A question of probabilities: Did Sullivan and his opponents fight like modern fighters?

@janitor and @Tonto62 had an interesting exchange in another thread that deserves both expansion and its own thread, IMO.

The question was: Should we assume that Sullivan and his contemporaries fought anything like modern fighters?

I answer this question a strong negative, for the following reasons:

1) Every manual from the period looks like a standard upright, fist-fencing and grappling style. It's remarkable in its uniformity back then, especially compared to the more diverse wrestling at the time. (And also compared to the boxing that came AFTER it.) This includes Professor Mike Donovan, who fought Sullivan personally. If Sullivan and his contemporaries fought in the 1880s and 1890s like something out of the late 20th century, why do we have zero manuals recording any style other than the upright, fencing one?

2) Similarly, why don't we see anything like a modern style in the early Black Maria Edison clips of boxers that came years AFTER Sullivan? The earliest is probably Billy Edwards, an old lightweight who was a near contemporary of Sullivan's in Edwards's prime. Edwards doesn't exactly look modern either. Nor does Corbett, who succeeded Sullivan as champ, and still looks 90% of the time like a textbook LPR style fighter.

3) Sullivan himself doesn't look like he's fighting in a modern way in the photos from his fight with Kilrain. Nor do Sullivan's fooling-around clips with Corbett and the punching bag look like the fighting style of a crouching Tysonesque fighter, or a Mayweather, or somebody who stepped out of the USA Boxing Manual. There's also the James Boyle O'Reilly book that claims to show punches "as Sullivan throws them" sketched from photographs, although I don't know much about O'Reilly. Those photos look very different from modern boxing.

So in short, all the traces that have come down to us that might give us a clue about boxing-before-film portray that style as being archaic and optimized for LPR. The only fighter who actually faced Sullivan and documented his boxing style in a manual doesn't look modern, either, although Donovan does look a bit better than the 1880s woodcut manuals. Sullivan himself doesn't show much evidence of looking modern.

The default assumption should be that Sullivan fought much like any other boxer of the period, with perhaps a couple modern (or at least odd) stylistic quirks that gave him an advantage in the rapidly evolving MQR ruleset.

I open the floor to debate and objections.

 

I don’t have anything to add but I liked your post. It’s difficult to make any comparisons with little or no film available. And anyone who saw them perform in person was dead long before they themselves could observe modern fighters. All we have are photos and the Manuals you described revealing the stance which they stood in.

 

Man they did that fencing thing for years after this period. Just look at Jess Willard and Johnson for example. No guard, no kinetic chain, no bob and weave lateral movement or anything. To the modern eye it looks woeful. Dempsey was one of the first that I remember that actually stepped into his punches and moved laterally. I'm sure there were more, but the fencing posture persisted for a while.

 

It's highly unlikely that they fought like modern fighters. The rules were much different though, so why should they?

 

The ruleset he fought under (even in gloved fights),was so different from modern boxing. He almost certainly did not fight like a modern fighter, nor do I think that would be optimal.

There does seem to be atleast a couple camps of technique in Sullivan's time, and Sullivan and a lot of the Americans seem to be in the onecthat was much less influenced by LPR, and put much less emphasis on straight punching.b

 

I will start with some observations:

1. Sullivan is a completely unique case among heavyweight champions, in that his success depended on adapting to two completely alien rule sets, i.e. LPR and Queensbury.
2. Queensbury bouts of the day were a lot like amateur bouts today, with a short durations, and the Police often forcing a TKO when one fighter was getting the worst of it.
3. It is highly likely that Sullivan, and perhaps others, had two distinct styles, in order to cope with these very different rules.
5. There was likely enormous stylistic variation within the era, with some fighter looking a lot more like a modern boxer, than the majority of their contemporaries.

 

I need to read more on the era but I will say:-

We have two films of Fitz in action - v Corbett and v Lang. How much of the bare knuckle technique does Fitz retain in his MOQ gloved style ? I know Fitz had some exposure to LPR -correct? - and even if one began under early MOQ I guess there would’ve been bare fist fighting techniques still being passed along.

This guy on YouTube examines the old stance and upper body form and it’s practical applications under the old rules. Other vids out there but this one was pretty good.

This content is protected

What do Jan and Tonto think of this?

 

What do you mean by "that fencing thing'?

To me, fencing implies leading with one hand, straight out or straight punches, usually the left hand.

 

Interesting that Dempsey in his manual credited his proper punching technique (scientific hitting) to having learned from the old masters and old trainers who went back to bareknuckle days.

 

Some eye witness descriptions of Sullivan's style:

“The secret of the champions prowess is apparent. He carries his strongly muscled shoulders forward. The consequence is that when he delivers a blow he doesn’t have to bring the upper part of his body forward in the delivery. The arm straightens out and the blow is with a suddenness which seems paralyzing to the spectators, to say nothing of the man in front of him. He stands with one foot well behind and his body pressing forward”.

“The superiority of Sullivan lies in his extraordinary nervous force and altogether incomparable skill as a boxer. In what does this extraordinary skill consist? In hitting as straight and almost as rapid as light, in the variety and readiness of his blows, in standing firmly on his feet and driving his whole weight and nervous force at the end of his fist- a very rare and high quality in a boxer, in movements as quick and purposeful as the leap of a lion. He can duck lower than any featherweight boxer in America”.

"Sullivan’s style of fighting differed from that of any other pugilist that has entered the ring of late years. He is a rusher, and it is this quality and his tremendous hitting powers that really make him a great pugilist. Beside he is a skillful wrestler and a good infighter, quick to dodge and always on the alert for any opening an opponent may leave."

“Sullivan showed one point of his science by quick movements of his head completely eluding on such occasions the heavy blows which were aimed by McDonald.”

 

Can you cite anything to show that fighters (or Sullivan specifically) used two very different styles based on ruleset, as opposed to just tweaking things?

The manuals from that period advise pretty similar stuff whether it's gloved or not. MQR was viewed as sparring for LPR, and LPR fighters trained with gloves.

When you point to enormous variability and say that some fighters looked like moderns -- which ones? Do you have any visual sources, or is your interpretation extrapolated from texts?

Finally, with regard to the quoted descriptions of Sullivan, I don't think they establish that he fought anything like a modern fighter. They say in somewhat flowery language that he ducked low at times (which other LPR style guys did too), and the one source says that he fought with a bit of a forward lean. That's unusual, but not hugely different, and also not really surprising considering the one in-ring picture we have of him stalking Kilrain.

 

Sullivan was rater crude. He didn't train and is nothing like a modern fighter,

 

Pity we have no footage of them though.

 

I suspect the fights would be too brutal for most here.
They are still teary-eyed from Ingo-Machen.

 

Neither of the above statements is true.