John L Sullivan Vs Tony Galento (20rds MoQ)

Tell me more please. I see Mitchell had knocked him down in the 1st round in one fight, another they battled for 2 hours until both unrecognizable, & the Kilrain fight went 75 rounds. So there were times before he was washed up that Sullivan did not appear so dominant. DO you agree? Are there any extenuating circumstances?

 

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The first Mitchel fight Charlie scored a flash knockdown which Sullivan always claimed came with him off balance. Sullivan went on to drop him up and down like a ball. Half the time Mitchell, like many others, dropped every time hit and hurt to simply last the distance ..

In the famous 39 round bout , Sullivan was past his prime, poorly conditioned, a terrible alcoholic, had agreed to a 24 foot ring, was as usual grossly over confident and was lucky to escape w a draw .. he dominated early but Mitchel fought smart and poor conditioning and the raw weather almost did Sullivan in .. he was quite happy for it to end a draw ..

 

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Not in the second fight .. Mitchell gained strength as the rounds progressed while the poorly conditioned Sullivan tired .. Mitchell used some of the tactics Corbett would later use and between fatigue and the chilly rain John L. was suffering and there is serious debate if the draw decision resulted from a payoff by John L.'s own people to Mitchell's ..

 

Tony's low crouch and quick hook may give Sullivan something to chew over, but overall he should get blasted. John L. had speed as well as power. This wasn't a ponderous slugger but a powerful assassin. Galento was no cutie (in both senses) and would come out second best in a collision.

While not a vivid picture you can get an idea of how Sullivan fought via contemporary sources. The trim version from 1882-85 was a bad man.

 

Yeah...the round ended when one man went down. TOTALLY different rulesets from today. One of the fights with Mitchell was also fought in terrible conditions, mud and rain, which made it easy to slip.

 

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Huh, thank you very much gentleman.

So do you think there is enough information out there to reasonably speculate how Sulliavn would do against ATGs? Especially others of his general build & style? Let's say under modern rules.

 

Observers were generally quite impressed with Sullivan's performance against Kilrain. It wasn't too far into the fight that people felt that Kilrain's only chance was in trying to hang on and hoping that Sullivan would tire. Sullivan did vomit at one point -- Kilrain refused to take advantage -- but recovered well and showed stamina that suprised many onlookers. Many thought it was Sullivan's best performance in some years. A lot of credit should probably go to Bill Muldoon (a wrestling champion of the time) for making sure Sullivan showed in good condition.
Kilrain was a tough customer -- he stopped Joe Goddard after 44 rounds in 1891 -- and stopping a resilliant guy whose trying to stretch things out in a bare-knuckle contest generally takes a while.

 

Sullivan was washed up for the Kilrain fight… he had already survived at least one coma, a lengthy illness that left him bedridden for 4 months (and partially paralyzed). According to some observers he looked like he hadn't slept for days and drank whiskey between rounds.

 

I do not personally think that there is.

We can reconstruct Sullivan’s style fairly reliably from contemporary reports, but there are significant details we cannot know, such as what use of head movement he might have employed.

I wrote an article a few years back, in which I pieced him together in some detail, but at the end of it I could only make fairly vague statements about what he was.

 

Yes, precisely.

We must leave plenty of room for doubt, but you can get pretty good idea of how some of the old masters fought with some earnest research.

Find shared opinions from different writers and you start to trace the outline.

And of course writers can sometimes capture the essence of fighter. Budd Schulberg's analysis of Lennox Lewis at the "reluctant dragon" was bang on. Without ever seeing film of him you could probably imagine that tentative pawing from Holyfield I.

 

The gap between Sullivan and his best contenders was greater than any heavy who has since followed. He was that good.

 

Basically yes.

Everybody either got destroyed quickly, or fought to survive.

It was probably the weakest era in the history of gloved boxing, outside of Sullivan himself. Prize fighting had been crushed in its traditional heartland in the UK, and it was still in its infancy in the USA.

Sullivan stepped into this vacuum, and tore up the world!