Name me your ultimate 5 fantasy fights not for the faint hearted : I'll start Irish Bob Murphy /Mathew Sadd- Oh my ! Jack Dempsey/ Joe Louis Rocky Graziano/Hurricane Carter Lew Jenkins/ Al Bummy Davis- TIMBER! Henry Armstrong/Roberto Duran ,135 pounds... And your Cardiac inducing fights ?
John L Sullivan vs Jack Dempsey (I honestly don't know what would happen) Barbados Joe Walcott vs Mickey Walker Sam Langford vs Harry Greb Jack Dillon vs Dwight Muhammad Quawi Joe Louis vs Mike Tyson
J, your list is great! Who truly knows how great John L Sullivan was ? Many moons ago i read a column by a D.H. Phillips who was born in 1960 and was a columnist for the early ring Mags. He saw Sullivan fight several times and stated he was the greatest heavyweight while sober.He saw Dempsey and early Louis. Who Knows ?
Terry McGovern-Calros Zarate Kid Lavigne-Henry Armstrong Betulio Gonzalez-Roman Gonzalez Stanley Ketchel-Jake LaMotta Evander Holyfield-Rocky Marciano
That is the impression I get. Sullivan might plausibly have been one of the better natural talents, up to this day, with a good ring inteligence to match. The more you read, the more chillingly true the old tales become!
So why do you discount his opinion? When he saw him with his eyes. You love your primary sources, and this seems to be one.
Les Darcy/Stanley Ketchel. The vicious power hitting Ketchel against a physical powerhouse in Darcy. What a fight on the inside this would have been. Bob Fitzsimmons/Gene Tunney. Two great strategists going at it. A cerebral war of nerves and skill. Joe Frazier/Jack Dempsey. Nuff said. Ray Robinson/Harry Greb. Two of the very best ATG's going at it. Roberto Duran/Henry Armstrong. A war.
John L Sullivan - Jack Johnson Mike Tyson - Muhammad Ali Roberto Duran - Alexis Arguello Ray Leonard - Ray Robinson Sal Sanchez - Manny Pacquaio All action fights , with personalities which would make for great wars!
M, a good question . D.H. Phillips was the father-in-law of Nat Fleischer who founded Ring Magazine.He saw them all from Sullivan to Louis, and was highly regarded. But Phillips was one of a few that saw Sullivan. Today we have no films of his opponents,who fought him, so we must take his and a few others bare knuckle boxing scribes with a grain of salt. But in the case of a Joe Gans, Sam Langford, and the later Harry Greb, we have so many, many, films of these great fighters opponents, who they licked repeatedly, and dozens of boxing experts who saw these men in the flesh,and can easily gauge their abilities by reminding ourselves who they beat... If for example 100 years from now,there is the record of a fighter named Fred Jones whose record showed he beat such fighters as Marvin Hagler, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles,Charley Burley, etc, frequently,they the fans 100 years from now would conclude, that Fred Jones, was a truly great fighter, by the great fighters he defeated,even though no film of him exists..We can tell how severe a tornado was,by the havoc it caused, though no survivers are alive to tell about it...
Joe Frazier vs Rocky Marciano Erik Morales vs Azumah Nelson Salvador Sanchez vs Juan Manuel Marquez Nigel Benn vs Thomas Hearns Joe Frazier vs Evander Holyfield
