackson in two, I could now be saying the same thing.

As for what he did in the ring, he was indeed dominant in the extreme, but I like the overall body of work proportionate to dominance of many of those fighters.

Five or six is right for Jawn, IMO. You'd have to twist my arm with some wizardry or deep analysis to have him up over Langford and be extremely convincing to get him up over Corbett, for me.

 

It is hard to believe this given that Jackson was the more established man when he and Corbett met in 1891. Either he was an established contender at this time, or he was never an established contender. Sullivan was nothing like as far gone as Ali when Ali met Holmes even when Sullivan met Corbett. For my money, he was a very reasonable proposition from the moment he stopped Maher.

 

This is a harsh indictment of James Corbett. I suppose we shall have to agree to disagree.

 

In the run up to Corbett-Sullivan, opinion was deeply divided. Mike Donavan considered Sullivan to be done when the fight was signed but shifted forty pounds in the aftermath of this judgement. This was attested to by Charley Johnson, who was picking up Sullivan's bills at this time. According to Johnson, Sullivan was not drinking at all at this point.

After some dithering, Sullivan himself went for the fight to the finish. His plan was clearly to outlast Corbett.

Fitzsimmons named Sullivan "fit and well" and Jimmy Carroll agreed with him. The press made him a favourite, and it is not the case that they made him a favourite despite his condition, but rather this pick was born of a near obsession with his condition.

The press got their first proper look at Sullivan sparring mid-May (the fight was in September). The New York Herald:

"[Sullivan was] quick and active throughout, and, of course, hit [his opponent] almost when and where he pleased...he landed some very hard blows...the opinion of the audience seemed to be that Sullivan would defeat Corbett easily."

In June, Sullivan went into training in earnest. He was near fighting weight (220) at the end of that month. Sullivan was clearly out of shape, and clearly dropped too much weight too soon, but this needs to be compared to the behind-closed-doors policy of Ali before Holmes (carefully controlled appearances aside) and the literal non-boxing training policy of Jeffries before Johnson. Accoridng to Times Democrat, Sullivan showed "a good del of his old-time speed" on September the third in sparring, and although he looked out of shape in contrast to Jeffries and Ali, he clearly trained hard in the run up to that fight. There are too many testimonies to the fact for it to be untrue. Phil Casey who trained him for that fight was among them.

The day before the fight he publicly hit the bag for twenty-five minutes, did work on his footwork for which he looked "exceptionally clever", jumped rope over seven hundred times, twice, and took a swim with Bob Fitzsimmons who declared him in good condition.

It is also the case that Sullivan lasted many, many more rounds than Jeffries and Ali and that he offered far more resistance than either. In the fifth he took such a savage beating that the two men were bathed in Sullivan's blood but in the sixteenth round he was still rushing and landing. So, he was still applying aggressive pressure long after Ali and Jeffries had capitulated in their respective fights. In the seventeenth according to Pollack he "continued pressing, and landed some good punches, particularly to the body."

It was the nineteenth that Sullivan began badly to fade.

Sullivan was in the **** when he stepped up for this fight, but unlike Ali (who used diuretics) and Jeffries (who just did swimming and ****) he actually trained for fighting. The result was a spirited defence as opposed to a weak capitulation.

 

Jeff's durability would be the key factor I think - no reason to think he isn't up to it in light of what he took off Fitz.

 

Read the thread a little more carefully.