BoxRec

I remember reading a few years back that Max Baer and Earnie Shavers were voted as having the hardest hitting right punches in the first half and second half of the 20th Century,but how does their right hand punches compare to John L. Sullivan's?

I remember reading alot on Sullivan's punching prowess. Here was a man who, unlike Dempsey and others who knocked men through the ropes, could knock a man up and over the top rope. Reports of the times said you could hear Sullivan's punches from far away, and his opponents often stated [mainly Paddy Ryan] that Sullivan's right hand was like someone taking a telegraph pole, and battering-ram it into you. what many people dont realize is that the Boston Strong Boy wasn't dubbed that for nothing, he often competed in "strong man" contests and won virtually every time. It was once stated that one trolley car off a train derailed, and Sullivan single-handedly placed the derailed car back on the tracks. It was cited more than once that Sullivan with a single blow broke many a man's jaw.

I would compare these exploits every much so with Foreman who would pull/push cars up hill, Marciano hitting 300 pound punching bags, and Jeffries carrying a dead dear some six miles back to training camp.

No real way of every knowing if some of Sullivan's supposed "super-human" feats were factual or mythic bullshit. Probably some where in the middle.

Plus Sullivan fought a lot of much smaller men, and tank town toughs who stood no chance against him. That said, he probably was a special puncher

His tank town tours, though, were nothing short of amazing. Its hard for me to invision someone fighting roughly 300+ men, athletes or not, and winning them all by knockout. But Sullivan did just that. As for smaller men are concerned, Herbert Slade was bigger than John L, and the result was still the same. Fox of the Gazette, searched the world over for the best boxers, and placed them against Sullivan and for 12 years he went undefeated.

Slade was more noted as a wrestler than a boxer, ditto Paddy Ryan. Any top heavweight would knock the local hard nuts and bouncers out in a boxing ring. The best guys Sullivan was fighting at his peak were smaller, middleweights / welters e.g. Charley Mitchell and Jack Burke.
I'm not knocking Sullivan, but boxing was at its lowest ebb in his day. I suppose he's the guy that brought it into prominence and deserves the gratitude from all boxing fans for this

Okay, let's separate fact from fiction.

Sully's tours were mostly sparring sessions with Jack Ashton, Frank Slavin or Paddy Ryan, whom JLS had defeated for the title. Ryan and his sparring partners would perform with each other when local boy did not accept the challenge. The take all local boys gimmick sounded good but there were less than a dozen of those, since most local boys had enough sense to stay ringside rather than face almost guaranteed unconciousness at the hands of the Great JLS.

There are several book on Sully, the best one being Izenberg's John L Sullivan and his America.

How good was his right hand? Well it was his main weapon and he went undefeated for a decade and a half, so he must have been a pretty stiff banger.

Sullivan's best fighting weight in the 1880's was 190 pounds,
and he fought a lot of people just as big or bigger.
As a matter of fact I believe the famous boxing axium
"The Bigger they Are,
The Harder they Fall".
Can be attributed back to John L. Sullivan.
(On ESPN ,Bert Sugar atrributed the saying to Bob Fitzsimmons, but I dont think so,INMOP ,Fitzsimmons probably had said
"The bigger they are,the harder they hit!.)