If Stanley Ketchel had lived

I think Ketchel would have been in enough trouble with the middleweights who were to make the 1910s arguably the toughest stretch in division history. He would have had his hands very full with Mike Gibbons, Jeff Smith, Frank Klaus, Les Darcy, Harry Greb, Jack Dillon, Jimmy Clabby, Eddie McGoorty and others.

I think Langford was just being nice. If he'd chosen to fight the heavyweights I think he would have gotten slaughtered. He had a style that was basically all offense. NOT good when you're fighting guys like Sam McVea, who is so much bigger and stronger.

Think about this- as soon as Jack Johnson really poured on the juice he swept Ketchel aside like a child. Would he have gotten less from Sam McVea and other heavies of the era?

 

Going by the reports of the exhibition, he would have lost his title to Sam Langford.

 

Ketchel had the power of a super heavyweight, he probably would have hung with the lower tier of the heavyweight division, but would come up short against McVea, Langford, and Jeannette.

 

Could Langford have made Middleweight to fight Ketchel for the title? I thought he was well into the 170's and hugely outweighed Ketchel in their 6 rounder. :?

 

While I agree that this was a sick division, Klaus beeing my fav of them, I think from the 30s to the 50s they were times mw was tougher though.

 

Ketchel was plannin 3-4 more fights and retiring. He was doing more talking than fighting (or training) by that point.

 

The last letter Ketchel ever wrote before dying states he was not going to fight any more. He had bought several hundred acres of land around Springfield Missouri and planned to clear it for lumber and then ranch it. Furthermore, even if he continued fighting Ketchel was already past his prime despite his relative youth and his body was physically broken from the fights hed had, drug and alcohol abuse, and several accidents.

 

Which era specifically would you consider to be tougher than the 1910s? Not fair for you to have THREE eras to choose from to my ONE!

 

I said parts, 30s for example you have Apostoli, Abrams, Steele, Overlin, Zale, Krieger, Hostak. Then Conn, Garcia, Lesnevich, Young Corbett III, Gorilla Jones. And I bet I forgot a few.

 

Sam is recorded as coming in at 166 for Jim Barry two weeks prior to Ketchel, and Barry was Langford's only bout between his filmed eighth round knockout of Fireman Flynn and the six rounder with Stan. Sam had just turned 27. (The idea that Langford-Ketchel wasn't filmed when Langford-Fireman Flynn III and Johnson-Ketchel were seems incredible.)

Weight draining might be a real issue though if Langford opted for a middleweight title challenge rematch. Neither was a stranger to the 20 round distance, but the hard living Ketchel was still a few years younger, a few inches taller, and could always make the middleweight limit with ease.

 

Teddy Yarosz. And you're right. That's a great bunch. That is definitely my number two era for the middles.

In the 1910s you have Harry Greb, Sam Langford and Stanley Ketchel (those names alone probably outstrip any division in history at any time). Then Billy Papke, Frank Klaus, Jack Dillon, Mike Gibbons, Tommy Gibbons, Les Darcy, Georges Carpentier, Jeff Smith, Jimmy Clabby, Eddie McGoorty, George Chip, Mike O'Dowd, Leo Houck, Johnny Wilson, Buck Crouse....

Just an incredible bunch