Langford is overrated

You gotta mention Golovkin, huh ?

Jk.. I support opinions that are out of the box, but seems like he needs to be ranked very high first in order to be overrated (nobody really rankns him above Robinson or inside the top 3, I believe). Who ranks him as the GOAT ?
If you´ve said Henry Armstrong is overrated, I think I would go with you ! But Langford ?

 

Yeah, no. Gans may not have been at his absolute best condition due to his 6 rounder with Holly the previous day, but he was absolutely not old. He had beaten Erne and McFadden the previous year and would go on to beat the likes of Nelson, Britt and the much bigger Sullivan later on. Just because he lost to Blackburn a month prior and had many fights doesn't prove he was old.

Not to mention, Langford was a high school aged teenager when he beat him, not by just being a better conditioned athlete, but by actually outboxing him and outhinking him. Gans was considered by many to be the gold standard for scientific Boxers, and here comes this 17 year old who proves to be his equal in that regard. It is absolutely an ATG win.

A lot of fights that went the distance during that era were automatically scored as draws, you'll notice it a lot in comparison to even the 1920's. Just pointing out his record against Blackburn is kind of meaningless here, it does not tell us anything. Also, how was a 23 year old Ketchel just about done ? Because he lost to the best Heavyweight of his era and because he hadn't trained properly against one of the greatest Middleweights ever in Frank Klaus ? Not buying it.

If Pacquiao went 2-13-2 against a prime Beterbiev, with those 2 wins being KO's, and half of the losses being when Pac was past his prime and half blind, would you not be impressed ? Because that just about sums up Langford's rivalry with Wills, except Wills is a far far more accomplished fighter than Beterbiev will ever be.

Jeannette and McVey were more than just decent scalps who are not worth much without Langford. Jeannette beat most of the top names of the era, like Sandy Ferguson, Battling Jim Johnson, Jeff Clark, Young Peter Jackson, Bill Tate, Georges Carpentier, Langford himself as well as McVey. McVey himself has wins over Jeannette and Langford, as well as Denver Ed Martin, Jeff Clark and Harry Wills. Both of them would have been near the top 5 of Ali's best wins. And Langford beat them an ungodly amount of times.

Also come on, are you really going to pull the ''he was green'' card on Flowers while Langford was older than Arcel and blinder than Greb ?

You're also just kind of scratching the surface of Langford's resume. What about McFadden, Willie Lewis, Dave Holly, Young Peter Jackson, Larry Temple, Sandy Ferguson, Klondike Haynes, Dixie Kid, Jeff Clark, Bill Lang, Gunboat Smith, Bill Tate, Kid Norfolk, Terry Kellar and George Godfrey ?

 

No one will deny that Gans likely wasn't at his 100% best for this fight, but he was still an already-established ATG & reigning LW champ who would go on to score more big wins afterward, while Langford was in his first known fight of any significance & conceding a huge deficit in experience.

BJW was far more than just "a very good fighter," he was an ATG/HoFer in his own right who also competed vs. HWs.

He was already into his 30s when the series began & was suffering from a detached retina/vision loss after a few fights into the series.

McVey & Jennette were regarded as great fighters in their own day & are HoF inductees.

Flynn is remembered outside of the Langford fights as being the only fighter ever to stop Dempsey.

Flowers was no more "green" than Langford was at the time of his win over Gans that you downplayed, & Langford was much farther removed from his best (he was virtually blind by this time) than Gans was from his when he fought Langford.

This is again untrue, Gans was the reigning LW champ when Langford beat him.

Nope, he was readily acknowledged as being one of the best fighters in the world even in his own day.

The NY Times published an article on December 23, 1913, titled "NEGRO'S SUPREMACY IN RING NEAR END; Johnson, Langford, McVea, and Jeannette Are Deteriorating Rapidly as Boxers," which opens by saying, "The supremacy of the negro in pugilism, which has not been disputed since Jack Johnson won the heavyweight title from Tommy Burns at Sydney five years ago, unless by those who took hope in Jeffries's return to the ring, seems to be at at end." It goes on to acknowledge that Langford (& other black HWs) used "to inspire terror among the whites" & unequivocally states, "It was the general impression up to the time of the Smith bout that Langford was the class among all heavyweights, white or black."

 

Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, calling him overrated seems wrong anyway... but in here, in our classic bf24 world? I guess he did became a little "overvalued", but we are countering "mainstream classic media" that never gave him his right props, probably (ESPN, Ring, Bert Sugar etc).... I feel that we do that regarding Ezzard Charles also...

 

Flowers had 35 fights under his belt and Langford was nearly blind.

Gans was the reigning Lightweight champ and 28 years old when Langford beat him.

 

Langford is the shortest HW champ ever and the one with the longest career. Theres his case right there. Langford spent the vast majority of that career at HW and has a 71% KO rate.


In terms of him fighting HW white fighters Langfords record against them is at least 39-5-4. This is an incomplete stat in terms of wins(his resume is too long to discern the ethnicity of every single opponent I haven't heard of). I'm pretty sure I've got all the losses though(Fulton x2, Flynn, Gunboat Smith and Meehan). This did not count the O Brien or Ketchel fights which weren't at HW but those guys were both HW contenders. Anyhow Langfords probably got 50 wins over white fighters if we scour his entire resume.

Theres also the issue of Langfords belts that some people refuse to acknowledge. But they happened. "Why did no one give him a title shot". Many considered him the real HW champ for 5 years and he got title shots from the NSC and IBU in 1909 and 1913. Jack Johnson didn't fight him. At Langfords rate of activity he eventually took losses which led to his claims petering out. And that was that.

Now did Langford fight any of the best HWs of the late 10s except Wills and Fulton who he lost to most times? No he really didn't. But he was probably the best HW for 5 plus years. Also while he lost most of those fights he KOd Wills twice. No one else in the P4P discussion has that.

In terms of Ketchel being "done" he was 23. After losing to Langford Ketchel ended his career on a 3 fight win streak. He was then murdered at the age of 24. His 3 fight losing streak were a HW title fight where he gave up 30 pounds and 2 6 round decisions to Klaus and Langford. The latter of which like you said was competitve. Theres nothing to indicate that Ketchel was "done". If not for the whole dying thing he had a decade of MW and eventually LHW campaigning ahead.

 

Yes, he stopped Flowers... as did other guys before Langford.... it is a good win based on him being blind... not on the fact that Flowers was a unbeatable force at the time.

 

There's some clear double standards here.

Why do you so clearly trust the reports for the Walcott fight but not the Ketchel right? If you're gonna treat a result as a result, then Langford has a draw with Walcott and a win over Ketchel.

It seems like you're trying to diminish the Ketchel win by saying Ketchel was outweighed by 19lbs, but then why use the Wills fights as a negative when Langford was outweighed in literally all of them? And if Ketchel win isn't as impressive because was 'practically done at this point', why not say the same of Langford when he faced Wills? He was six years older, 20lbs smaller naturally, and had been in far fights than Wills.

Also, how can you make an entire thread about why he isn't a top P4P fighter, and not mentioned the fact he moved from 140 to HW?

 

Blackburn was 138lbs when he won the NWS decision over Gans,that's why Gans retained his title

 

Gans also battered Blackburn in every fight they had afterward

 

@Dorrian_Grey woke up this morning and chose violence in the Classic Forum.