Article of Possible Interest

Found the following article in the January 6, 1924 issue of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and thought a number of you might enjoy it:

Jack Munroe Was Failure As Scrapper. Jeannette Proved Good Cage Player. by Ed Hughes

New York, Jan. 6 - Frank Eldridge writes to notify us that he believes "there are plenty of collegiate athletes who could give Dempsey the battle of his life, particularly some of the football stars. Many are quicker and more powerful and just as courageous. They are more intelligent, too, which is a great asset in boxing. The trouble is that they do not care to risk their social standing by mixing in coarse frays of the professional ring." And he'd like me to agree with him, but I cannot.

The old axiom, "Shoemaker stick to your last," supposed to have been hurled by Michelo Angelo at a cobbler when the latter attempted to criticize one of his drawings, applies to this argument. Athletes seem to be cut out for one particular branch of athletics. If they excel in that they should be contented. At any rate, when they try to extend their prestige to otehr realms of competitive effort failure usually blemishes the conquest.

There's no reason why a good football player shouldn't make a good fighter. The same set of muscles are employed, and like fighting it maks a strenuous demand on courage, stamina, mental and physical agility. Yet not many football players have achieved glory in the ring. Jack Munroe, who once knocked down Jim Jeffries in an exhibition, had previously played professional football on the coast, however.

Munroe developoed into a pretty fair fighter before Jeffries later slaughtered him in two rounds. The former footballer managed to knock out Pete Maher, lick Tom Sharkey, and go six rounds with Jack Johnson when the latter was just beginning to challenge Jeff.

But all in Munroe was a failure. Frank Moran played some football before his fighting days. He claimed that it stood him in good stead in the ring.

One of your famous gridiron stars recently met with a setback in his first professional fight. Doug Slater, the great colored tackle of the University of Iowa team of two years ago, was the man. Duke was a fearsome gent on the gridiron, but an unknown heavyweight put him away in a couple of rounds.

Jack Townsend, another colored football start, is doing better. Townsend, a heavyweight, captained the Clinton high school team a while ago. He appears to have ring talent ans is going good in the small clubs throughout the city.

Young Stribling, who gained fame in a bout with Mike McTigue recently, still plays football on an Atlanta, Ga. high school team. Tom Shelvin, the immortal Yale end, might have made a great ring man. When Jim Corbett's vaudeville booking took him to New Haven he had a taste of Shelvin's mitts.

Corbett dropped into the Yale gym to see the "rah-rah" boys and some one suggested that he put on the gloves with Shelvin. It was the football season, and Shelvin, of course, was in great shape. Corbett had been out of the ring a long while and was physically soft. They say that Shelvin put it all over the once great Corbett, who still retained much of his old skill. Shelvin was a rough, powerful, fearless fellow. He migh have made a championship had he cared to enter the ring.

Basketball should produce some good boxers, and in one instance it surely has. Sid Terris, who thrilled the fans with his display of speed and skill against Sammy Mandell, played ont eh Clark house and Rutgers Gym fives on the East Side not long ago. They say Sid was just as clever on the court as he is in the ring.

Joe Jeannette, the old colored heavyweight, who gave Sam Langford a bunch of terrific fights, was a star basketball player. Babe Ruth, Hank Gowdy and Frankie Frisch handle themselves with credit on the court, too.

Wrestlers do not make fighters, and vice versa. Frank Gotch, Georges Hackenschmidt and Dr. Roller all had the fight bug once. As fighters they were wonderful mat men. Gotch thought he was the man to whip Jeffries. One fight with a fourth rater convinced him he was a champion wrestler.

Hackenschmidt and Roller went into training with the Jeffries hallucination, too. Hack once signed for a fight with Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, but it never came to pass. Hack, fortunately found himself out in the gym. Roller got as far as a six-round exhibition with Al Kaufman.

Bob Fitzsimmons and Jack Sharkey thought they were wrestlers, but no one believed them. They were awful. I can't think of a wrestler who ever could fight and many of them have tried it. Understand we are soon to hear from Nat Pendleton on the subject.

Weight men generally don't fare well in the ring. Jim Duncan, former champion discus thrower once had a notion of cleaning up Jack Johnson. Duncan abandoned the idea without punching any one in the ring. Al Reich, a former shot-putter, should have made good in the ring. He was fast, cleaver and a great hitter. Tood bad he didn't have more of the iron and steel of the shot in his makeup. He'd have been a sure champion."

Kind of brings to mind the modern efforts of the likes of Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Mark Gastineau, and more recently ol' Jose Canseco, not to mention the one-time threat of Wilt Chamberlin to give it a stab. Babe Ruth showed some interest in boxing until a sparring session with "Gunboat" Smith convinced him that he ought to stick with baseball.

 

"Similar to Joe Woodman telling all and sundry that his charge, Sam Langford had dropped Jack Johnson in their bout, when in fact it was Langford who was floored."

I never did reach a definitive conclusion conerning this issue during all of my research. Clearly Johnson knocked down Langford a number of times, there is no question of that. But while newspaper accounts of the fight don't mention Langford knocking Johnson down, Johnson himself mentions being knocked down in the contest in his 1910 book titled 'Mes Combats' and Nat Fleischer's father in law, Nat Loubet, indicated that Johnson went to the mat after a blow to the heart but indicated that Johnson was off-balance and it was more a slip. In any case, there is no argument about the fact that Sam suffered a terrific beating in that fight.

 

However, from December of 1908 thru 1913 there was plenty of demand and interest in a rematch between the two. No promoter tried more to make the fight happen than Australia's Hugh McIntosh, but Johnson finally admitted to him that he had no desire to face Langford again. Here's a quote from McIntosh:

"Boxing will never see another Sam Langford. There will never be another like the Boston Tar Baby, with his incredibly long,gorilla-like arms, his grotesque, top-heavy body, coal-black and squat, his wide, engaging smile perpetually splitting his broad coutenance, and his inevitable cigar. And more’s the pity. For Langford, beyond all shows of doubt, was one of the miracle men of boxing. Something of a fistic freak, if you like, but a fighter nevertheless, and a remarkable personality.

What an amazing glove fighter Langford was. No more than a light-heavyweight, and so short that the majority of his opponents towered over him by six inches or more. Yet he was invincible.

His physique was astounding. He was so hugely proportioned above the waist that, at first glance, he appeared almost as broad as he was long. His colosal shoulders and back, smooth and shining, suggested a wall of coal. His chest was so deep and barrel-like. And the length of his arms was something to marvel at.

His speed and punching powers were alike phenomenal, and so it was small wonder that even the great jack Johnson, having once fought fifteen anxious rounds with the Tar Baby, carefully side-stepped another encounter with him.

Johnson was not afraid of a hiding, but he did not want to risk his title. I spent months trying to persuade Johnson to agree to a match with Langford, but he obstinately refused and one day he frankly told me the reason.

“Say, Mister Mac,” he drawled, “you’re only wasting your time talking to me. I don’t want to fight that little smoke. He’s got a chance against anyone in the world. I’m the first black champion and I’m going to be the last.”

We really need to expand your knowledge of Langford. If interested, contact me at

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and I'll make you a deal on my book about him.

 

Here's the excerpt from Johnson's 1920 biography 'Mes Combats': "I found him (Langford) one of the toughest adversaries I ever met in the ring. I weighed 190 pounds and Langford only 138. In the second round the little negro hit me on the jaw with a terrible right hand and I fell as if upended (or blown away) by a cannon ball. In all my pugilistic career, not before and not afterwards, have I received a blow that struck me with such force. It was all I could do just to get back on my feet just as the referee was about to count "Ten!" I made it, but I assure you that I felt the effects of that punch for the rest of the fight. I recovered but I would have to take my hat off to him if I hadn't had so much science at my comment. In the fifteenth round I was declared the winner on points."

I never found any newspaper accounts of the fight that supported this, so it makes no sense to me at all that Johnson would say it in this book. Regardless, the bottom line is that Johnson beat the heck out of the 20-year old Langford in that fight. Sam admits that. He might very have defeated him again had they met a second time, anytime from 1909-1913 after Sam had finished his physical maturation and become a legitimate light-heavyweight. I've said before that my prediction would be Johnson by decision in a 2nd matchup, but that I'd give Langford a punchers chance of pulling off an upset and landing a knockout blow. He was perfectly capable of doing so.

Clearly Langford was the most worthy opponent that Johnson chose not to face during his heavyweight title reign. But like he said, he could make just as much or more money facing less dangerous white hopes, so that's what he choose to do.

 

Ouch, make that "what he chose to do."