John L Sullivan against Wladimir Klitshcko! ! ! !

:good

 

Indeed. There is enough contemporary sources of the period out there to suggest that Sullivan was a new breed of athlete, and by far the outstanding fighter of the period.

Unfortunately, I think the general perception of Sullivan is that of a strong, but crude and unsophisticated brawler. If reports are anything to go by, he was anything but crude.

 

This would be a rough tough fight for Wlad to win.F or one thing John l. had a image. Plus he was tough. Really only loss to gentleman Jim. But in the end I think Wlad by close UD!

 

Perhaps this could happen...

Sullivan comes out for round 1. He is on his toes moving side to side. Doubling, no tripling the jab! Wlad is reaching for him but he gets nothing but air as John L. spins him with lightening precision.

By round 3 Sullivan is having fun, dropping his hands, throwing Bolos, then he fakes the Bolo and sticks a left jab right in Wlad`s grill. {Ala Ray Leonard}. At this point Manny Steward throws the towel in and Vitali jumps into the ring to challenge the Great John L Sullivan. Just the best there ever was.

 

One area that hasn't been touched upon (or much) is the wrestling aspect. Sullivan was not known as a good wrestler by the standard of the day, but he did train in wrestling quite extensively for the Kilrain fight, and I just wonder if that would not make a significant difference, were they to fight in some weird hybrid rules setup.

 

Those who could make educated picks tended not to pick him from what i've read.

His star had to fall because he was the goat, no room for improvement at all really.

 

For our generation it tends to come down to Louis or Ali, or in a fantasy fight Louis vs Ali.

At the end of Jeffries career, the battle lines were even more clearly drawn as Sullivan or Jeffries/Sullivan vs Jeffries. Inevitably the majority went on to favour Jeffries as those who had seen Sullivan faded away.

One thing that you hear time and time again during Jeffries career, is "this guy is good but he dosn't knock em out like Sullivan". That Sullivan was the better puncher and finisher of the two, never seems to have been questioned.

 

But it was also well regarded that james would have been equally as dominant if the two switched era's.

The hw division in particular saw a big improvement in skill from john l's day.

Gentleman and ruby were both very technical boxers.

Jeffries was seen as an improvement on john l himself.

Johnson would be considered a technical boxer in today's arena let alone back then.

The majority of boxing took a big jump in the 20's but hw boxing improved quite soon because of the prestige.