John Sullivan In The Modern Era

A touch of Floyd Patterson perhaps.

 

Seriously ? From a physical standpoint he was in the mid 180's in his physical prime I believe from 1881 to 1883 .. When he went up in weight it was far more from bloat of eating and drinking than anything else .. Sullivan was only 5' 10" or so, no giant by any means .. physically I see him today if in shape below 200 .. skill wise it would come down to if he learned to fight M of Q .. physically he has speed, a terrific chin, strength , stamina, killer instinct and that rarest of rare KO power .. as far as training goes he was a flat out amateur ... if he was blinked into a title fight today as was he would get destroyed .. if he was rebuilt from scratch and trained over time it could be the skies the limit ..

 

Honestly ? The Peter McNeely that lost to Butterbean.

 

Pure fantasy. I"m w you .. Natural talent aside Sullivan was more suited to tough man competitions that fighting M of Q based on his complete lack of training.

 

He must be favored to grab any belt he pleases. The onus of proof lies with the modern faction as Sullivan's greatness has been established for 130+ years

 

I came away from Adam's first book thinking that his best weight was a little over 200lbs, and I came away from his second book which provided a lot more sources, thinking that it was a little under 200, say about 196.

His tale of the tape tells the story, when we compare him to other fighters of similar height.

He was obviously significantly bigger than Marciano, but smaller than McVea.

 

There was nothing wrong with Sullivan's training for his most important fights.

 

I think they were both 5'10 or so ... Sullivan had a decent reach, maybe 74 or 75" ... his prime when he looked all cut he was reported to have weighed in the mid 180's ... he was very much Marciano's type size .. both could easily flesh up to close to 200 but Rocky was a training fanatic and Sullivan clearly was not ..

 

Sullivan's best weight certainly wasn't in the mid 180s.

The only times he weighed less than 190, were when he was 22 years old or less.

Sullivan himself said that his best weight was about 196.

Furthermore while he was the same height as Marciano, his chest neck and biceps were closer to those of Jeffries.

He was arguably closer to somebody like Joe Frazier in build.

 

Sullivan was 24 when he fought Ryan and his weight was reported between 178 and 182 .. he wa in the best shape of his life. You can read this in Pollack's books or multiple other .. it was said he was lean in this fight because he actually trained for it opposed to the vast majority of many others. BY mid 1883 he started his cross country tour and fell into full blown alcoholism. He was never again in close to prime condition.

 

My apologies he was actually 23.

At that age Evander Holyfield was fighting as a light heavyweight, and I think Chris Byrd was a middleweight?

Sullivan did train diligently for some other fights, up to and including the Killrain fight.

Thee are photos of him in 1883 in very good condition, and he never fought lighter than 203 in that year, as far as can be established in the first biography.

Bottom line, you need to pull all the strands of evidence together.

 

Sullivan was a bigger man than Marciano, deeper of chest, stauncher of buttock, stouter of hams and significantly longer in reach. The two should not be compared in physical assets. The Hibernian seed grows deeper than that of the sunny Italianates. Out of necessity it seeks stronger waters at deeper depths.

 

For some reason, when I think of Sullivan in the 21st century, I get the image of him being the forgotten elder Fury brother, probably on the run from the law for a crime that he did commit and spending the day drinking in seedy public houses and engaging in unlicensed boxing matches at night.

Or he could have turned out to be David Price.

 

Another one of these threads that some old time want to be expert boxing fan create. Just from a skill point alone Sullivan couldn't compete with modern fighters. Everything he did was good for his limited era. His knockout ratio was a product of the low level fighters he fought in his era and the small 4 ounce gloves. The vast majority of the people he fought weighed between 150 and 180. 26 of his opponents were making their pro debuts against him. I can't imagine him beating any heavyweight from the 60's to this day. Hell I can't even imagine him beating any half way decent 160 pound from the 60s to this day.

 

Guys, we better take his opinion seriously, as he is clearly an expert from reading boxrec.