"Langford was one of the greatest fighters who ever stepped into the ring; He fought successfully in every class from lightweight to heavy, usually against larger and heavier men." -Tracy Callis. Sam probably had between 200 and 300 fights in his career, possibly more than 300. I was thinking about this, this morning: Can we find a weight class where we can call Sam Langford The GOAT? This content is protected
He has an argument. For me, it's Greb, Langford, Robinson or Armstrong. Of these, Robinson is the most impressive on film, and of Greb there is no film. In between are Armstrong then Langford, off-argument for Fitzsimmons maybe. If you like an eye test, you might argue that there isn't enough of Langford. But no fighter impressed me more in terms of what he did in his career, however much we'd like to see him do more. He's my pick for the greatest.
I bounce back and forth between Langford and Greb. That was just a different era. Guys don't pile up 300 fight careers any longer. 300 fights lets you meet a lot of other greats enough times to defeat them at least once and add them to your win tally. Also, 4 rounders and newspaper decisions can enhance the status of a victory that may have been nothing more than a barnstorming stop in a podunk town to fleece the locals for a few dollars.
It's between Greb and Langford to me. I prefer Greb's consistency personally, but you can't go wrong with him at number one.
If you ask the uncrowned champion he said he’d had 600 or so fights in his life. He is as deserving as any other of the GOAT title. He was the greatest of them all to lace them up. And I am absolutely envious you got to see him fight live.
Quoting Kamikaze: "If you ask the uncrowned champion he said he’d had 600 or so fights in his life. He is as deserving as any other of the GOAT title. He was the greatest of them all to lace them up. And I am absolutely envious you got to see him fight live." I met Sam once, but I never saw him fight. He was before even my time.
See I Langford looking better on film than ray robinson too, folks are judging boxers on how modern boxers box , you know the modern guys with watered down technique . Sam Looks superior on the inside and looks a lot more economical than Ray and unlike Ray who on film is mostly beating up shorter guys , Langford is the shorter guy beating up all the Big guys!
He might be the P4P GOAT. Finding a weight class in which he deserves it is tricky. He did his best work at heavyweight really. At Welterweight, he was capable, but not at his best, and he didn't really do anything at Middleweight. He did claim the Light Heavyweight title, and it's probably around his best weight, but the division wasn't much of a thing at that point, so he didn't really do much there. Though it's a bit of a stretch I think the best case for him as a division's GOAT is Light Heavyweight. It's also the elite weight jumper's paradox, they end up being spread thin over multiple divisions, so while it's super impressive, jumping up multiple weight classes tends to leave their case as the best in a single division weaker.