I'm not sure about McVey. The only person these days who was around in the Sullivan days, is Luis Ortiz.
I know something about track, as my old man ran a 10.1 100 yard dash in the state finals ( 11.0 100 meters ). You can't compare track from 1930 to 2018. Shoes and PED's make the sport a vastly different game. The surface area can make a difference too. Track and field is a mental game. They used to say no one could break a 4-minute mile, than Bannister did it, and many quickly followed.
Ha, when did you run it? I'm talking about a 1950's time. In Sullivan's time the a 11.0 100 meter would have won gold in the Olympics by a full second. If there was ever a top track guy doing well in boxing past 1950, I do not know his name.
The first modern Olympiad was in 1896. Without opening a whole can of worms, I will just say that in Tom Burke's day the Olympic representation was not very inclusive.
Yes to put some of these old medallists in perspective.Sam Berger ,Jeffries crony won Gold in the 1904 Olympics ,the US were the only nation to field a team.
Given the obvious deficiencies in Corbett's account of his first fifth with Jeffries, I would be wary of his account of the Sullivan fight. Either way, this win is certainly no guarantee of success against a prime Sullivan.
We will be looking at more early Sullivan fights over the coming weeks, so lets see what crops up. I suspect that he only knew him after the injury, but I could be wrong.
The question is whether he would have beaten Corbett in his prime. Corbett was a brilliant technician, but he was clearly losing to the best punchers. Fitzsimmons beat him, Jeffries beat him, and Sharkey basically beat him! My guess is that a prime Sullivan beats him. Let's not forget that he lost to one of Sullivan's victims, and also a guy that Sullivan used as a sparring partner! He was not exactly the second coming!