Nobody had the technique then as they do now or balance, or ability, there was simply nobody to learn from, I don't see how he would be better than anyone else who was around the such as Bob Fitzsimmons, James J Jeffries and Jack Johnson and lets be real Wilder KO's all of them in 1 round from what I've seen, I'm not saying they're bad, they just weren't evolved or big enough, anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves and living in the past
I think that you are making a raft of assumptions here, which are not necessarily correct. I also don't think that Wilder would have been regarded as a technical genius in any era. Also, even if Sullivan was a s bad as you think, a first round knockout is a fairly unusual event, even when there is a disparity in quality.
@reznick Please consider doing a Lomachenko highlight video, but with a mustachioed Sullivan's head swapped in for his.
Facetiousness aside, do you get my point? We don't have any idea how good Sullivan looked, and he was so dominant, and declined so dramatically, that he could theoretically have been a one off talent.
I get your point but if Sullivan truly possessed that level of skill, I would think that it would have come out a lot more in contemporaneous writings. And the fact that Corbett was so widely hailed for his brilliant mobility and technical innovations--often specifically in contrast to Sullivan--makes it less plausible that Sullivan had been some kind of technical virtuoso ala Lomachenko.
Th game is too different between these eras to hazard much of a serious guess. If it was in a bar or a back alley, with no rules though, my money would be on John L.
It would be hard to believe that Sullivan was a "technical virtuoso" and within 25 years boxing had devolved to the level of Jess Willard.
For every article praising Corbett, you could probably find a hundred praising Sullivan. It is hard to imagine how Sullivan could have been praised more by contemporary writers! Read either Pollack biography, if you want to see it for yourself. Furthermore, their styles were at the opposite ends of the spectrum. It is like comparing Mike Tyson to Chris Byrd, when their primes did not remotely overlap. Corbett was never an innovator by the way, he was an evolutionary dead end.
Sullivan was considered a marvel in his day. Willard was seen as big, tough, good at using his size, and not that much else. There is no reason to think, that Willard would have been seen as a technically good in Sullivan's day.
This makes sense, & it should be added that writer's comparing the two were dealing with comparing Corbett to a washed up alcoholic. But why do you say the former was an evolutionary dead end? You belive none of his technique & innovations were learned by others?
Legend has it Sullivan knocked out 400 men. He was a fighting MoFo. His hands looked kind of quick in that one film of him messing with a guy before the Johnson/Jeffries fight. He was an old man by then.
