Ketchel v Langford: 1910 20 rounds for the MW title.

Do you then concede he was slipping ,as I originally stated?

I think he may have come back, though by 1910 Mizner was continually looking for and finding him drunk in brothels.
I doubt strongly that he could have recovered his form, he was a poor trainer at the best of times.
I think Sam would beat him in an honest fight.

 

The best Langford , fighting w handcuffs off, crushes the best Ketchel early.

 

It must be remembered thar when Ketchel fought Langford in April, 191o, Stanley Ketchel weighed about 12 pounds LESS than Langford did... and that is a lot of weight to
spot a 172 pound immortal like Langford...A nd Ketchel was a shot fighter by this time,
on opium and drinking dissipation, so much so he was forced to try to 'recuperate' by a friend's ranch in Missouri, where he met his tragic end shot in the back by a jealous
farmhand Walter Dipley, just 6 months after his fight with Sam Langford...
So, would the 160 pound version of Langford beat the prime Ketchel of 1908 when
Stanislaus was the terror of the MW division ? I have Ketchel a 7-5 favorite over a 160 pound Langford at 160 or less...But P4P I have the much bigger framed Boston Tar Baby...

 

Wasn't middleweight 158 in that era?

 

Tantalisingly close.

It would almost certainly have happened had Ketchel not been murdered.

 

Hard to say. Some scholars of Ketchel think that he was on the cusp of a very steep decline, but he clearly still had big ambitions.

He was looking at a fight with Sam McVea amongst other things.

It is a tragedy of history, that one of the key fighters who was willing to give black contenders a chance, was taken from us early.