I think you'd have to say clearly Corbett did the better of the two VS Choynski. Corbett and Choynski were both top amateurs, and Choynski had already gone into multiple finish fights when he met Corbett in the pros. Corbett held a win over Choynski from the amateur days. As pros, their first fight was stopped by the police, and Corbett beat Choynski in the second pretty easilly, but had trouble stopping him (likely due to a hand injury). When Fitzsimmons fought Choynski, he was in serious trouble, the round he was hurt was cut short, though he seems to have recovered before the round ended (it was stopped due to the crowd getting too rowdy from memory), the fight was later stopped by police whn Fitz had Choynski in trouble, and was officially a draw. From the reports of Corbett's fights with Australian Billy Smith, they were basically exhibitions. I think what pulls Fitzsimmons ahead are his two wins over Peter Maher, his win over Gus Ruhlin, as well as wins over the likes of Dempsey, Creedon and Hall. I don't think there's a massive amount in it, as Corbett has some other notable wins too, but I don't see a good case for having Corbett ahead.
No. Sullivan was actually noted as a fantastic straight puncher and was given credit, in his day, for punching science and mechanics. I would also go as far to say that he was better / more talented than quite a few of the men who came after him, in his prime, Corbett included.
The way I could probably agree with this is, the hype and street legend surrounding Sullivan was probably more immense than Kimbo's, BUT for the time, I would say Sullivan via the newspapers and word of mouth was "viral" like Kimbo was, but on a more extreme degree. The Internet for Kimbo was what the Newspaper was for John L. Sullivan. Yeah, I'd say that.
If you time traveled John L Sullivan into the modern times right this minute, he might be a Kimbo Slice type. But in his own time, he was far far greater.
Well, at best Kimbo would be the modern day Sullivan, because Sullivan came first. But, no, he was not the modern day Sullivan. I’m not trying to knock Slice. I quite liked him. I think what could be said about Slice is that he, like some others, carried on the tradition of bare knuckle boxing like fighters of Sullivan’s era. Even that’s saying a lot though. Kimbos fights were 3 - 5 mins. Bare knuckle boxers fighting the London prize fighting rules sometimes fought for hours.