BoxRec

Why isent he ranked in greatest heavyweights of all time...Top 5 for me


U??????

He had only one (losing) fight under modern rules. Not possible to rate him against modern day fighters.

Woller

hes a boxing great and a complete original

Woller wrote:He had only one (losing) fight under modern rules. Not possible to rate him against modern day fighters.

Woller

Actually he fought most of his fights under the MoQ rules. Most of his well known fights were bare knuckle, Kilrain, Flood, Mitchell, so that's what most think of when they think of John L, but I think he had only about 8 fights under the London rules. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about the 8 fights. He preferred the MoQ rules and should be given much of the credit for popularizing the MoQ rules.

He isn't rated highly many today because he fought so long ago and there is no film of him fighting.

well i can understand now why he isent ranked in the top 5 HW but the ratings have to give him credit he once thought 72 rounds in wich he knocked out his oppenant...

And james gentalmen jim is ranked but sullivan isent ??

I feel your pain...

I don't know enough about the era. I've read about Sullivan and some of his fights but I just don't know enough about his opponents other than Corbett.

Woller wrote:He had only one (losing) fight under modern rules. Not possible to rate him against modern day fighters.

Woller

Sullivan actually had most of his fights under the MQ rules. Only his pre-title fights with Donaldson and Flood, and the title fights with Paddy Ryan, Jake Kilrain and Charlie Mitchell were under the LPR rules. (Note: Donaldson was fought under LPR rules, but with skin-tight gloves.)

didn;t he duck "coloured" fighters?

IMO anyone who did that should be void of any ranking what so ever.

few years ago I had John L. Sullivan as the greatest of all time on my list you can make a solid case for Sullivan

observer1 wrote:didn;t he duck "coloured" fighters?

IMO anyone who did that should be void of any ranking what so ever.

Only if you measure historical personages by the morality/ethical standards of the present day.

Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall, etc. all owned slaves. Woodrow Wilson was a racist. Are we going to keep them off our lists of great presidents and jurists?

Does anyone here feel that in some way The 'Coloured HW Title' was just as rightful as the offical one. We live in an era where all titles are split up. Looking back at the lineage of the coloured title is it not just as talent rich as the official one?

HomicideHenry wrote:few years ago I had John L. Sullivan as the greatest of all time on my list you can make a solid case for Sullivan

How? Most of the opposition he fought were little more than small town tough guys, wrestlers (Ryan and Slade) or men much smaller than him (Burke and Mitchell for example). He was certainly the greatest bareknuckle fighter in the early-mid 1880s, but its difficult to compare him with the greats of the 20th Century. Its like comparing pool players and snooker players really.
To give John L his due, he was a great fighter, I believe he would have become a champion in most eras if hed lived in different times and been taught to box scientifically

Sullivan is hard to rate; there isn't as much information to go as everyone worth mentioning that came after him. He was sort of the bridge from what boxing once was and what it would become.

As for how good he was, you can just go by the scraps of information available.
Being the best in the world for so long indicates that he must have been atleast a decent fighter.
He did fight Mitchell and Kilrain who both fought Corbett and other top fighters.
The fact that he lasted until the 21st round against Corbett indicates that he had couldn't have been a stiff. At the very least it indicates that he had to have had great stamina and had to have a good chin. This is even more remarkable when you consider that he was almost 34 and hadn't fought in 3 years.
My best guess is that he shouldn't be ranked too far behind Corbett if not ahead of him.