Langford weighed 155lbs when Jeffries was champion, he doesn't beat Jeffries . In 1908 ,3 years after Jeffries had retired Langford weighed inside the middleweight limit for a fight with Jim Flynn. The 180/185lbs Langford would have given Jeffries at least as much hell as the 180/183lbs, much cruder, half inch taller, Sharkey did for 45 rounds.
I've always found that really strange. Langford - or more likely his manager - puts an ad in the paper announcing his willingness to fight anyone but Jeffries. Why? Even given that he didn't think he could beat Jeffries, you'd think the money he'd have made would have compensated him for the bruises and anyway it's not like Jeffries was hammering on his door demanding a showdown.
Langford might have beaten the Jeffries of Reno, but I think we would have to favor any earlier version over him.
Pertaining to Jim Jeffries. Today he is rated so low in the pantheon of heavyweight champions by ESB posters who base his talents on his ludicrous fight with Jack Johnson in 1910, when after a six year layoff he was cajoled to fight a prime Jack Johnson by some sports writers, having to lose about 90 pounds on the process. How could ANY fighter look good on film after this stupid ordeal. ?. The fact is that with all these burdens Jim Jeffries was able to survive the cutting blows of Jack Johnson for 15 rounds under the hot sun of Reno Nevada at ALL... Today posters should take note that all the boxing writers, fighters, trainers of Jeffries time who saw him at his best and thought he was the greatest heavyweight they had ever seen. After all they saw him at his best ringside. Today 100 years later, who should know better they or some posters on ESB ?...
Johnson said he felt he could have stopped Jeffries inside 8rounds had he tried to do so.This is in Pollack's volume 2 of Johnson. Jeffries had over a year to train for the Johnson fight and was down to 235/240lbs when Johnson fought Ketchel in October 1909, this from his own lips on his return from a health spa in Carlsbad. Delaney who trained Jeffries and was in Johnson's corner that day, said Johnson would have beaten Jeffries at any time of his career. Rickard who refereed the Johnson v Jeffries fight , the day after said Johnson was the best fighter who ever drew on a glove. Johnson named Fitz as the best fighter before himself. Corbett and Sharkey both named Johnson as the greatest defensive fighter they ever saw. William Muldoon who trained Sullivan and was in Jeffries camp at Reno said after the Johnson fight that Jeffries would never have been able to beat Johnson at any time in his career. Famous referee Jack Welch said "I am sure that Johnson could have beaten Jeffries when the white champion was in his prime. If Johnson fought the battle he did at Reno,Jeffries could never have beaten that black man , never in the days of his prime ". Charley White the back up referee for the fight said this of Johnson after the bout... "If he were a white man the public would accord him the title of the greatest heavyweight that ever donned boxing glove" . Langford named Dempsey as better than anyone before him. Hugh McIntosh famous promoter said after the fight;"Johnson told me he could have beaten Jeffries in the latters best day, now I believe it". Stanley Ketchel said of Johnson ,"there is no man in the world who has a chance with him." Jeffries was quoted in the San Francisco Evening Post July 6th 1910 as saying: " I don't know what it was,only that I never could have whipped him at my best". So Burt there are plenty of writers ,trainers and boxers who did not think Jeffries was the best.Oh, and you can throw in Nat Fleischer as well.
I find the fact that a 154lbs 21 years old Langford did not want to fight a 220lbs Jeffries unsurprising. Would Golovkin be happy to face Wilder?:huh Maybe Mayweather should have his last fight with Povetkin?:think
Mc, I am not implying that I think Jeffries could have beaten Jack Johnson at his best. But Jeffries in his prime was a feared and powerful ogre who was impervious to pain and punishment and might have beaten anyone at his peak. One never knows...
Yipes, to think today that I a young fella along with my dad shook the hand of Jack Johnson in Huberts Flea Circus in NYC, a few years before his car crash in which he died, driving to the Joe Louis/ Billy Conn fight in 1946...
Like you I judge Jeffries on his whole resume Burt. I just took issue with your statement that everyone from his era acknowledged him as the best. After Reno there was some drastic revisionism by many experts. Adam Pollack has many excellent quotes to this effect in his vol 2 of Johnson The Reign.