The softer side of John L.

Great article and avatar ...

 

I agree.

Seems to suggest that John L was not really as racist as popular reporting suggests.

 

From John L. Sullivan: The Career of the First Gloved Heavyweight Champion:

Sullivan’s racial prejudice had shades and contours. In late September 1889 he discussed a potential candidacy for Congress. When asked what his policy would be regarding the present race troubles in the South, he said,

"When it comes to flogging men at night, whether they’re black or white, I’m against it. See? I’d like to go down there on a committee. I’d stop all such foul work. I will not go into a ring with a negro, but by Jupiter, I wouldn’t stand by and see another white man lick him without reason."

 

A regular mahatma gandhi.

Why don't we list all the lucky innocent bystanders John L. took his beast rage out on and put into the arms of morpheus? He was am absolute thug with physical gifts, a drunken cretin and not much else.

And later he was a teetotaler, which is worse than all the above.

 

Given how awful Sullivan's drinking problem was, and how it had destroyed him physically, you can't blame him for later becoming abstinent.

 

Winners never quit; quitters never win.

 

LOL

Wait are you talking about Sullivan or the Matrix?


I disagree with all that but you said it with such vigor!



The celebrated Lubin original (10,000 viewers can't be wrong)
The downfall of John L. Sullivan:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2yBnAfN2-I[/ame]

www.youtube.com/eslubin

 

lol.

 

If you read John L. Sullivan: The Career of the First Gloved Heavyweight Champion, you will realize that Sullivan was much more than a thug with physical gifts. He was a skilled boxer with talent, who did a great deal in terms of the advocacy of gloved Queensberry rules boxing as something that should be recognized as a sport rather than something that should be seen as illegal and brutal. He befriended several former opponents, took them around the country giving daily exhibitions of gloved boxing, showing the entire population of the U.S. what it was all about, and made gloved boxing a very popular money-making enterprise. The sport as we know it today has to tip its hat to him because his advocacy and stardom made it what it became.

 

Sullivan seems to have been an inteligent man.

I get the idea that he was a nice man while he was sober, but an absolute ar5ehole when he was drunk.

 

lots of people are like that.

 

With regard to the article, Sullivan always admired George Dixon as a fighter, despite his stance on the colour line.

 

Read the book and several others. I think he is often underrated in terms of science, speed and strength.

He was also a drunked brute who beat perfectly innocent citizens senseless then got off scot-free due to his athletic celebrity. Another great paradigm he helped popularize.