Could John L Sulivan lick Francis Ngannou?

I have always argued the case that Sullivan fought in a weak era, but the central plank of my argument, was that the previous era seemed to have been stronger.

 

Two reasons:

Firstly there had been a concerted effort to stamp out prize fighting in the UK, and they were getting round to doing it in the USA. Many of the top names had left the sport.

Secondly the men at the top of the division when Sullivan came along, were past prime fighters, who had not quite been the best or brightest of the previous era.

 

I'd like to hear, what circumstantial evidence you're talking about.

 

Nothing that puts numbers on it, but some very compelling contemporary testimony.

Boxing seems to have been a mass participation sport, that was practiced on village greens, in barns, and at country fairs. So it is easy to see how a large talent pool could have come into being.

Some of the major boxing bouts of the period, actually received more newspaper coverage, than the Battle of Trafalgar! That would be like a boxing match in 1940s USA, receiving more coverage than the Battle of Midway!

There are contemporary sources that say that "every guest house in a 40 mile radius was sold out" and that "people slept in ditches to see the fight".

The top bare knuckle fighters of the era were mega stars, and the most famous were asked to perform a guard of honor, at the kings coronation!

None of this evidence puts numbers on it, but it makes me think that mass participation is nothing new.

 

In regard to participation I'd just like to remind all that we're talking about a time when a bar fight might go on your record, training was having a tankard and some meat, and the ye olde honor code were still kicking. I could slap you with mah glove and whammo, we is both pugilists, or swordsman, or gunslingers, or whatever the hell that duel might be.

Personally I get the sense that boxing was commonplace and a pastime activity prior to ball-goal style sports. Basically from the mid-late 1700s to the early 1900s we just got drunk and beat the **** out of each other. Before that we got drunk and talked about God and before that we got drunk and beat the **** out of each other.

As far as John L's era being weak, yeah I agree with that. I'd say the 1840s-1870s use of guns to win boxing matches kind of thinned the willing talent pool. Guys like Poole and Morrissey at the very highest level. Also, the gangs, vigilantes, and deaths publicized as murder probably had a role. Plus in 1860 150lbs is still a HW and by 1890 150lbs is a MW which kind of thinned it a bit more. I mean you could still fight the HWs then but the MW title had value so most guys were fighting men their size not being Bob and proving MWs sometimes can kick HW ass.

 

I thought we were talking about actual pro fights, and not some random guys who wanted to prove their manhood at a county fair.

The fact that some of the major bare-knuckle fights received enormous coverage... you interpret to mean, that there must have been a large talent pool at the time. This is pure speculation on your part.

Why don't we just go by what we actually know? After all, earlier in this thread you said yourself:
"we have to call it based on what little we know" (#18) and...
"we have to work with what we have got." (#22).

In other words, let's stick to what we DO know, and not some unsubstantiated speculation.

Now let's look at some facts:

By the start of the 1880s, gloved boxing had barely left the starting blocks, and in 1880 BoxRec can report only 42 pro fights.
This number grows rapidly over the decade until it reaches a high of 1009 in 1889.

Another interesting thing is that, before 1890 BoxRec has registered pro boxing in a total of only 7 (if I haven't overlooked something) different countries:
USA
Canada
UK
Ireland
Australia
South Africa
New Zealand

In the following decades, the number of countries of course grew and grew as boxing became more and more international:
In 1925 46 countries hosted pro boxing.
In 1955 63 countries.
in 2016 115 countries.

Yes, Yes... I'm aware, that BoxRec isn't 100% correct. FAR from it, I suspect! Lots and lots of fights are most likely missing from their database... and the further back we go, the more are probably missing.

That being said, I find it hard to believe that, in a world where the population is approx. 5 times as large as in the 1880s, and where we last year had more than 25.000 documented fights taking place in more than 100 countries... that the worldwide talent pool isn't much bigger today than 130 years ago.

But maybe that's just me...

 

Those were the sort of venues where low/medium level fights had to take place back then.

They didn't have the O2 arena back then.

If the fights of the day had mass media coverage, and the sport was one of the few ways out of poverty, then it is not a huge leap of faith to say that we are probably looking at a mass participation sport.

Balance of probability.

Boxrec is a list compiled in the 21st century, based on research of 19th century sources.

It is obviously not a full or comprehensive list, and of course it only lists gloved fights as a matter of policy.

Having made my previous observations about Boxrec, I am going to say that you probably have identified a genuine trend here.

For most of the 19th century the UK was the powerhouse of boxing, to the extent that an ambitions fighter from another country would want the British Title.

The USA emerged as the other major power in the late 19th century, and the World title was created by unifying the British and American Titles.

It must be noted however that the deepest talent pools in sport, often result from a major investment in the sport by a single country, rater than some investment by lots of countries.

It is also only fair to note that Sullivan's challengers included opponents from the UK, Ireland, Canada, and New Zealand.

 

What colour was he?

 

The **** you mean "colour"? There's a lot more to race than skin color and he was half irish half polynesian.

 

It's racist today.

 

John L was the last champion of a pretty evolved sport - bareknuckle boxing under LPR rules. I doubt the skills were primitive, as the championship fights that Sullivan won had rules more similar to Broughton's fights than they did to the championship fight which Sullivan lost, so people had centuries of experience with the game.

Gloved fighting under MoQ rules, on the other hand, was primitive. It had to be. People hadn't been doing it long, and hadnt had time to figure how it would work.

I'm confident that a NY golden gloves champ would make short work of Sullivan or Corbett under the rules under which the two fought. But bareknuckle LPR with throws allowed? That's a completely different sport. All we know is that Sullivan must have been good at it. I would bet he would be better at it than anyone who has never done it.

 

Only amongst the racist liberal brigade that has come into fashion in the last 12 months or so.

Tell me, if you do not consider colour important, why do you seem to belittle the racism and bigotry that the polynesians suffered just bacause they are apparently not black enough to be considered a Coloured fighter or even a black fighter. They were persecuted and viewed exactly the same way, as whatever race your talking about (i assume only african descent fighters qualify as a coloured fighter). You say John L wouldnt fight coloured fighters because they were beneath him. Yet he fought what you call a Polynesian who was also beneath him. Other than your arbitrary racial description, what his the difference?

Incidentally, Sullivan has stated on record that when a champion draws the colour line, he is just finding a way to duck a good fighter. He was going to fight Godfrey early on in his career, but money not race stopped the fight. He made the colour line famous when he was past prime and trying to avoid a fight with Peter Jackson that he knew he would not win (or at least thought he would not). It was nothing more than a marketing gimmick designed to boost his image and increase his ticket sales. In fact, he actually negotiated to fight peter jackson and peter jackson never bore any ill will for this fight not coming up. his problem was with corbett.

 

Uhh no lmao black people have always been offended by being called colored. I bet you think the confederate flag isn't racist too.

Polynesians are not black. They are polynesian. Are you ******ed by chance? Just because a people suffer racism and bigotry doesn't make them black.

I never said that. I quoted John L Sullivan when he said “I will not fight a Negro. I never have, and I never shall.” Nowhere is colored in there. He's referring to black folks. You're incredibly dense in the head.

You consider Polynesians beneath him?

He can have all the excuses he wants he was a damn coward who refused to fight better fighters that he knew would have licked him. He wasn't the heavyweight champ he was the white heavyweight champ.

F*ck John L Sullivan. He sucked.