i don't know much about this guy and i was just on wiki looking at his record and something stood out to me. he fought a guy for 75 rounds straight. HOW DO YOU FIGHT FOR 75 ROUNDS? sullivan even threw up around the 40th round but he recovered and kept fighting until his opponent's corner threw in the towel in the 75th round.. 75 rounds. 75 rounds. 75 rounds..... 75 rounds.......... how do you fight for 75 rounds???????? i understand that that was the bare knuckle era but that's unhuman. that's unreal. fighters today are completely gassed by the 8th round. bernard hopkins says he's an alien.. F*CK OUTTTA HEAAA. tell me some stuff about sullivan, how great was the guy?
After indulging in his favorite meal of boiled cabbage and a hogshead of ale, his flatulence could lay out a draft horse.
During the bareknuckle era, the rounds weren't your typical 3 minutes. A round ended when a fighter was knocked down. Now when we say knocked down, we mean when a fighter took a knee. Also the rules were different in terms of the fight itself. Fighters were allowed to grapple while on their feet. So let's say John L is fighting Jake Kilrain and John grabs Jake and throws him down in the 1st 30 seconds. That's the end of the round. Also if a fighter is tired, he takes a knee. That ends a round. A good source of this is Elliot Gorn's book "the Manly Art":good
The Sullivan-Kilrain fight was timed at two hours and eighteen minutes. With 30-second breaks between each round, that's about an hour and forty minutes of actual fighting. Not quite as incredible as the 75-round length suggests, but still a scary endurance test.
To better understand this, spend a day outside in the heat of south Mississippi in July. The humidity is exhausting even if you're not engaged in a physical pursuit like boxing outdoors.
