More to do that John L lacks fight footage. Outside of reports, what do we know about this guy?? One of the best of his era and is a great, but it is hard to judge something with no film on.
Peaked in the 70s and 80s? Based on what? Louis is literally picture perfect, by the book and Ali is fundamentally so broken he was befell by a mediocre Norton. If you were a coach you’d want a Louis and not an Ali as your product.
I am probably as staunch a defender of Sullivan as anybody her, but I could not rank him above Ali based on the available data. Sullivan's record is very impressive on paper, but we honestly don't know how good his opponents were, or that much about them generally. They were the best opponents available, for the most part, as far as I can tell. They were also the best of a chaotic era, where two rule sets existed in parallel, and you could argue that none of them was brilliant at either. It is possible that Sullivan benefited from that chaos. Many people are far too quick to assume that it was a weak era, but on balance, I think that it probably was.
John L has quite a few opponents listed as debutants on his MOQ record. However there was at least one of those opponents who was described in literature otherwise as having reasonable boxing experience by the time he fought John L - lots of holes in the history.
Actually, I do rank him above Ali. He made greater distance between himself and his best contender than did any other champion. GOAT.
To be fair, we don’t have vision of Blackburn himself and he might’ve refined and customised some of his old moves for Louis at any rate. There’s a particular study of Louis on YouTube (I know, there are heaps). Anyway, among other nuances highlighted they focused on Joe’s use of his rear right hand to preemptively reach out and nullify his opponent’s lead left hand, knocking it down or pushing it away - very effective and very similar to what we can see Jack Johnson do to his opposition. I don’t know if that move necessarily washes as a legal these days but it was very cool nonetheless. There’s also the oft pointed out left hook that Louis specifically used to knock away Braddock’s left guard so as to clear a path for Joe’s bone crunching KO right. Old school doesn’t necessarily mean bad school - I’ve not seen any other fighter on film employ such a sweet move - but it may not have been so rare in Blackburn’s day and simply a later, rare gem passed onto Louis. .
Tell me about it. My man Ingemar, as fine a technician as ever did grace the squared circle. The true GOAT. People shouldn’t be jealous of us Swedes. Being beautiful and proficient in all things isn’t our fault. Instead of being envious, people should revel in and celebrate us. Just heading out for an invigorating sauna right now……