John L. Sullivan, American Icon Myth ?

thing is, you say that, but what do you know about such a time, when black challengers didnt as much coverage or opportunity,- I feel that the evidence of the entire whole of the 20th century being largely dominated by black heavyweights underlines this they were there and they were good....just the doors were shut.

Not forgetting that America had just emerged from its 400 year long ultra- nazi-period of slavery, it was unlikely they would have got the same opportunities, but likely as hell they were around.

My instinct tells me that it is BECAUSE these doors of opportunity were shut is the reason a non athlete like sullivan was allowed to flourish - level the playnig field and this guy may not have had a title at all.


Now i'll probably get banned for saying truth about americas evil past again..... well sorry mods but it happened, and its relevant here.

 

Sullivan effectively was finished after the Kilrain fight. The boxrec records of the fighters are meaningless as papers did not know or record most of the fights in the 1880's, fighters like Donaldson, McCaffrey, Herald, and Dalton were top fighters with many more fights than now recorded. Mitchell, Cardiff, McCaffrey, Kilrain were his top contenders early on. He missed out on McAuliffe, Godfrey and Killeen during his career and at the tail-end Slavin, Jackson and Goddard were worthy challengers. He was no amateur but a strong, fast and skilful fighter. He was on a par with Corbett, Jackson, Fitz etc. The problem with analysing Sullivan is not with him but with the analysers, you need to get down and dirty and read the old newspapers. I have no doubt that the myth makers have built him up to superstar status and really after about 1887 he was past his best! But to think he was just a myth ignores history.

 

The Great John L. Champion of Champions

Interesting posts

 

Of course I can name qualified challengers who he faced.

I assumed that you were more interested in my reasoning as to why I thought that they were qualified, given that we only have small scraps of their surviving records.

Goss, Ryan, Mitchell and Killrain all held versions of the title when Sullivan beat them.

Dalton, Elliot, Wilson, McCaffrey, Burke, Greenfield, Herald, Cardiff were all regarded as serious challengers for one reason or another.

 

It is possible that black Americans simply became more engaged in the sport, or that the white talent pool simply declined.

There has never been a time when a good black boxer didn't make a lot more money than he would have made doing anything else.

Anyhow, Sullivan has a bit of a mixed record regarding the color line.

He once offered to fight George Godfrey when they were both boxing on the same card, but Godfrey refused saying that he needed more time to prepare.

On another occasion the two met for a fight, but the police broke it up.

Sullivan once said that he was willing to fight Peter Jackson, provided his price was met.

He seems to have drawn the color line very firmly after the Patsy Cardiff fight where he broke his arm.

Later in life he would say "If a fighter draws the color line, you can bet your fortune that there is some black fighter that he is deathly afraid of".

 

Hey He Grant, I agree the guy had the ability to do what they did back then and he could have probaly learned to be a glove fighter but who knows.....He was John L. Sullivan a legend in his day

 

That's always been my instinct too. Guess we agree for once.

 

Just because something happened later, it doesn't mean it would have been the case earlier. that's speculation. If you want to get as close to the truth as possible you need to work with the facts that we know and not speculate based on what would happen later or your instinct/feelings.
There may have been plenty of blacks better than Sullivan, there might have been Siberian farmers and Chinese fisherman that were better. Fact is, we do not know. We do know that Sullivan was considered the best of his time by his peers. This you can examine and pick apart as much as you want. But doing so using "speculation/instincts" makes all your other arguments seem less valid.

 

Other than Godfrey good black fighters were scarce in America, Billy Wilson was probably the next best and Cardiff and Choynski had his measure.
As for learning to be a gloved fighter, he was far more a gloved fighter than a BK one.

 

Sullivan broke his left arm fighting Patsy Cardiff, and managed to hold Cardiff off by pretending that he wasn't hurt.
When Cardiff heard about the injury, he said "If I had known about that, I would be the champion right now!"

Adam Pollack once said "I never found any reference to Sullivan being a right handed fighter, before he broke his arm!"

 

With the limited social media of the day it would seem that he was an easy sell as a icon...it seemed he was a man amongst men and a good distraction just like the dime novels of Billy the kid and the James gang

 

Some of who risked their freedom, just to attend his matches!

 

Maybe his myth is a bit hyped up, but the way I see it, he was highly regarded by everyone he fought, and we wouldn't be talking about him if he was bad

 

Eh, nobody's going to ban you (at least I'm not) for speaking to America's shady past (both in terms of the national culture at large, and in the microcosm of its history in sport), which does indeed have the unfortunate pall of Jingoist-imperialistic & misguided, pseudoscience-based ethnic hegemony cast wide over it...BUT, you are going to be warned that you're teetering awfully close to espousing a form of racialism that is probably every bit as dated at this point as believing white men are superior. Black people aren't magical super-athletes. People are people. Yes, there has been a rise in African-American representation both across the spectrum and specifically in high concentration at the elite tier in many corners of US athletics, but you also have to factor in socioeconomic factors and the distribution of wealth and opportunity. Blacks in this country, as part of the fallout of that racist legacy you correctly point out, are in general starting out relatively near the bottom and looking to improve their station, and sports is a means of doing so in an environment where few opportunities for advancement otherwise present themselves. In other words, most of the popular US sports (and in particular boxing, and basketball notably, and to a much lesser extent baseball) have been embraced throughout all their histories by primarily the lower classes...and who do you think populates those lower classes?

Suggesting that descendants of the African slave diaspora have more genetically-disposed inclination to excel in sports - and would automatically dominate the competition in any era if the doors weren't shut - is perhaps less of a "progressive" viewpoint than you may believe it to be, just saying.