Gloved Era Fighters, That John L Sullivan Beats??

There is really no way to know. However, we do know that his power was elite in his era, so I could see him landing a big punch and upsetting some more modern heavyweight champs. For example, I can envision someone like Floyd Patterson dominating the rounds over Sullivan with superior hand and foot speed, only to get knocked out later in the fight.

 

Oh, we have a TON of knowledge about the Boston Strong Boy. He lived a remarkably documented life.

We just don't have the specific technical knowledge about him that we'd need to do a good fight breakdown against (say) Foreman, IMO.

It's like asking a psychiatrist to do a profile on Jim Corbett's childhood long after Corbett is dead. There's no question Corbett is well documented. It's just not the right type of documentation to answer the question.

 

Using my imagination, I'd say the following:

* Sullivan's style was similar to what we saw in the 19th century manuals, except he crouched more and threw upside down hooks similar to Fitz's. So basically like Jim Corbett with more forward-leaning aggression and less mobility.

* I've never seen this style used against a modern fighter. I have few/no points of comparison.

* So I will assume that despite its potentially dangerous unorthodoxy, it's in the same category for a MODERN ring as the lowest-skill modern fighters' styles. In other words, to be safe, I'm assuming that Sullivan's skills don't transfer all that well.

* His clinch wrestling would probably be a bit better, albeit very dirty.

* He had athletic ability, but that was relative to his era, against mostly smaller men.



Overall (and it pains me to say this), the safe interpretation of Sullivan's performance is probably Galento: a dirty, unorthodox, durable, hard hitting fighter with almost zero MODERN skills, who is around Sullivan's height.

A caveat: I'm not saying Sullivan moved like Galento. Sullivan's actual style would look very different from Galento's in the ring. But their overall effectiveness would likely be similar.

So whoever Galento beat, that's probably the best Sullivan does under modern(ish) rules. At least if we are being cautious in our guesswork.

 

Yeah, I could buy all that. He got knocked down by Charlie Mitchell, but then again, Mitchell was basically wearing tiny UFC gloves. So he's probably durable enough. I don't think he can deal with modern movement better than Galento could, just because the style is so much different.

His fight with Baer may also resemble Galento's, now that I think about it. In other words, the analogy gives me the performances I'd intuitively expect. Potential Louis KD followed by getting massacred; rough and dirty fight with Baer where he gets out rough-housed.

 

As others have said, it is ultimately unknowable.

The only things that we know about Sullivan, are his tale of the tape, his general style and stance, and the fact that his key strengths were power, hand speed, and finishing ability.

In other words he might have beaten Louis nd Ali in the same night, or he might have lost to the second tier contenders from their era.

So having made that disclaimer, I will say what I suspect, starting with a very small step.

I think that in his prime, he would probably have beaten his successor James J Corbett.

I think that he was very roughly on the same sort of level as Jeffries and Johnson, though nothing like either of them.

I think that he would have clearly separated himself from most of their contenders, but I am not sure whether he could have beaten them.

I think that as a finisher, he would have been dangerous to men who lacked durability, even great ones, for a long time after his era.

 

Sullivan, I believe was very fast, strong, fit and powerful, he could beat any heavyweight up to lLouis, probably only defeat a few for sure, Burns, Hart, Willard IMO.

 

I don't rate any guy in h2h discussions unless I can see some footage of them. Even a clip of a sparring session would help. You may as well be asking me if a dinosaur could fight an elephant.

 

The Classic forum version of other forums' Bruce Lee vs Mike Tyson vs a gorilla vs Steven Segal debates.

 

Few people take Steven Segal seriously. Not even other movie marital artists. I remember reading about how Van Damm challenged him openly at a party after an altercation and Segal backed out acting as if he was beneath him. Foreman even tweeted Segal saying he'd like to fight him after seeing how well the Connor vs Floyd fight did. The guy doesn't want any smoke and loves to stretch the truth or outright lie.

 

There were dinosaurs that we can safely assume, would have taken down an elephant with very little difficulty.

 

Modern elephants with their PEDs and weight training would be too much for tyrannosaurs.