Sam Langford vs Deontay Wilder

LOL at Wilder beating everyone Langford fought without getting hit or being the biggest puncher the division has ever seen. What a joke. This sport is so watered down and such absolute **** that a wild, free swinging stick man with no technique whose best win was against a geriatric fighter he needed as much help from the ref as he could get to beat is the best puncher ever and better than multiple ATG HOF fighters? And Im living in the fantasy world...

 

The funny thing is that being short is as much an advantage as a disadvantage if you know how to use it in your favor, particularly against long lanky fighters who dont know how to box their way out of a wet paper bag.

 

It's the same reach as Andy Ruiz Jr., Dereck Chisora, Chris Byrd, and Ruslan Chagaev have

 

Andy Ruiz is more than a half a foot taller than Langford, 80 pounds heavier than Langford and is faster than Langford. And Andy Ruiz hasn't beaten Wilder, either.

Joshua fought a number of guys taller than Andy Ruiz. But Joshua didn't fight many who outweighed him and threw such fast counters.

Don't dismiss the weight disparity. Joshua couldn't push Ruiz around like he manhandled others.

Langford relied on boxers to lay on him. That was the common practice back then, regardless of the size disparity. It's not the common practice right now for the top heavyweights like Wilder and Fury. At 5'7" and 190-200 pounds against this lot, he's out of his depth.

 

If Wilder's hitting Langford on top of the head instead of the temple or jaw, because Langford is so short, I don't think that's doing Langford any favors.

It's a mismatch. By any stretch.

 

This is the part that a lot of people in this forum fail to grasp. As crude and reckless as people make Wilder out to be, he still uses space and controls distance much better than the big men I see on film from Langford's era. And even if he rarely throws heavy jabs, he still gets use out of his jab for purposes of finding and maintaining range, occupying his opponents' guard, etc. He has some real technical flaws and limitations, but he at least understands how to fight like a big man and take advantage of his physical gifts.

 

Exactly. Wilder was six feet away from Dominic Breazeale. So far away from Breazeale, who was as big or bigger than Wilder, that Dominic couldn't touch him.

Two seconds later, Wilder had closed the gap, landed a left and a hard right, knocked Breazeale on his back and was headed for a neutral corner.

It took TWO SECONDS.

No leaning. No clinching. No holding for minutes at a time to kill the clock.

He was six feet away. Two seconds later it was over.

Langford wouldn't get close.

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OOOOOhhh! Dominic Breazeale. That all time great... Hes fought two talented fighters and got knocked out by both. After those two the biggest name on his resume was Epifanio Mendoza. A forty year old former junior middleweight who had been an "opponent" for years. Sorry but Im not impressed that Wilder could close the gap on Breazeale. That smacks of fanboys wanting to be impressed by their hero. But hey, you arent changing my mind and Im not changing yours. To each his own. Hit me up when Wilder beats someone destined for the HOF. He hasnt done it yet and hes 33 years old. At this rate he could fight until hes 50 and he still wouldnt have Langford's HW record.

One ignorant quote I take issue with from Dubblechin (our resident purveyor of ignorant quotes) is his assertion that fighters clinched to kill time on the clock in Langford's era. This is understandably a gross mischaracterization by someone who continually shows his complete ignorance on that era. Go watch, for example, the 2 hours we have of Gans-Nelson, which featured a great deal of clinching and tell me they were killing the clock. The fact is that boxing in that era, particularly in the United States, was a much more physical sport. There was much more mauling and infighting than there is today. It was an art. Today its a lost art. Ignorant people see two fighters in that era body to body and assume from their experience watching bad or poorly conditioned fighters today that those fighters were doing the same thing that the current crop of watered down dog**** we call boxers do inside: rest and wait. I would urge them to open their eyes and actually watch the action and what the fighters are doing and then imagine yourself in there and tell me they are resting. They arent. But only a pinhead who hasnt really studied the era such as dubblechin would parrot such nonsense. Luis Ortiz rests in clinches because he cant carry around his 40+ year old love handles for 12 rounds. Sam Langford on the other mauled, pushed, pulled, and worked inside to wear his opponent down over 20+ rounds. Something not a single heavyweight today could do.

 

Yes, Langford was known for fighting 6'7" heavyweights who could close a six-foot gap and land a KO combination and spin away in less than two seconds.

What was Langford going to do in that case? Back up or rush toward Wilder?

Oh, I know what Langford would do. He'd fall down.

 

I'm not gonna lie I'd pick Byrd and Ruiz to beat Wilder as well

 

I am sorry but if Wilder was some fighter from the 1920s, you would slaughter him for his technique!

You can find some sort of merit in the technique of any world class fighter, if you come at it from the standpoint of trying to find a positive slant on it!

 

To be honest with you, the big guys that Langford fought, were probably more technically correct than Wilder!

Wilder is a very technically incorrect guy, who relies upon his reflexes!

 

Wilder has flaws but it's all relative. If you turned the tv on and saw two guys fighting like this, with these tactics and techniques, there's no way you would believe either was a world-class, well-trained boxer.

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