John Sullivan In The Modern Era

Were they though?

Sullivan took punches from smaller gloves, and in some cases bare knuckles.

He also fought bouts that lasted up top three hours.

Impossible to say either way.

Bigger chest, biceps and neck.

Bigger man.

 

Sam Langford really wasn’t primitive.

 

Read my post: I’m not at all an advocate for ‘Sullivan would be good today as he was’

However, YOU are the clueless casual fan. Using Boxrec to further your arguments is a terrible stance to take.

I know from my own research that boxrec is missing loads of fights. Hell, I’ve even found two separate fighters that are one and the same, which takes one of Jimmy Wilde’s opponents from 1-0 to a fighter who fought world class opposition from flyweight to featherweight over a period of ten years (haven’t shared it with boxrec as I’m saving it for my book on Wilde)

That’s research. Something you seem unable to carry out or want to do, which quite frankly will alienate you from the majority of this board who takes these matters seriously.

Essentially, you’re coming off as a troll. So my advice would be to wise up or log out.

 

I'm not a bare-knuckle guy, but to quote Sullivan himself he preferred gloves. When you fight bare-knuckle you going to hurt your hands sooner or later, and that means fewer punches to the head.

As to who took harder shots, which puncher that landed hit harder than Moore or Walcott that Sullivan fought? Names, please.

Marciano fought with lighter gloves too, but at least they offered protection for the hands which means the fighters could afford to throw more punches.

In this thread, Sullivan in shape was in his 180's, correct? You could say the same for Marciano. Sullivan was only marginally the bigger man. He also had more body fat and might have been a shade shorter. When I look at Sullivan pictures, even the older ones, he does not look very muscled or athletic. Marciano to me was better conditioned.

 

Bare knuckle punches must be thrown more sparingly, but they do land harder, and Sullivan would have had to take them at times.

You can argue that point either way.

Marciano's resume is dominated by technicians, while Sullivan did meet some of the renowned punchers of his era, such as Frank Herald for example.

Herald was said to be the hardest puncher of his era, including Sullivan himself.

If this is correct, then he almost certainly hit harder than Walcott or Moore.

Sullivan said that his best weight was around 195lbs, and I think that he was probably correct.

 

This is no knock against Adam, who I'm sure is very knowledgeable and a fine researcher - but he still has never seen Sullivan fight!

So we have actually no idea of how good he really was. The best of his time, sure - but I find it strange how anyone can proclaim, that probably no cruiserweight today, could give him much of an argument. How can we possibly know that?

 

I see that said a lot, but I'm really not convinced it's true in practice from reports or manuels.

I think one factor is that body shot KOs often take people out for the 10 second count, but not long enough to stop them coming up to scratch under bareknuckle rulesets. Plus they'd tend to use the throws to wind fighters. Don't get me wrong, body punching was certainly part of bareknuckle, I just don't think it was as common as people make out.

Choynski actually commented, when comparing Peter Jackson to Jack Johnson, that body punching had become more prominant, than it was when Jackson was fighting.

 

Frankly, criticizing Pollack's knowldege because he hasn't seen him fight, when he was getting all his info from boxrec, and not even understanding boxrec, is like criticizing a cyclist for not having a car, while sitting in a pile of your own **** making vroom vroom noises.

I can accept the opinion that it's unknown because we haven't seen him or the fighters he beat, but you can't then make claims he'd lose like he did.

 

I agree, no one can say, he would be slaughtered by today's boxers. My point was, that we don't really know how he would do - one way or the other.

 

I think that this is the bottom line.

Having said that, he was clearly a fearsome finisher.

Everybody either fought to survive, or got destroyed.

The top guys of his era would really have to be chumps in order for him not to be successful in other eras.

 

Sullivan himself mentioned the skills of his time were no match for what Jeffries had, an indication that back then it was a stand and trade/wrestle type of game, with little modern fundamentals such as defense, using the jab to set up the offense, or lateral mobility.

The skills of Jeffries time according to many don't measure up to what we have today. You can argue this is not the case for body punching, feints, and clinch/infighting and be correct, but for the most part I would agree.

Sullivan could have been a less refined, but more durable version of say Kovalev. The angle I'm going for is a big right hand with decent speed. The talent at cruiserweight has not been very good, historically speaking, and I think Sullivan's power alone would enable him to win one of the world championships today at Cruiserweight. I'd also pick him to lose to Holyfield and Usyk below 200 pounds.

 

When you fight bare-knuckle you going to hurt your hands sooner or later, and that means fewer punches to the head.

It's true. Just hit a heavy bag with your bare fist and you'll see there is a difference. You can hit a heavy bag harder and more often with gloves, no question about it. The human skull is about 17 times as hard as concrete. Bang on it with a bare fist, and you're going to injure your hands sooner or later.

 

How about reversing the question and time machining a modern boxer back to 1883 and a muddy outdoor ring. No juice for training, no highly specialized diets and team of nutritionists and strength coaches, no tape on your opponent, take a train at the al the last moment to the undisclosed fight location, very lax security around the ring, dudes with guns on their hips in a real Wild West environment... then compete for unlimited rounds, for perhaps hours, under the broiling sun and whatever hybrid of LPR and MDQ rules existed. No enswell, no adrenaline. No texactly 10 weeks of showpony training camp meeting its finale at posh Wembley Stadium.

 

^^^ Would agree that the transition back as opposed to forward would be more challenging

 

You have a soft spot for Sullivan. You turn into a hopeless dreamy-eyed, rose-tinted, nostalgic classicist whenever his name appears.