Is John L. Sullivan a all time top ten heavyweight champion ?

I get attached, but then he stops posting and I'm left feeling neglected

 

When Jack McAuliffe produced his top heavyweight list in the 1930s, his top three looked like this:

1. John L Sullivan
2. Gene Tunney
3. Jim Corbett

This is interesting, because he seems to have over rated technicians, but he still put Sullivan in the #1 spot.

In 1908 Billy Madden wrote:

"Jim Jeffries would not have had a chance in the world with John L Sullivan when the Boston boy was in his prime. I have heard a lot of talk about what Jeff and his mountain of strength would have done against the Old Roman, but let me tell you that I have seen them all, and John was the king"

Jeff Thompson wrote in the same year:

"Sullivan was a natural fighter; he could hit the hardest blow of any man I ever saw, and before he was wrecked by drink, I do not believe that there was a man who ever lived that could have beaten him."

In 1928 William Burns wrote:

"At his best from 1878 to 1883, in my opinion, he could have easily trimmed Peter Jackson, Jim Corbett, Frank Slavin, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, and Jack Johnson.

Of course we see these kind of testimonies with the other all time greats, and we take it with a grain of salt, but this is not a case like any other.

Many people question that Sullivan was an all time great gloved fighter, in the conventional sense, and these testimonies make me think that he was.

 

These types of testimonials don't do much for me but I'm curious: how many times did William Burns and Jeff Thompson watch Sullivan fight during his prime? Which of his fights did they see?

 

These seem to be guys who had seen Sullivan fight, as the full quotes would show. Thompson claims to have seen nearly all of his major fights from the Flood fight to the Corbett fight. Burns was the brother of one of Sullivan's opponents.

I don't normally put much stock in such testimonials either, but when you have people thinking that Sullivan was a glorified tough man contestant, I think that it is appropriate to cite them against that position.

 

This. I think Waldron knocked McLean out twice?