Gloved Era Fighters, That John L Sullivan Beats??

He was a drunk from 83 on. His famous cross country exhibition tours of taking on all comers are fictionalized. He drank worse and worse, fought a handful of rank amateur local tough guys and the tours ended badly. By his own admittance Sullivan never, ever sparred. No one ever trained him n the ring. He was far more a bare knuckle brawler than a M of Q trained fighter. He fought with gloves when he was paid to … the difference between him and the age issued in w Corbett was gigantic.

 

Yeah, I have to say that there was probably quite a difference between Sullivan and Joe Savage.

 

Even this is hard to measure with dinosaurs. A lot of scientists speculate that big species could be warm-blooded. We have to remember that they weren't just oversized lizards. I'm sure that most theropods were given their close relations with birds. Giants like sauropods likely were warm-blooded as well, I can't imagine it otherwise.

 

Almost everything that you have said here is wrong.

Sullivan had a drink problem from 1883 on, but that doesn't mean that he was a drunk from 1883 on. He seems to have had periods of abstention, and his drunken antics were often exaggerated by the press. Any incident that did not result in some sort of criminal charge, or medical intervention, carries an asterisk next to it.

You can make what you will of his era, but there can be little doubt that his challengers were the best available. They were the people who the press saw as having the most realistic chance of beating him, and cannot simply be dismissed as local amateur tough men.

His exhibition tours are documented by multiple contemporary sources, and are certainly not fictionalized. He was fighting exhibitions to an insane schedule.

Sullivan was definitely a Queensbury fighter predominantly. He only hat three bouts under LPR, against possibly hundreds with gloves. He was very resistant to fighting under LPR rules, and only did so when it was the only way to secure a title claim. If anybody came to him as a challenger, he insisted upon Queensbury rules.

The difference between his era and Corbett's was clearly less than gigantic, because his challengers beat a few to contenders of Corbett's era, or did better against common opponents.

 

First of all you are wrong, again. There is little point in pointing things out top you because you are infamous for endless writing in last word freak infamy regardless of facts or context.

That said , please name definitively the heavyweight champions from Corbett to Fury you feel Sullivan defeats under M of Q rules. No nonsense or sidestepping .. a straight out question .. Who ? Names.

 

Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Hart, Burns, and beyond that it becomes difficult to make even an educated guess.

 

I am happy to provide primary source material to back up any claim that I have made.

 

And you base this on what M of Q accomplishments over who ? I personally give you credit for naming names .. just curious what you base it from as I see it has a hell of a leap of faith ..

 

And there's more than just the PEDs and modern elephant nutrition to consider.
Coaching is going to play a big role here.

I'm envisaging a Tyrannosaurus Rex with Norman Stone in his corner, getting outfoxed and outboxed by an elephant who had Eddie Futch in his corner.


It would be interesting to watch Stoney's animated reactions as Futcth's canny mentorship of the elephant slowly frustrates the big dinosaur, and gradually up-ends the oddsmakers predictions in the manner of Usyk v AJ.

 

Between 1881 and 1889, Sullivan met almost every major Queensbury contender, and dominated most of them.

Whatever you think of men like Greenfield, Burke, Mitchell, McCaffrey, Herald, Ryan and Killrain they were the best challengers available over that period.

The only thing that you might question, is the quality of the era, and I don't think that it was a particularly strong one.

However, there would have to be a huge gap between that era and the next one, for Sullivan's success in one not to translate into success in the other.

That is not what we are seeing in the limited interaction between fighters from the two eras.

A young Jim Corbett was defeated by Jack Burke, who a declining Sullivan had dominated.

Frank Slavin lost to Charlie Mitchell, who Sullivan dominated.

Joe Choynksi was happy to work as an ageing Sullivan's sparring partner, and maintained that Sullivan was as fast as he and hit much harder.

The direction that this is all pointing in, is that men like Burke and Mitchell would most likely have had some success in Corbett's era, and indeed in Jeffries era.

They were probably worse than the top men of those eras, but not by a prohibitive margin.

Sullivan was probably the most dangerous Queensbury puncher, before Sam Langford came along.

So how would he do against the men who came after him?

In his prime I think that he would have got to Corbett eventually, as Bob Fitzsimmons did, and Jim Jeffries did, and as Tom Sharkey arguably did.

I think that he would have just been too big and powerful, for Fitzsimmons to go toe to toe with.

I don't have definite enough information to make him a favorite over Jeffries, but it sounds like Hart and Burns would have been made to order for him.

With anyone after that, where would you even begin for a frame of reference?

 

Especially now Foreman is what 70-71 yrs now?

 

In fairness few works of boxing history deserve the label of "serious"

 

If you ever write a serious work of boxing history (as you are clearly capable of doing), I urge you to include a footnote disclaiming Sullivan's aerial abilities.

 

Make of that what you will. I think it’s possibly the most romanticized, illogical, leap of faith , unsubstantiated by fact set of predictions I’ve ever read on a boxing forum but to each their own. To his credit the man stands by what he believes and who knows?

 

I feel like giving John L. some credit today, so I'm going to GUESS that Sullivan beats Johansson and Patterson. I'd bet on John, sight unseen, against Ingemar. I'd just watch the Patterson fight and sit hard on my wallet for that 1.