Where would you rank John L. Sullivan?

I'm sorry that you think you were born into the most athletic generation in the history of the species. The men of Sullivan's era were more fit and virile than the coddled softies prancing around in sequins today. I'd take Joe Goddard, sober and trained, to tear a hole through the heavyweight division today. Peter Jackson presented him with the modern science of boxing and Goddard put him on his ass for the favor.

 

you keep completely straying from the topic of the thread ? Sullivan fought the worst level of competition of any heavyweight title holder by far. It was a sport in its infancy and he fought flat out worse than amateur boxers, he fought guys that would be in tough men contests for the most part other than Mitchell who was a middleweight. Sullivan was a physical marvel and a raw professional

 

In my view we really do not not know enough about John L. Sullivan or his competition to accurately rank him among the all time Heavyweights. What we have is his record (no doubt incomplete), his opponents' records (woefully incomplete), testimonies from people who actually saw him fight (mostly quite favorable), and Adam Pollack's well researched book (in which he seems to indicate that he believes Sullivan was not just a primitive brawler, and writes of his skills and ability as a boxer, while acknowledging that Sullivan had vices and faults as well). We, obviously, have no useful film of J.L. Based on what I have learned about John, I would hesitate to simply write him off. He may very well have been better than some today think he was, and I lean in that direction, personally, since I probably rank him higher than most moderns do.