John L Sullivan vs Frank Slavin, why it didn't happen

I respect Adam a lot, but I would never cite his unqualified opinion as the final word on a subject.

Can't you look at the sequence of events that I outlined, and make your own mind up?

No he couldn't.

He was tied up in legal troubles until mid 1890, and Slavin did not set foot in the USA until 1891.

Have you even bothered to read anything that I have written?

Corbett was the only one of the three who was able to produce the sum of money that he was asking for.

He would probably have had more chance against Jackson or Slavin quite frankly, because they were less elusive than Corbett.

I agree that it is very likely, but it is just supposition at the end of the day.

For all we know a prime Alf Greenfield might have beaten both of them.

I suggest that you do more than thumb through it, and read it from cover to cover.

Better still read the second version, because it includes a lot of information that is not in the first, and perhaps takes the evidence in a slightly different direction on the Slavin issue.

Nobody is disputing that they wanted to see it.

The question is why it didn't happen.

Sullivan was an inactive fighter, tied up with court cases, and theatrical engagements.

He had lost all the money that he made in the Killrain fight, in the court case that followed.

He was making more money on the stage, than he ever could in the ring.

He was drinking every day, from when he got up in the morning.

It was not worth his while making a comeback, unless it was for a record purse, and Slavin simply couldn't come up with the sum he was asking for.

It is not a simple matter of Sullivan not wanting to fight Slavin.

 

I also don't think that it would have made a meaningful difference to Sullivan's legacy, if he had lost to Jackson or Slavin a year or so before Corbett got him in the ring.

It would have left his title reign unaltered up to the Killrain fight, and he would just have been swapping one conqueror for another.