BoxRec

Very speculativey I know, but just wonering if anyone has strong opinions on this.

BitPlayer wrote:Very speculativey I know, but just wonering if anyone has strong opinions on this.

Probably some guy in 223 AD, Roman Colosseum; but he had one inch iron spikes in his gloves and was having a hard time 'getting fights.'

Sorry for the cheeky answer, but I barely know the names of pre-Sullivan fighters; no clue how good any of them really were; I would not know where to begin evaluating them ... but no worry there is one guy on this forum who is about to give you a two page answer, just wait.

James Figg and jack Broughton

Caveman Lee.
No not that one.

Among bareknucklers, either Nonpareil Jack Randall or Dutch Sam.

Senya13 wrote:Among bareknucklers, either Nonpareil Jack Randall or Dutch Sam.

These two, and Jem Belcher before his eye injury

Sully was a heavyweight.... so..... not exactly a fair question @ "greatest boxer predating Sullivan"

But in my view, probably the best was Jem Mace: from welterweight to heavyweight, in an era when men fought each other regardless of weight class, often in open fields or stone floors (cobbles) where the rules varied from agreement to agreement. And long before George Foreman and Archie Moore and Bernard Hopkins, he was pushing the limits of age. If I am not mistaken he was 59 years of age when he fought Charlie Mitchell (Sullivan's greatest nemesis in the ring) for the championship of Great Britain, and after losing that battle campaigned on Mitchell's behalf to get a shot at Sullivan. He also discovered Herbert Slade, yet another challenger of Sullivan. So you can easily imagine, then, that the world didn't take Sully seriously UNLESS he passed all of Mace's tests because Mace had been the face of boxing for decades.

Outside of Mace.... there were quite a few men who were world reknowned from their abilities as fighters: and I use that term in the literal sense, these were all-around-well-rounded-hand-to-hand-combat experts, not just boxers. The original Jack Dempsey, known as the Nonpariel, was the best middleweight in the world in his era and was apparently one of the most fierce and "dirty" fighters of his era. But like alot of men of his time, he squandered his fortune and died penniless and buried in obscurity. For decades a poem entitled "The Nonpariel's Grave" was recited in schools, bars, etc. and many a would be fighter donned the name Dempsey regardless of their nationality.

In the decades prior to Mace, however, probably the two best were Jack Broughton and James Figg. The only reason WHY I say so, is because of longetivity. Both men reigned as champion of Britain for two decades or better. Broughton also opened up a school of defense, teaching wrestling and boxing and fencing and is best known as the creator of boxing gloves--- which looked more like MMA gloves (as they were open fingered) though he only used them for sparring. Figg, also opened a school of defense, and it must be noted that in HIS TIME (since he was champion, he could dictate the rules, etc) you fought three round bouts (each round had no time limit) and the first round was wrestling, the second round was boxing, and the third round was fought with quarter-staffs (otherwise known as Irish shillelaghs). Needless to say, he never lost and retired undefeated. Broughton, made the same mistake as Jefferies and Louis and many others by making a comeback in his old age and losing to a man he may very well have easily beaten in his prime.

Also, I may add, that Sullivan (not Corbett) was the one who popularized the Marquis of Queensbury rules. He fought several hundred exhibitions with the gloves from coast to coast and around the world: as well as taking on all comers for cash prizes. Sullivan felt the MQ rules made fighters "fight like real men", rather than the London Prize Ring rules which allowed wrestling and other tactics (like throwing yourself to the ground to end a round). So, Sullivan, in the finest sense was a boxing purist despite the image of him being this bare knuckle street fighter type, which is simply not true. He only had a handful of bare knuckle matches under the LPR rules, whereas he had nearly a thousand gloved matches with rounds of three minute durations.

The men pre-dating Sullivan..... were fighters.... not boxers.... so it is harder to rate them and decide who was the best of the best.... cus the truth is (lets say Tom Sayers was the best of all) if he were matched with someone today, we might find him completely useless under our modern rules because maybe his "critical blow" followed a suplex to the canvas, or a double leg take down, or a Judo-style hip toss. They are better compared and matched up to the MMA fighters of today than they are the boxing purists of today. Take one of my all time favorites: Mike McCoole, from my home state of Ohio. Was the American Heavyweight Champion, and also claimed the World championship (for a time). He wasn't no boxer in the least bit. While he did have a powerful punch, his greatest attributes were prodigous strength in holds in wrestling. He even killed a man (or two) when competing in such matches because of his wrestling prowess. It'd be better to match him up against the likes of Brock Lesnar or Cain Velasquez, than a Tyson Fury or Wladimir Klitschko.