Rocky vs John L Sullivan

Ok buddy, have a clearer perception of what you were alluding to, nice response, good to chat. stay safe.

 

The oldest fighters on the tape used various kind of head movement.

 

Not really , it was very subtle and mostly back weaving. There is footage of Sullivan doing hand motions with Jim Jefferies and his style looks like every other fight from that generation.

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I've never seen the follow-up footage from a longer distance before. This is interesting because Sullivan seems to be rotating his feet like a left hook, which I haven't really seen in the contemporary manuals. I wonder whether the stance was already widening among pro boxers from the "orthodox" linear fencing stance we see in 1880s-1890s manuals?

You're right that there wasn't much head movement. At least according to the manuals (and a bit of the footage), you do see two things:

1) Ducking forward at the waist
2) Moving the head itself, without much body movement. Somewhat like Witherspoon's "rubber necking", but more intended as evasion than rolling with the punch. I'm guessing boxers could get away with this more often than today because the gloves were tiny (=easier to dodge by a small margin), and there weren't many hooks in the official manuals.

Corbett against Courtney moves his head a little bit. I think in his demonstrative sparring with McCoy, he also tilts his head in the manner I described in (2) to avoid some of McCoy's punches. The technique seems to have been designed to have the opponent's punch pass your face.

 

So if it was subtle, it means they actually used head movement.

 

Marciano, and it wouldn't be close.
Sulivan was the champion when it basically was still sort of a strongman contest. By the time Rocky came around it had developed quite a bit, and there was much less fighting middleweights and light heavyweights going around.
I'd go bolder even, and say the past it old mongoose, that Marciano fought in his final bout, would have knocked prime Sulivan out.

 

Well so many people here can't grasp that boxing has evolved. Just like people can't grasp Rocky Marciano wouldn't be a heavyweight by modern standards and couldn't beat one.

 

That's not true, strongman contests existed back then and they were not attached to boxing matches.

 

Because you have never presented any evidence?