Sam Langford HW record

Would love a breakdown of a lot of guys HW record. Langford, Moore, Harold Johnson, Conn, Charles, etc just time name a few

 

Its hard to say.

I think Langford usually weigned over 180 lbs after 1910-11. So most of his fights after this would be regarded as heavyweight fights.

 

I am quite busy these days but I might research into this when I get time. I'd be happy to start a thread on this at some point. Good idea.

 

Clay Moyle's excellent biography of Langford has his record at the end of the book'
1902 April11th Jack McVicker wko6
Ending
1926Aug2nd Brad Simmons lko1
With a rake of unconfirmed fights from1917 until 1925.
How many were at heavyweight?
Moyle's book is highly recommended.

 

It'd probably be impossible to get a definitive answer as the weights for a lot of his fights are not known.

From 1905, when he first fought a heavyweight, until the end of 1914, he had at least 50 wins over heavyweights (and only six losses). He also had about a dozen draws. After that point he started to decline, which spotted up his record a lot.

 

Clay used to be on here occasionally. I liked both his Langford and Miske books. I wonder if he's working on anything now.

 

I haven't read the Miske book,I'll probably order it at some point.
Don't know if he's writing a book he is on a private site started by Adam Pollack I'm on it ,if I get a chance,I'll ask him.

 

I just took a look at buying this book on Amazon. It's free digitally on my Kindle reader, OR I can buy a hardcover edition for $869.00.
Amazingly, I went for the free version.

Thanks for the reference.

 

Langford defeated McVey, Jeanette, and Wills in their prime or near primes. He also has wins over Godfrey, Gunboat Smith, Jack O'Brien and Kid Norfolk. All of these men were beaten by KO, except for Jeanette. As champion Jack Johnson wanted nothing to do with Langford and pulled out of a signed contact to meet him in 1909. Dempsey wanted nothing to do with a past his prime Langford either.

 

I'll sell you mine for half the price!

 

It's hard to say for a few reasons.

One is Philadelphia O'Brien had effectively abolished the LHW division.

Another is a whole lot of weights aren't known for Langford fights.

Also, regardless of his weight its about what he was trying to achieve at the time.

I tend to think Langford was the best LHW sized fighter in the world in between the title claims of O'Brien and Moha, and I think to a degree its as accurate as can be said but the reality is there was no LHW division and so everything above MW was HW at this time.

His wins over Flynn, Clark and O'Brien involved both men weighing around 175 but they were all, in reality HW fights.

In 1909 he claimed the title of coloured champion. But he also fought Ketchel in what was probably going to be a set up for a MW fight, but that never came off and he never really pursued other MW fighter at this time.

So if you want the most realistic answer it's

Anything from 1909 onwards.

I'll split this into three sections for you to make it representative of him as a world class fighter.

Between Hague and Fulton

68- 13 - 12

Out of those 12 who beat him, he beat them all in return apart from Fulton who detached his retina.

Since Fulton

84 - 24 - 18

During this period of time he was over the age of 34 and half blind. But he did still. Score some significant victories,including over Tiger Flowers, a guy who is an absolute great MW but chinny as hell and Langford managed to find that chin.

There's fights before 1909 where he beat the odd man above 160, but these are harder to determine.

For my money these fights were against, Jeannette, Johnson, Barry, Ferguson, Ross, Flynn, Harris and Kubiak

Against these he has a record of

12 - 2 - 5

All this is just my interpretation and probably has more than a couple of counting errors in there.

But yeah even though I think he spent a period of time as the best LHW sized fighter in the world, the division had been all but abolished by then so he went from MW to HW essentially.

 

It's interesting to me that by all accounts the Ketchel fight was give and take for 6 rounds, whereas Johnson toyed with the Michigan Assasin. Styles make fights?

 

My personal belief is it was more competitive due to Langford wanting a shot at the belt.