Is Sam Langford the greatest fighter ever to draw breath?

Morning gentleman,

The majority usually associate the worlds GOAT P4P as Sugar Ray Robinson, but looking between the lines I truly believe the term pound for pound belongs to one man and one man only Sam Langford. He beat ATG fighters from Lightweight to Heavyweight Joe Gans (lightweight) Joe Walcott (welterweight) Jeff Clark (middleweight) Philadelphia Jack O'Brien (light heavyweight) Harry Wills (heavyweight) He was 17 years old when he fought Joe Gans and 18 when he fought Joe Walcott. Can you imagine a 17 year old fighter in his first professional year being thrown in with Bernard Hopkins and beating him? The cyber world would freeze down with audulation,


Langford had an amazing career. If there was any justice he would have won at least two lineal crowns. The word never should not be used in sports, but I don't think we will see a boxing career like Langford in our lifetime.

Be interested in your thoughts

Cheers

Rodders

Rodders as a commited Langford fan I can only totally echo your sentiments at his best Langford was a true phenomena. Think his biography says at his peak between 1907 and 1912 he lost something like 2 out of 51 fights (both avenged). This is pretty impressive in of itself but when one considers the bulk of these were at heavyweight against the likes of McVea and Jeannette and Sam stood 5ft 6 and rarely weighed much more than 170 at his best it is nothing short of remarkable.

Is a great tragedy Johnson wanted nothing to do with him during his reign because during the time I have mentioned above it's a genuine pick em for me and a win over Johnson would see Sam more widely known by fans. Those who shared the ring with Sam were almost universal in their praise, Jeannette maintained in the 1940's Sam would have had the beating of Joe Louis, Abe Attell described him as the finest fighter ever to lace up a pair.

Given Sam was right royally shafted out of title shots throughout his career he seems to have avoided becoming embittered and seems to have accepted his lot with a humour and easy going nature that is a true credit.

Is hard to say whether he is the greatest ever as that is so difficult to establish with the likes of Robbo, Armstrong and Greb all deserving consideration but for me Sam deserves to be right in the mix and I can assure you you will hear no arguments from me if you want to say Sam is top dog.

Cheers Jeff nice post. Just sidestepping from the whole P4P ranking, where would you rank him has at Heavy? Like you mentioned he crushed some pretty top names at Heavy. As an all round package Langford it seems to me he pretty much had everything. He had all time great finishing ability, ring inteligence, mobility, all time great durability. He was like a seems miniture hybrid of Jack Dempsey and Jersey Joe Walcott.

I think If we dont take into acount his physical limitations then he was the most complete heavyweight package of all time.

You could say as a finisher Langford is among the absolute elite of all time heavyweights along with Bob Fitzsimmons, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Mike Tyson. For my money he might have been the best of the lot in terms of, who would punish you the most for a single mistake and manufacture one if you didnt make it.

Cheers Rodders

Nice one, Rodders.

Langford certainly belongs in the highest company, and I would venture that, as with Fitzsimmons and one or two others, he's actually a victim of having been too good and too versatile.

Notwithstanding Johnson's gatecrashing of the party, the heavyweight division was pretty much a closed shop for a fighter of African extraction when Sam was strutting his stuff. Not so the divisions below heavy, and I can't help but think that if Sam had concentrated his efforts at, let's say, lightheavy, he would have enjoyed a lengthy reign and his stock would be even higher than it is today. Johnson, of course, royally shafted Langford by drawing the colour line after winning the title, and historians are still divided as to whether or not Langford could have toppled Johnson any time after the Jeffries fight in 1910. Sam was certainly in a rich vein of form from 1910 through 1915 and, given that Johnson had lost his hunger and his edge after Jeffries, I believe that it's entirely possible that Sam might have beaten him.

Langford is sometimes marked down because of his losing record against Harry Wills, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Wills was six or seven years younger than Sam, and that Langford had been blind in one eye after suffering a detached retina against Fred Fulton in 1917.

One of his fights with Joe Jeannette has recently surfaced. The fight is almost complete, and the quality is very clean. Clear to see that Langford was a marvel, both on offence and in defence, with excellent skills and movement. When we factor in his incredible punching power and ring ' savvy ' it doesn't require much of a leap of imagination to suppose that he might, indeed, have rivalled Robinson for top spot had he enjoyed a lengthy reign as world champion. Certainly, the historian and HOF inductor, Tracy Callis, rates Fitzsimmons as the p4p best of all time, so it isn't necessarily heretical to pick someone other than Robinson.

Greatest of all time ? Maybe, but a nailed on certainty as one of the ten best, in my opinion.

The IBRO have him around 19 which I think is about right, winning records against McVea and Jeannette are pretty impressive but his lack of a title or a chance to gain revenge over Johnson have to count against him despite the fact this was totally out of his hands.

Sam is terrifically unlucky, there was a lot of talk of him getting a shot at Ketchel and Sam held back in their no decision fight to make sure he did not scare Ketchel off but Stanley's unfortunate death put the nix on this but Sam went to the grave believing he had the beating of Ketchel should they fight.

Is made more difficult to assess Sam because it is widely accepted he held back in a lot of fights to ensure he could secure rematches or future fights. There is a story of when Sam fell on hard times and a benefactor was trying to raise some funds and he asked an unnamed fighter who Sam had fought several times to contribute which he refused. When told of this Sam's response was "If you want to make me rich ask him to throw in a dollar for every round I carried him"

Am not a great fan of the whole P4P thing but in the case of the likes of Sam and Fitz it is made for these guys who perhaps don't have the individual records in any one division to deserve too high a ranking but a certainly all time greats.

Just ordered his book off Amazon and was watching some of his fights last night on youtube, to watch him parrying jabs, slipping punches and countering was something else, as Human Windmill says his fight with Joe Jeannette is out there and the quality of the fight film and the boxing on display is amazing, i'm looking forward to learning more and hopefully seeing a bit more too

I find it very difficult to measure due to the era he was fighting in, the fluctuations of weights he fought in, mixed competition and so forth.

It would be easier to determine if he had established himself in one weight division.

I dont think you could make much of a claim for him at heavyweight.

I think you would have to determine his optimal weight. Weighing in above 175 cant have been ideal for someone of his size.

I think he does better in p4p satakes than any single division but even so I dont think he I could have him at the top.

Galveston if the book you have ordered is the Clay Moyle one it is terrific, a big favourite of mine, very well researched and well written.

As to his ranking at heavy, Rodders, old time trainer and Ring magazine editor Charley Rose, who saw Langford from ringside, rated Sam greatest heavy of all time. Fleischer had him seventh when he published his rankings in 1958, and kept him there when he reviewed them in '71.

Even though I'm committed to the idea that ' bigger isn't necessarily better, ' I think I'd find it a bit of a stretch to have Sam sitting atop the heavies. My view would be not to rate him at heavyweight at all, but rather to consider his career in its entirety. However, if really pushed I'd say he'd take a niche somewhere between ten and twenty.

He's one of those oddballs, though, like Fitz, Ezzard Charles and even Tunney, to some extent, who is very difficult to pigeon - hole.

rowley wrote:Galveston if the book you have ordered is the Clay Moyle one it is terrific, a big favourite of mine, very well researched and well written.

Think it is, he took the last copy on Amazon, was about to order it.

I dont know how its possible to come to the conslusion that Langford was the greatest heavy. Even if you never lived past the 20s.

Thanks for the excellent posts Jeff & Windy, I found this extract of observations by people who were on the business end of his punches or saw him fight from ringside.

Fireman Flynn

“I fought most of the heavyweights, including Dempsey and Johnson, but Sam could stretch a guy colder than any of them. When Langford hit me it felt like somebody had slugged me with a baseball bat. It was like taking ether. You just went to sleep.”

“If you ask me, Il say that the hardest hitter I ever went up against was Sam Langford”.

Gunboat Smith

On being asked who was the best he ever fought (he fought Dempsey and Wills).

“That’s an easy one. Sam Langford and nobody came close to being as good as he was at his peak”

“Langford vs Dempsey both in their prime would have been bad news for Dempsey. He could be hit with a right hand and if anybody had a right hand it was the tar baby. I will go further and declare that Langford would have waded through every heavyweight champion we’ve had including the current soldier boy Joe Louis. Louis is a great champ, but he is inclined to get hot and bothered when the going gets rough. Langford was as cool as an iceberg every minute that he was in there. He never lost his head.”

Joe Jeanette

“Sam would have been champion any time Johnson would have given him a fight and Johnson knew it better than anybody”

“How that baby could hit. Nobody else could hit like that. Well, maybe Joe Louis could but Sam only weighed 160lbs. Joe Louis was about 195.”

Jack Blackburn

“My boy (Joe Louis) is still two years removed from his prime. By then I will have him in Langford’s class.”

Joe Williams

On being asked how Sam Langford would do against Joe Louis.

“Just too much of a fighter. There wasn’t anything Sam couldn’t do and if he had a weakness then nobody ever found out what it was. I have plenty of respect for Joe Louis as a hitter, but I can’t see him hitting Sam hard enough to make him mad”

Harry Wills

“He was a real professional, the kind of fighter you’d like to be but know that however hard you try you’ll never make it. Sam never made a mistake, he always held command and when he knocked me out in New Orleans, I thought I had been killed.”

“He was marvellous as a fighting man, I'd venture to say unbeatable in his prime.”

John L Sullivan

“Jim Jeffries has gone to the place that forbids him from facing a young strong fellow like Jack Johnson and he will never enter the ring again. Sam Langford is the worlds best and he can trim Johnson, Ketchel, Papke and the rest one after the other. Johnson knows this and is sidestepping

Thanks again

Rodders

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Rodders,

thanks for sharing those. It's absolutely invaluable to have first hand accounts, and particularly from men such as Blackburn who crossed boxing generations.

Brilliant stuff, and thanks again.

Yes Rowley it is the Clay Moyle one as Scottrf says (sorry mate) and hopefully will be here soon, thanks for the heads up, if it's a favourite of yours then i'm sure it will be a great read, my Knowledge on him is limited at the moment and was very impressed with the footage i saw on him, also managing to stop midfight in one match to genuinely shake the hand of his opponent, the footage of the Joe Jeannette fight is very impressive and as good a quality you could hope to see from that time

You're very welcome Windy, pleased you found them useful

Cheers Rodders