John L Sullivan vs Prime David Tua

Who did Sulivan actually beat in his career? Please give me a name...
His claims to fame are liking to lick men in bars, getting the first championship awarded to him, and then losing it in his first actual defence. Usually fighting welterweights to light-heavyweights, while being extremely solid for his time. Tua would be by far the biggest actual boxer Sulivan would have to face, being much more solid as him.

Tua is known for being one of the best to never win a major belt, never mind the highlight reel KO's, he decimated quite a number of big names. Under them a future 2 time beltholder and a former (past it) 2 time champ. Plus, even the biggest punchers couldn't take him out.

You had to outbox Tua, and that's where the biggest issue for Sulivan would come in. Sulivan probably wasn't the greatest boxer, getting completely outboxed in his first defence. Obviously every single Tua opponent who beat or drawn him were clearly bigger and significantly outreached him, and that was the method they used. You don't brawl with Tua.

Tua would knock him out, in whatever round he lands big.

 

This is incorrect.

This is also incorrect.

 

Explain... what is his claim to fame then?!

Explain. As I thought this was the consensus in the boxing world.

 

1. Sullivan fought the best fighters of his era and he didn't lose his title on first defense.

2. I wouldn't have Tua inside top 20 non-title HW boxers. His resume is built around beating used-to-be fighters or green ones. Who did he beat to put him on a level of someone like Harry Wills or Ken Norton?

 

Like who?

Who did he defend his title to?

Ken Norton won a belt. Harry Wills is one of the names.
But seriously, not top 20?
And Tua didn't just beat Moorer, Maskaev, Rachman and Ruiz, which in itself is quite a feat already, he had more contender names on his resume as well.

 

You have a lot more to learn from people, than you have to teach them on this subject, and this will be the case for some time.

You could start by learning who the top contenders of his era actually were.

 

If there are clear cut answers, then why not answer them?!

Like Sharkey, Fitzsimmons, Corbett (who beat Sullivan) and Jeffries?

 

Which rule set is this fought under?

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...ome-world-heavyweight-boxing-champion.679448/

Yes, seriously.

None of them fought during Sullivan's prime. People confuse 1890s Sullivan with prime Sullivan for whatever reason.

 

The crux of the problem seems to be, that you don't even know who Sullivan's contemporaries were.

He was not contemporaneous with men like Sharkey, Fitzsimmons, and Corbett, he was contemporaneous with men like Ryan, Wilson, Greenfield, Mitchell, Burke, Herald, Godfrey, Cardiff and Killrain.

These men were the contenders of his active period, and they are the men against who he should be measured.

 

After that he became the champion (famously got it awarded), his first actual defence was Corbett, who completely outboxed him and eventually stopped him.

Then I clearly disagree

Who of the names from that time did he actually fight, and beat?
I know he fought and beat one fringe contender in Charlie Mitchell and beat the guy mentioned in your link, who lost every big fight he was in.
He sure as hell didn't fight the likes of Jack Dempsey.

 

Jake Kilrain
Domincik McCaffrey
Jack Burke
Paddy Ryan
Frank Herald
Greenfield
Charlie Mitchell

I hope you realize that we don't have full records from that era... not even close.

 

Yeah I'm still going to go with Tua via decapitation

 

I realize that, but when names like Burke (a small middleweight), McCaffrey (nowadays a small SMW), Kilrain (a welter to middleweight), Herald (a light heavyweight), Mitchell (also nowadays a SMW) and Greenfield (a middleweight) are your big names, and then are measured against actual big heavyweights, things fall a bit off.
And then the missing records isn't a saving grace anymore, because it becomes guessing how good, average or bad they actually were.

They were way too small to be even considered heavyweights nowadays, and still some of them were giving him a hard time, while he was significantly bigger (not even remotely big for today's standards of course)

 

Moorer,Oquendo?

Mitchell scaled 150lbs for Sullivan
McCaffrey 168lbs
Rooke was a middleweight
Greenfield was 170lbs
Herald is given as 40lbs lighter than Sullivan.