Johnson easily, the sport was evolving at a rapid pace back then, he would've beat him up and stopped him, because in Sullivan's day, he had no one to learn from, but as new fighters come along they developed skills and other fighters learned from them and that just kept going, by the time Johnson came around, they had learned a bit of boxing, how to set up punches and be defensively aware, they had better balance and overall they had evolved too much, just like how Johnson would not be able to compete with fighters of today
I respect your opinion but I just feel 1883 Sullivan knocks out Johnson in any fight scheduled for 15+ rounds 15 or under I got Johnson on points
If you don’t split them up on assumptions and just rate top contenders and the outcome of fights as it is then we can at least say that John L Sullivan was as dominant and created a very rare and large gulf between him and the next best. But I’m not an expert…
It’s a real shame. I wish he’d have done something like Corbett with Tunney and did a little slow sparring and trick exchanges for the camera. We could at least see how he would want to react to certain things.
I would not write Sullivan off, but with no film on John L, we can not tell for sure. Still make Johnson the betting favorite though.
And perhaps a little bit more about Johnson. He clearly did things in fights, that we don't see on film.
They tried to get him to spar for the cameras in 1894 but he wanted too much money and we ended up with Corbett-Courtney instead. A lost opportunity there.
He dispatched of a black fighter I forget the name of with a series of rights to the heart and lefts to the liver. I’d like to have seen that.
That’s interesting. No longer Champ you’d think John L could’ve done with the money offered - whatever that was. I wonder what type of shape Sullivan was in - any chance he deliberately priced himself out? At any rate, a major loss not to have him sparring on film.
Bring Sullivan from the early '80's into Johnson's day, I rather very like Johnson. Sullivan coming along in Johnson's day -- well, I still kinda like a '07-'10 Johnson (in shape) against a priming (in shape) Sullivan. Unless Sullivan hits Johnson hard.
