The honesty of John L Sullivan. Were other champions as honest?

That's pretty honest.

and the crazy thing is, Jeffries reign didn't take place too long after Sullivan was done so that's also a possible indication of how boxing had taken a big leap in a short time.

 

Guys probably got tired of getting smashed in the face repeatedly.

 

The game got soft with Corbett and then Jeffries and all their Fancy Dan "boxing". Milling in Sullivan's day was an honest effort over 70 or 80 rounds, whatever it took.

 

Good read. As said, there seems to be a radical uptake of new techniques and evolvement of the sport from Sullivan's heyday and Jeffries' time.
Queensbury rules no doubt had a lot to do with that.
Still, very rare for an arrogant and boastful man like Sullivan to admit to such.

 

Most boxers can't even admit when they've lost a fight, so no.

 

Sullivan was probably being too dismissive, but the main problem with the quote is it's misleading. There were much more calculated men who fought under bare-knuckles. This "new style" remark exposes his lack of perspective on the matter.

Jack Dempsey seemed very honest with the amount of times he admitted his was out on his feet, and also in the way he claimed his styles' main weakness was the fact he couldn't reverse.

 

Bob Foster after earning a questionable draw against Jorge Ahumada: "when you only get a draw in your home town, you know you lost the fight."

 

It is important to understand that Sullivan fought in a transitional era, when the talent pool was at an all time low.

That dosn't mean that the previous era was weak.

 

I've read that quote from Sullivan and others from a similar time period that contradict it ..

 

Leonard admitting Hearns beat him the second time.
Speaking of John Sullivan, he did state that Joe Gans is the most intelligent fighter.

 

I've also seen Sullivan quoted (first half of 1900's) where he remarked how nice it would be to be young again. Just because JLS thought his 1880's form wouldn't cut it vs. Jeffries doesn't mean he didn't think he'd have been competitive coming along in Jeffries era.

 

'Boxers today are much stronger than when I was fighting in my youth they are smarter and stronger more than ever now" G.Foreman...referring to the klitchko era!


"People don't want to believe it but fighters improve over time they evolve,i don't know if I could beat the Klitchkos theres never been fighters like them" M Tyson


"Boxing is as good as its ever been,some fighters from different eras could be still effective some cant,fighters became more athletic than when I was boxing,they started to move more" M .Ali


Even Max Kellerman one of the biggest Nostalgic boxing fan is on record saying guys like ali would be way to small for a lennox Lewis because he did not hit hard enough and Lewis was the best bigman in the true superheavyweight era.This was after the Tyson fight,before Vitali.


One just has to go on you tube and look at the Jeffries training vid and the 1899 fight with fitzimmons..no offense to him or his era but the guy looks like a clown to modern fighters,anyone who questions if past is better than present needs their head examined.

 

My (probably overly-simplistic) understanding has always been that Corbett absolutely revolutionized heavyweight boxing with his footwork and use of distance.

In fairness to Rocky, I don't think that the game advanced nearly as much between Marciano and Liston (the next big heavyweight leap was probably young Cassius).