Why isn't John L Sullivan ranked above Ali?

The huge gap, ignoring social influence/media and just focusing on boxing accomplishments, is, well their accomplishments.

Ali didn't draw the color line, beat everyone's asses for 2 decades, gold medal, 3x champion, ridiculous resume, and is the role model for tens of millions of boxers for decades. Invented the incredibly iconic rope a dope and shuffle techniques. Pioneered self promotion and huge globally significant fights. There's no comparison.

 

I didn't suggest that at any point of his career. I also think you overstate Ali's popularity. Maybe he's that popular in the US, but not necessarily in the rest of the world.

 

No, I just disagree with you. It happens. It's a forum.

That doesn't make any sense. He built the sport. How is that "paper thin"?

Being the first gloved heavyweight champion does not boil down to being lucky enough to have an early date on your birth (I assume you meant "birth" rather than "brother") certificate.

What concept? Being the first gloved champion? Yes, I said it's in Sullivan's biographies. It's well known. I gave you one of them. Two, if you count Mee.

Do you know of any professional gloved world champion lineages before Sullivan?

He created the first gloved championship. He brought boxing to the rest of the country. He insisted boxing be gloved for important professional bouts, and normalized the practice. He kept a grip on the title long enough to make his reforms stick, and to beat off challengers (like Kilrain) who wanted to make it bareknuckled.

Yes. All of those people are very fortunate Sullivan built the sport and championship lineage that made Ali such an influential figure in the modern world.

 

And you would rival Einstein.

 

https://baki.fandom.com/wiki/John_L._Sullivan

Ali, I assume.

Since I'm not arguing against Ali being influential, I am totally unsurprised by this.

 

He didn't pioneer self-promotion or huge, globally significant fights.

He was much better at self-promotion than most of his predecessors, though.

 

?

 

He didn't. He didn't "build" modern boxing.

-He didn't invent boxing commissions
-or promoters
-or set the number of rounds
-or the neutral corner
-or mouth pieces
-or cups
-or the global ranking system to determine the contenders
-or introducing the concept of referees

The only thing he helped pioneer is to have the title change hands from the champion to the challenger and he wasn't solely responsible for that either.

To say he single-handedly built modern boxing is laughable.

By "paper thin" I mean thin compared to all the things Ali did that influenced people after him. Sullivan has literally 1 thing over Ali and it doesn't trump everything else Ali did.

It has everything to do with your birth certificate and only partly to do with skill. No matter how skilled you are you can't go back in time.ro become the first champ.

Acknowledged.

I have no issue with people disagreeing with me. I have an issue with people either pretending not to get what I'm saying or ignoring it. I know you're smart so that's why I was frustrated.

Once again using the term built very loosely. You're basically giving Sullivan credit for the works of thousands of boxers which is easily one of the goofier arguments on this thread.

How about this: name 5 boxers who fought after Sullivan's era who named him as their biggest influence.

 

I know more about boxing than you. I'm not the one choosing boxers from 100 years ago to win against their modern counterparts

 

He pretty much did tho. No one had done it to the level Ali did. There's really no comparison.

 

You keep saying there's no comparison or that something isn't arguable, but that's just an assertion. You don't think Schmeling/Louis was a huge fight of international significance? I certainly do. Can you be specific about what was so unique about Ali that you don't even think comparisons can be made with other boxers?

 

Of course Louis/Schmeling was of huge international significance. I literally wrote a paper about it and my sports history professor even referenced it to discuss how African American athletes had it rough and constantly needed to prove themselves.

I wasn't saying Ali was the only one to engage in big internationally significant fights. I was saying he was the first HW champion make it a point to have a truly global presence fighting in several different countries, having sparring/exhibitions all over the world, etc. And he was the first truly big self promoting boxer.

The fact you keep glossing over the fact Sullivan was primarily an American fighter and had drawn the color line are the main reasons why I keep saying there's no comparison. It's laughable. Sullivan was obviously a huge figure of the time but as a boxing champion he absolutely didn't have the sort of global presence Ali did, and he certainly couldn't hold a candle to Ali's self promoting.

The main reason this discussion has been fruitless is that I have repeatedly acknowledged Sullivan's contributions to the sport and you repeatedly dismiss Ali's or act as if his don't even hold a candle to the sort of influence Ali had. That's why I suggested you're being disingenuous. It has nothing to do with you simply "disagreeing".

 

John L the GOAT. You know when I first read about boxing I read he fought 75 rounders etc and thought that, that was it John L>Ali.

 

He built the sport in exactly the sense that I've mentioned: He created a lineal, MoQ-governed championship, which he helped make both legal and (relatively) respectable. He created a much larger market for that sport by promoting it across the country. He held the title in a long and dominant enough reign that he could enforce these changes, seeing off challengers who wanted bare knuckle rules in the process. He had the right persona and a gift for self-promotion (despite the alcoholism) that also helped grow the sport.

So when I say he built the sport, that's what I mean by the term.

If you think somebody like Paddy Ryan was capable of doing that, well, I don't. Does boxing maybe find the right formula for becoming a global, professional spectator sport without Sullivan? Eh. Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn't the only sport on offer back then.

Well, I appreciate the compliment, and return it, but if I'm not getting what you're saying, maybe I'm just honestly not getting what you're saying, rather than lying about it. Or maybe you're not getting what I'm saying. Or maybe we both just have different perspectives on what makes a boxer socially influential. Both of us could be as clever as you please, but that doesn't mean we're going to agree.

I see the increase in global presence for heavyweight champions as a gradual, inevitable process that came from globalization. Even Tommy Burns made a world tour, but I think it became more common as the century wore on.

Self promotion? Dempsey did it to a degree. Maxie Baer certainly did it. SRR did it, albeit in a different way from Ali. Ali was better at it than those guys, yes.

As to Sullivan primarily being an American fighter, sure. That's obvious. Boxing was in its formative time, and was mostly limited to England, America, and Australia. Sullivan fought people from those countries because those were the countries competing.

I agree with both points.

Taking it a step further, the world is much more globalized today than in Ali's era. Boxing is more globalized by a long margin. Ali still is more influential than modern boxers despite these changes, though, because the stuff he did in the 70s continues to have ripples in the globalized modern sport.

By what standards? Sullivan was able to self-promote his sport into being one of the great spectator sports of the Gilded Age. Self-promotion is a pretty context-specific skill. Ali did it on a wider scale, but then again, modern boxers do it on a bigger scale (in terms of media reach and density) than Ali.

So I'm not going to agree or disagree so much as ask for clarification.

I already said that Ali was an extremely influential boxer. One of the most influential ever. It's basically him, Louis, Sullivan, Johnson, and maybe Tyson or Dempsey from among the heavyweights. Not in that order.

But if we're talking social influence, I put a lot of emphasis on the guys who are hinges of history. "If this guy hadn't existed, then what?" Louis and Sullivan score highest there. Without Sullivan, you might not have modern pro boxing as we know it. That's a heck of a hinge to remove. Similarly with Louis: Remove him, and you probably have longer segregation in sports, slightly worsened ethnic relations in the US, and you never see the global impact of Louis/Schmeling.

Ali is also a big influence on the culture, and he contributed to the 60s/70s Culture Wars. (Admittedly not all for the good, but at least Ali's racism seems to have ended, whereas Sullivan's did not.) If Ali vanished from history, I don't think the ripples would be quite as big as removing Sullivan or Louis. But they would still be big, and Ali has other accomplishments that put him up there -- dominance over the 60s/70s scene, a different style of self-promotion based on Gorgeous George, etc.

So that's my thinking.

 

Well spoken brother.