How did Sam Langford..

There are diminishing returns the higher you get in weight. 20 pounds aren't as much above 160 punds than under 160 pound. Know what I mean.

 

whenever I think of the spirit of a fighter, i think of Sam. he had the greatest line i ever heard. when he was dicovered by laney blind and broke in the ghetto they set up a fund for him. when he was visited a year later, he said t5his, 'I got a geetar, and a bottle of gin and money in my pocket for Christmas dinner.No millionaire in the world got more than that and anyway, they can't use more. I fought maybe three, four hundred fightsand every one was a pleasure." That is a fighter! Afraid of noone, asking no quarter and giving no quarter. RIP Sam and Merry Christmas to all on ESB!:rasta

 

Yep.

Although I think something similar applies at very low weighs.

Bantam to super feather is nice and easy too.

 

Wrong.

 

OMG, are you serious? I was talking about a % of bodyweight increase... not the actual weight increase.

40% is 40% no matter if the fighter weighs 105Lbs. or 250Lbs. Are you suggesting that a 250Lb. fighter can handle a 40% increase better than a 105Lb. fighter?

All I was pointing out was that 160-225 is a 40% increase and 140-190 is a 35% increase. This means that the 160-225 jump is more... not because 65Lbs is more than 50Lbs, but because 40% is larger than 35%. Get it? I hope so lol

It's really not a big deal anyway. Langford was a great fighter. I was just using Toney as an example of a fighter who has done somewhat similar things in terms of performing well in several weight classes.

 

Is this a different Hookie to the one who posted on BI?

 

Nope he was 17. Read it in the book written about him.

 

What you have to factor in with fighters of Langford's era is that some of them were basicaly malnourished teenagers when they started their boxing careers.

They would have gained significant body mass just by adopting normal meals.

Then you factor in the way that a man naturaly fills out between his teenage years and mid 20s.

Then you put him on a high calorie diet and a 14 hour a day training regime.

Then he starts to become overweight later in his career.

 

No Problem. Sam trained alot. But he had a passion for cigars and smoked one after every fight virtually. He also loved clothes.

He was quite the chracater and lived life in the fast lane. Credit to Clay Moyle for doing a excellent book on Langford. Am sure it took many years to find so much information out about him.

 

Langfords tale of the tape is quite telling.

He had a 42" chest and a 17" neck. Some of his dimensions would have looked good on a superheavyweight. He was not so much small as a stunted Hercules. If you look at a picture of him next to Joe Louis, he is much shorter but looks bigger.

I think that at 140 he was probably still under-nourished to some extent or still suffering the effects of having been under-nourished. I think that he was conditioned at 185 lbs but overweight above that.

Of course 185 lbs goes a long way on a man of 5' 6'' as the tale of the tape shows.

 

Loads of great RARE photos in the book. It's a real must buy. Just a grest read and when you start it you cant put it down.