Pat Killen > John L Sullivan

Sullivan was a full blown alcoholic after his late 1883 Tour of America, the fact that he was heavily active in 1884-86 doesn’t take away from that. This guy was showing up to those fights in morbid condition, they just didn’t challenge him enough to make him come into fights in shape. And using your logic, why should he? They’re manlets compared to him.

 

Burke went on to hold Slavin even over 8 rounds, Mitchell appeared to get the better of Kilrain and Burke in the fights following Sullivan 1, Donovan came out of a decade long retirement and by most accounts beat the second best fighter in the world Nonpareil Dempsey at 40. The best of Sullivan’s opponents appeared to have adapted well with the proceeding era.

“Even if Sullivan was at the same level as Godfrey, Kilrain, Billy Wilson and Lannon he did nothing to prove that.”

Except for beating Kilrain both with and without gloves (who smacked Godfrey and Lannon around), Mitchell, Donovan and Burke. Mitchell and Donovan were held to a different regard as talents by everyone who’d seen them and the rest of the names listed, Kilrain was the best out of that list and Sully beat that ass. You say that Cardiff should’ve got the belt when he ran away from a one armed fighter and even admitted years later that he knew Sullivan’s arm was broken yet didn’t want to try and risk being aggressive. That seems like more of a win for Sullivan for me considering this same guy had no problem being aggressive with Killen and stopping him, same guy also sparked Wilson so….

Is there even a single person who saw Sullivan in his prime as well as the rest and thought that Kilrain, Lannon, Wilson and Godfrey were even CLOSE to his level? Fox was the chief Kilrain glazer and Sullivan hater yet his only argument for Kilrain winning was just that Sullivan was too far out of his prime physically.

 

Look, Sullivan was a fall down drunk starting with his first country tour in 84. He was never , ever the same fighter from a condition after that, ever .. as far as a string of quality opposition, compared to what ? We all know he fought , aside rfom drawing the color line , very limited competition as far as M of Q level competition and size. My point was many of the best fighters in the world were developing in Australia late in the 1880's ans Sullivan never fought them .. not his fault but likely fact

 

I agree with Mcvey take on Corbett. He was a smoking mirror's show. Almost all his big win's have an asterisk of some kind when you examine them.

Also not mentioned was Godfrey suspected that Sullivan was in on it with the police to break up their encounter. They had gloves on & were in the ring. Of course it can't be proved. But Godfrey could be on to something...

The most hilarious moment in early boxing was John L Sullivan didn't know if he had to draw the color line on George Godfrey because he was so light skinned he couldn't guess if he was black or mexican. Can you imagine the ridiculousness of that.


In fairness to John L he wasn't really beat by anyone in his prime. He biggest admirer was Joe Choynski & I'm sure he was a pretty good judge of a boxer.

 

Joe Choynski claimed Sullivan was twice as fast as him & hit with much more force than he ever could. Choynski had quite a punch. He said specifically Sullivan would have his hand back into striking position after a punch so quickly than it was almost a blur to watch. Those are his words. As he watched him live very early on. Whether he was pandering or not He seemed to believe what he was saying.

It would be really interesting if someone could dig up some thought's that Jack Burke had on Sullivan. Burke fought many of the top fighters I'd would love to hear his take on the Great John L. Burke really faced Sullivan when he was still in prime or close to it. I know Sullivan really admired Jack Burke's defense prowess. Sullivan called him a "wonder" or something like that as he was unable to knock him out in 5 rounds in 1885.
Which shouldn't be held AGAINST Sullivan. Slavin couldn't get him out of there either in their first encounter that went 8 rounds. By the 2nd fight Slavin had him entirety figured out. But who knows how much Burke slid in that time frame. Burke was one of the more natural boxers before James Corbett. As he was very well schooled in boxing as a young man.

Somewhere in Time... Jack Burke musta commented on John L Sullivan.


Pat Killen on the other hand had almost no education in the sport. He had natural talent but educated he was NOT.

 

Here's a lil bit of Info on Pat Killen if your interested in him further. I tried to really dig into his death, some of the info in here is rather shocking as he was on the run for some crazy ass stuff I included the newspaper articles. many may not be aware of...But at the very least it should be educational for a rather misunderstood man.


As someone stated earlier in the thread (yeah he was bit) by a madman. It's a rather crazy fable.

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If they were the best available, then they were the best available.

For whatever it is worth, even Sullivan's most ardent admirers don't seem to think that he dominated a strong era.

 

1883 really isn't at the core of this dispute. Godfrey had a career resurgence in 1888-1891. Peter Jackson went on his run around this same time though he was more of a prospect developing while Godfrey's run was more of a comeback. Because they were both around in 1882 you're going back to this time to prove Sullivan deserved some status over them in 1888. Sullivan being ranked higher then Jackson, Godfrey or anyone in 1882,1883 is not relevant to my criticism of Sullivan and I don't think it's relevant to Artic Bubby's etc eiter.