A time traveller tells you he will let you travel back to watch ONE John L. Sullivan fight live….

Kilrain. That was the big one!

His big re-unification defense under London Prizefight Rules.

 

Mitchell

A)because you'd get to see the old MSG
B)because you get to see John L Sullivan fight the police while screaming incoherently

 

Old MSG, old New York, the start of the HW lineage, the chance to see if people I know from history who lived in the area are in attendance, these are all bonuses to watching Sullivan v Mitchell. This is New York city and the chances of running into someone noteworthy is fairly high.

Richburg Mississippi doesn't have the same allure. Or a wikipedia page for that matter.

 

I'd ask him if I could see Greb instead.

 

I would have liked to see Sullivan - Corbett, because the chronicles of the time described it as a very competitive fight and it was a very important event in pioneering boxing. Different times, different customs, different boxing, it fascinates me.

 

As well. Greb / Tunney 1 please.

 

John Flood might be a good pick.

 

Flood is a good pick. On a barge at night against a feared gang leader that by all account came to fight and put up a good effort in a brawl

 

The problem with this choice, is that no one fight will get you everything that you might hope to gain from observing Sullivan.

If you pick one of his bare knuckle fights, it would give you an invaluable insight into the bare knuckle era, but it wouldn't tell you very much about Sullivan as a gloved fighter.

If you pick one of his gloved fights, then you would gain an invaluable insight into the first Queensbury era, and the only gloved era from which we have no surviving footage, but it will tell you nothing about the bare knuckle era.

Obviously you can't choose both

 

I don't know a ton about the era.

My gut instinct was Corbett. Just to have a visual contrast of the old bareknuckle style (even in a gloved fight) vs a more modern technique. I thought this might give us more insight/data on how other hypothetical fights like Sullivan vs Tunney might go.

The more I read about Sullivan vs Corbett though, John was probably too shot to really tell us much. So I guess I would choose something action packed with a prime Sullivan, but I don't enough to say what fight that would be.

Nice post though

 

You could take one for the team.