Is John L Sullivan the greatest finisher ever?

Yeah, there’s seems quite a few bigger than T-Rex flesh eating dinosaurs that have been named in the last couple of decades probably because more complete fossilised skeletons have been found that are complete enough for them to be scientifically named. Those you two mentioned were some of the ones that I remembered hearing and reading about though there was no way in hell I would have remembered how to spell their names. Lol.

 

It's possible, there are theories about that. Maybe we'll find bigger theropod species than any of mentioned, but it's unlikely that he'll be much bigger than the rest.

 

The biggest predators will inherantly be pretty rare in any ecostystem, and few ecosystems could support them, which does lower the chances of finding them.

 

Jack Dempsey's mother use to read young Jack a book about John L. Sullivan.

 

If I may interject, amateur dinosaur expert here, the T Rex wasnt the largedt of all time but it was definitely the most powerful and fearsome theropods of all. It definitely wasnt a full time scavenger--that has been debunked. It was too large to rely on the kills of others for the simple fact no other carnivore in its environment was large enough to kill animals that would satisfy it's hunger.

Its ridiculous bite force, the most powerful on land in history, it's excellent vision and overwhelming strength indicate that it was designed for taking things down brutally. The heavily armored plant eaters it lived with adapted for this very reason. Or maybe it was the other way around? Either way, it was the most fearsome and powerful dinosaur of all time even if it wasnt the absolute largest.

 

There is definitely an argument to be had there.

 

Here's something I find very interesting about Sullivan .. in his book Pollack quotes Choynski of saying that he believed Sullivan would have defeated both Jackson and Goddard .. he said that Sullivan was both much faster than he himself was and a much harder hitter .. he described Sullivan as a straight puncher, not some wild swing bomber ..

 

It seems like avery small pond in Sullivan's era. Kinda like Wlad's to be honest. Loads of people think he's amazing but honestly all I see is a lack of good competition.

As far as Godfrey and whatnot goes, defensive fighting had been a focus in black boxing for a long time prior to Corbett. I see him as kind of an Elvis type character. I'm not saying that Godfrey woulda beat Sully or that surely there was a black fighter at the time that could have beat Sully so much as Sullivan clearly benefited a great deal from the era itself, even how he was beaten and retired is very era specific.

I think the present kids, Joshua included, are the first true world champions. Ali used to talk about being the baddest man in the world, the baddest man in America, and China, and Russia, the baddest period. It wasn't really true though was it? Today, these kids defend their titles from the world's best boxers not just the best boxer available due to politics or racism or whatever. I'm not so sure Sully would look so good if his talent pool wasn't so miniscule compared to modern pools. There's a Mexican HW champion, a Jap and a Chinaman are in the top ten of the HW division. A Cuban has fought for the title and will do it again. It's really a great time to be a HW fan.

 

with no film to look at, you must go on written accounts about him and by all of that, he was a tremendous finisher, just look at his photo as my Avatar, in his day who was #1 and probably for a very long time, top 10 finisher for sure, possible top 5 based on what can be found that anyone said about him, he sure looks impsoingin this photo from the Kilrain bout.