What type of an athlete was John L Sullivan?

Here's a bare knuckle fight that lasts a whole hour. Do you consider either of these guys special athletes?

You seem like a normally reasonable person. But this is what John L. Sullivan was doing. Look at photos of the Kilrain fight. They tacked up a couple posts in a field. And people stood around yelling and hopping in the ring every once in a while. It was this stuff. Against guys of this calibre, for the most part.

It doesn't take a special athlete to fight for more than an hour. LOOK at them.

These two didn't even stop for a break. There were no rounds. They fought for an hour.

How many breaks did Sullivan take when he fought for three hours?

Are the guys in that video super men? Think someone like Errol Spence wouldn't beat the snot out of both of them in a couple minutes?

You're fawning over something - the duration of the fight - that isn't that big of a deal.

Don't read those stories and believe the HYPE. It was an era where EVERYTHING in print was exagerrated to sell papers.

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No, they aren't. People didn't evolve across 150 years.

 

No, just equal to a fifteen round fighter, in terms of stamina!

But it wasn't against men of this caliber.

There was a global talent pool at the time, and these two men were the cream of it!

Could Lennox Lewis or Wladamir Klitschko have done that?

You are not making Sullivan look bad here, you are making modern fighters look bad!

He got many breaks, because his opponents kept going down, to avoid being knocked out!

I am sorry, but we know how long Sullivan's fights were.

There were multiple reporters at ringside, from different papers, and they all said the same thing.

 

Fast explosive athletes tend to have wirey strength that goes hand in hand with fast twitch muscles. Not always but it's fairly common. You usually can't run very fast if you're just skin and bones, you need some meat on your calves and thighs to generate power.

My friend ran track in high school and got to the state championship. At first glance he's very lean and not very bulky but if you shake hands with him he has a hell of a grip and good functional strength.

This is different from brutish power lifting strength tho. It's rare for very fast guys to have tremendous raw strength (unless they ALSO lift weights while maintaining their speed and stamina, which is very tricky).

 

So to answer your original question.

I had not looked into Sullivan's other sporting activities in much detail previously, because I did not see it as being relevant.

We have established that he was a semi professional baseball player, that he was a member of a rowing team, and there is some evidence that he had a good turn of speed in a 100 yard dash.

When you combine that with his boxing career, and the fact that he was able to abuse his body systematically, and still get into shape for a two or three hour fight, you are obviously looking at a man with considerable natural athleticism!

 

I’d guess he was predominantly an endomorph, capable of putting lots of muscle on, but also fat if he didn’t stay disciplined.

 

That hypothesis would be consistent with his tale of the tape, and his regular fluctuations in weight.

 

What do you mean? That he didn't have cute body? Who cares? He trained for what he had to do and I'm sure he was mkre athletic thanany modern fighters anyway. He had to have great athletic potential to do what he did.

 

The type to take two salt water baths per day.

 

Two observations based on that video.

First, he had short arms. I don't know if there are any measurements out there, but it sure looked like his arms were short for his stature.

Second....he looked like crap physically at the age of 50. I look a hell of a lot better than him, and am in way better condition at 69.
Alcohol will do that to you...that and smoking.

 

The comparison is bad. Jeffries was an oaf; everyone looks good compared to him. His strategy was based on the "Tex Cobb" method...have the other guy hit you until he gets tired. Then throw a couple punches and see if they land.

 

BS... He had a 74" reach, which is pretty damn good for 5-10 guy.

He drank himself into 2 comas and had another illness that laid him near death in the late 80's. Let's not judge him by how he looked in his 50's. I look f*cking spectacular in my 50's and can't hold a candle to this guy in terms of athleticism and innate fighting skill. It ain't the Eye Test Olympics.

 

Ok calm down.

No way his arms are 74". Look at this photo...he has arms like a T Tex. I bet Rocky Marciano had longer arms (uh oh). Maybe...MAYBE...his
shoulders were wide, which might get you to 74" but fist to shoulder he may have been 32-34" which is not a long arm.

https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/gHQD...ivan-1995-3x2gty-58b998a63df78c353cfc4456.jpg