Unpopular Opinion.Burns Gives Langford A Great Fight?

From late 1912 to early 1915 Smith pretty much cleaned out the white side of the division. In this period Smith went on a 26-3-2 run and lost to Carpentier by DQ in a fight he was about to win. By 1917 Smith was losing more then he won and by 1918 he was going 1-8 but he had 5 good years and 3 great ones. If you ignore the lack of a formal title Smith's run was better than Jeffries(much better than Jeffries) and Burns's runs were. So yes he's an ATG.

Part of why the "white" HW title was such a joke was that it was clearly Gunboat Smith. Then when he finally got the title he lost it by DQ to Carpentier who he was beating.

 

Sam Langford was 20 yrs old and had already fought and beaten some of the best fighters in the world. He had been a pro for four years. He wasnt some wet behind the ears teen when Young Peter Jackson knocked him out.


None of the men I mentioned were demonstrably better than Burns. Thats one of the issues with Langford is people tend to completely ignore the fact that he could actually be beaten at every stage of his career when pretending he was this unbeatable monster.


And for the record, a draw was a draw, quit trying to paint his draws as some kind of moral victory for him.


Gunboats victory over Langford was by a “BIG MARGIN” according to the Boston Globe, you know the lead paper of Langfords adopted hometown… The Boston Herald gave Smith 10 of the 12 rounds.


So your contention is that Sam Langfords prime started in 1915? So he wasnt in his prime during Burns’ reign which accounts for all of those losses and draws to B level fighters and why Burns might be seen as being just as good as Langford during that period? Or is it your contention that in a fantasy fight a prime Burns should be matched with a version of Langford sometime after 1915? In either case Id still give Burns a near 50/50 chance of beating Langford and barring a quick KO by Langford Id be pretty satisfied stating that Burns would give him a hell of a fight considering nobody ever put Burns out quickly.

 

Using Schreck and Hague as examples to belittle Burns in favor of Langford is…. quite something….