john l. sullivan vs prime bowe...

bowe would mess the racist up.

 

Sullivan carves out a masterpiece whilst sticking and moving and totally confounding the formidable Bowe in the process....







Just kidding - Bowe by very early knockout.

 

...Whereas Sullivan got decked by an welterweight who resembled an eight-year-old with eyeliner.

http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/images/CharlieMitchell2.JPG

Both men are lucky that they're fighting each other, and not middleweights.

 

You make some good points. It's impossible for us to understand the thinking of the 19th century, but, in those days, I think the heavyweight champion pretty much had the right to determine who his number one contender was, and could use whatever methods he wanted to determine that ranking. Such was the power of being the champ.

I guess the Police Gazette had some influence on popular opinion, but I don't recall seeing where they ever had Peter Jackson as their number one man. I'm not so certain there was a wide demand in those days for John to defend against Peter. And I'm certainly not certain that every newspaper man and book writer always quoted John accurately either. Hell, they don't even do that well now with contemporary people.

It was a different time, and (being born in 1924) I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand the general thinking of the 1890's, or even the 1920's for that matter.

Good post, Boilermaker!!!

 

Nice post! :good

 

djanders, I noticed you didn't respond to my post. That's fine, I feel I definitely explained myself. If you hold a grudge then that's your stance. I have long held the opinion that life is too short to hold grudges. Good day to you, sir.

 

Lets take this one step at a time.

Why dont we start by comparing Sullivan to fighters from adjacent eras.

I am confident that if he swaped eras with Jim Jeffries or Jack Johnson, he would still have been a dominant champion.

Anybody disagree?

 

I agree with you so far. :good

 

Grudge? You have your opinions and I have mine. I'm not as emotionally involved in this as you seem to think. I'm not holding on to anything.

 

No, not holding on, just making myself clear. And yes, we all have our opinions and I explained mine quite well. You on the other hand didn't have anything in response to my lengthy post to you. My reasoning for thinking you are emotionally envolved in this is due to the fact that you got personal with me and I didn't get personal with you. Are you sure it is I who has the "young man thinking"?

 

The more I think about this, the more I agree with you.

I think a prime John could have taken the title from Bob Fitzsimmons, handled Sharkey (probably with some difficulties), easily handled Finnegan, defeated an older Corbett (probably faster than Jeffries did), easily handled Griffin and Kennedy, taken care of business again with an aging Fitzsimmons and Corbett, and finishing off Monroe.

As for Johnson's reign, I can see a prime John taking the belt from Burns, beating O'Brien, Ross, Kaufman and Ketchell, beating an old Jeffries, and getting past Flynn, Johnson, Moran, and Murray.

I think I know what's coming next. A prime John could probably have taken over for Willard and wrenched the belt from an old, beaten down Johnson, and handled Willard's reign as champ. But I'll have to think a bit about him replacing Dempsey. There might be a problem or two in there.

If nothing else, the exercise is giving me a new appreciation for what I actually think of John as a Queensberry fighter.

 

I think a lot of people suspect that Sullivan would be roughly handeled by most of the champions who came after him from Corbett onwards.

I used to suspect it myself but now I strogly disagree.

 

Again, I agree with you. I used to feel that way, myself. They say it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, well this old dog is learning some new tricks and gaining a new appreciation for John Sullivan. It's making me wonder again about some of the guys before Sullivan, such as Jem Mace, Tom Allen, and Mike McCoole. What tricks did they know that may now be lost? Or maybe they would simply surprise us with their knowledge of some tricks that we assumed were of more modern origin. What if they could be here in modern times for a while? What if? What if?

 

Jem Mace is one fighter who I think would have had sucess if he had been substituted into Sullivans era or Jeffries. I dont think that any of Sullivans opponents could have beaten him untill Corbett came allong. I consider Mace to be every bit as much a consumate professional champion as Bernard Hopkins.

On a side note, I think that Mace was a lot more dangerous outside the ring than a modern world class middleweight. Early in his career he worked as a bodyguard protecting the gentry when they used the local brothols. They were targeted by criminal gands who would garott them and thake their money. He also put together armies of prizefighters to protect people atending boxing matches from criminal gangs that targeted them. If Mace or Bob Travers were confronted by five thugs armed with kludgels and brass knuckels, they didnt use a weapon, they just went through them with their bare hands.

 

You sure know your stuff about these old-timers, Janitor!