Ranking heavyweight champs pre-Joe Louis.

or he was the best advertised.

 

Adam Pollack has written two excellent ones.

 

No, he was an incredibly dominant champion.

He might actually have put his title on the line more times than Joe Louis!

He was just dominating everybody.

The arguments against him are that he came along in a weak era, and that most of his title defences were in 4-6 round fights, that were called exhibitions for legal reasons.

 

well this is what I mean, anyone could string together virtual exhibtion fights as easy wins and then advertise them as world beaters. A big issue is that we dont have any first hand evidence that we can look at to corroborate witness acounts.

Owning only the "white" hw title isnt a good advert for him either.

I have no doubt he was pretty good.

 

I am of course making a couple of assumptions about Sullivan's opposition here.

I am assuming that the contemporary media were more or less right in their assessment of who they best challengers were.

I am also assuming that they were no worse than the pick of a conventional weak era.

If you make those two assumptions then Sullivan's record is pretty darn impressive.

The colour line doesn’t hurt his legacy that much, because there were no particularly outstanding black challengers for most of his tenure.

 

or the black challengers werent allowed to thrive. Given that the HW scene became packed out with blacks within the next 2 decades as the colour line started to fade, its safe to suggest that John was getting protected artificially from fighters he should have faced but werent given a stage at all.

you are right that media cant be completely wrong, thats fair enough, its what we have to go on. John was obviously a dominant 4-6 round fighter for the white title.

also, but off topic - why does the guy playing him have an irish accent in that movie about him and another boxer? I neverworked out why.

 

Using contemporary opinion (for a bit of controversy) and actual results as a guide:

1. Peter Jackson - Was unbeaten for about 10 years or so and considered world champion by both England and Australia for most of this time. Was past prime and injured for the Corbett draw and was badly ducked. The man who finally KOd corbett was not considered in the same class (literally) as Jackson.
2. John L Sullivan - No fighter ever has dominated like Sullivan did, though it is a shame he didnt ever fight the best Australians. His era is criticised, but it is worth noting that those who witnessed it and the one who followed it generally felt that Sullivan's era had the better fighters, for what it is worth.
3. Bob Fitzsimmons - Unbeaten in over 300 fights (according to him) and KO victories over ATG Jim Corbett and most other top contenders. In fact most of heavyweight career was actually past prime. Perhaps more impressively, as an old man way past prime he outclassed Jim Jeffries before old age and bad hands cost him the victory.
4. Jim Corbett - Underated today. Not only did he beat (admittedly past prime) Sullivan, but he drew with Jackson and gave Jeffries all he could handle when he was way past prime.
5. Jack Dempsey - a Patchy record compared to the others in terms of who he fought, but there is no doubting his dominance and standing amongst contemporaries.
6. Jim Jeffries - Short career where he was lucky enought to dodge the prime of his best rivals. He wasnt as spectacular as the others mentioned, but he beat most of them (although he mostly struggled) and he was considered a physical marvel and evolution of the sport.
7. Jack JOhnson - HIs dominance was superb. At one stage, he had beaten every single one of the 10 best contenders active when he was fighting. The only criticism is that contempary opinion suggested that it was a weak era that couldnt match up to the Corbett/Sullivan/Jackson/Fitzsimmons/Jeffries era. It is interesting it wasnt until the previous era retired or aged like Choynski/Hart/Griffin/Klondike Jones that JOhnson became so dominant.
8. Gene Tunney - Not many could see anyone dominating Dempsey the way that Tunney did, twice! Probably a little luck with the time of his career, but technically was superb.
9. Jess Willard - When Willard won the title, he was seen as a superman who would reign forever. It seems unfair to downgrade his career, solely because of the Dempsey loss. he was considered a good fighter.
10. Sam Langford - NOt a chamption, but he was considered a great, great fighter, rightly so too.

 

Dempsey
Tunney
Johnson
Corbett
Fitz
Jeffries
Sullivan
Burns
Hart

 

I disagree.

Black fighters had been allowed to challenge for the title freely throughout the bareknuckle era.

I think that the major surge in black fighters came while the colour line was firmly in place.

There was nobody of any note between Peter Jackson and Denver Ed Martin, and then black fighters start taking over every division, arguably creating the strongest cross division era in history.

There is then a bit of a lull of black fighters in the 1920s, and perhaps a bit of a white surge, owing to Irish, Jewish and Italian immigrants.

The colour line isn’t truly gone until after World War II.

John L was descended from Irish immigrants, so that is plausible.

 

i have no problem with any of this apart from that strong possiblity that good black fighters were simply passed over by the media as well as opportunities during bareknuckle days - the few we have reported are the exceptions to the rule quite likely.

I know its supposition, but its not unlikely.

yeh obvously he was irish by heritage but how on earth does someone born and bred in boston acquire an accent in its pure form, from so far away?

 

John L Sullivan by Adam Pollack has very positive reviews, he always does extensive research on his subject.

 

I thought Boston was part of Ireland then?

 

lol, i am just wondering why he was portrayed in that movie as fully irish accented. Maybe he was 2nd generation so picked up his accent from his parents. Or it might be just bad filmmaking more likely made by people who had never met JLS.

 

1.Johnson
2.Dempsey
3.Fitzsimmons
4.Jeffries
5.Tunney
6.Schmeling
7.Baer
8.Sharkey
9.Sullivan
10.Corbett
11.Burns
12.Braddock
13 Willard
14.Hart
15.Carnera