I was browsing around and ran into this. I didn't know that Sullivan and Godfrey came THIS close to fighting. Anyone know any more about this?
Godfrey was a big mother at 6' 6" tall and 240 pounds, when in proper shape, but he was MISSING a certain element that hindered him from being great..... Was it management or his lust for good home cooking?? I really don't know what his problem was.... All in know is that certain folks and historians claim he had the tools to be the man, but lacked the mindset..... As for Johnny Sullivan, well, he was a boozer and a woman chaser..... I know history is kind to him and states he was great, however, I sense a lotta fabled tales were also added into his mix as well....... Who wins in a time machine, hell if I know, but I'll go out on a limb and pick Godfrey over Sully......... MR.BILL
Wrong George Godfrey. Thios is the original George Godfrey who was a much smaller and better managed fighter.
Godfrey " Old Chocolate ",was overated imo,his record has quite a few stoppage losses on it, he couldnt master KIlrain ,and he wouldn't master Sullivan ,who wins by a ko inside 8 rds.
Just goes to show Sullivan's color line against Peter Jackson wasn't the "principled" stand of a proud racist, but an excuse to avoid a dangerous challenge. To be fair to Sullivan, I think he admitted as much himself.
I think that's fair enough. Jackson was a threat, and Sullivan knew it. To be fair to Sullivan though, he was getting on, was badly dissipated from booze and basically nearing the end. His prime years were long gone. I probably would have done the same thing, and many other champions have. In addition, I think also that Sullivan didn't want his tremendous popularity tarnished by being beaten by a black fighter. You have to look at the context of the period. So in addition to maybe losing anyway, he also didn't want to lose to a black guy who wasn't even American.
Hey spell check police, overrated has two r's in it, and there is a ' in couldn't, and " i " in Klirain is lowercase. It would be best for you not to rip someone else's spelling and grammar. I count thee mistakes in on sentence here.
I'm not sure what to think of George Godfrey. He was already quite old by the 1890's so I don't know if his later KO losses to Kilrain, Choynski and Maher should be brought up. The earlier 3 round point loss to Kilrain and and a DQ loss against Doherty might not be all that meaningful either. He took Peter Jackson 19 rounds until being stopped. Godfrey was 35 then, which is a bit old but he may or may not have been at his best. Interestingly I read this (somewhat racist) article which has some information about the John L. Sullivan vs George Godfrey fight: http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=TS19090928.2.63 Not that it should be taken for granted with the tone of the article being what it is. I also don't see the mentioned fight against C.C. Smith mentioned anywhere in Godfrey's record. Was it an exhibition or a bareknuckle fight perhaps?
