1922 corbett article on langford

I dont think Corbett was so racist, he fought black fighters too if i am not wrong

 

The fact that a 23 year old, middleweight Langford went the 15 round distance with Jack Johnson, who was near his peak, is amazing.

 

he was more like 154 lbs which is smaller then a middleweight

 

Langford weighed 156lbs to Johnson's 185lbs

 

This is quite funny.
Langford was 23 and had had 56 fights.
Johnson was 26 and had had 43 fights .
A year prior to this Johnson went the 12 rd distance with Young Peter Jackson, and a year after beating Langford he went 10 rds to a draw with Billy Dunning whose record at that time was 3-0-1.
Now ,as I see it you have three conclusions you can draw from this.
1 Johnson wasnt really that good.
2Johnson didnt really care about stopping men as long as he was in no danger of being stopped or defeated himself.

3 Johnson was not" near his peak",[and ,given that he ended up with 104 fights ,if he was near prime ,he must have had a hell of a lot when he was past it]
I think I can guess which conclusion you would plump for.

 

The thing to focus on here is Johnson was a heavyweight and used to fighting heavies. Langfrod was not, and was but 156 pounds from this fight....a far cry from the 175-190 pound Boston Terror that he would become.

Johnson also had been a profesisonal far longer.

Your point that Johnson did not care about stopping men as long as he was in no danger of being stopped himself is pure BS. It was Johnson causitous style, low punch out put, and merely solid power. Johsnon had 1 KO in at least 15+ fights with Jeanette, McVey, and Langford. And that Ko happened when his fight with Sam McVey was in the bag in the final round. The excuses you make for Johnson are never ending.

By the way, Johnson would have reiceved extra money if he stopped Young Peter Jackson, who was also very light, but failed to do so. With Jack, Money was A-1 important. Yet the much smaller Young Peter Jackson went the distance. Where is the excuse here?

And since you might be hinting that Johnson was not in his prime here ( 1906 ) McVey, I must ask you this question. Do you think Johnson who had his hands full with sub 160 pound men, drew with Dunning, and lost to Hart would have beaten Jeffries while Jeffries was an active champion?

 

Why do you think he crouched at ringside , screaming racist insults at Johnson while Jack was beating the **** out of Jeffries then ?
Whimsical perversity?:huh

 

You're joking about it, but in fact Johnson DID have a lot of fights when he was past it. In fact, he had 28 bouts after the Willard loss. When he fought Langford he was only two years away from winning the title, and doing so in impressive fashion as well as most of his title defences right after. On top of that, when he fought Langford, he already held his career best wins over Jeannette, Mcvey, Childs, Martin, Fergusson and others. So, i think it's pretty safe to say he was near his peak.

I don't really know what your point is in saying that he went the distance with Y.P. Jackson a year before, either. He is not a big puncher and failed to score a knockout, but most likely easily won the fight if it was scored by judges. So what? Is Ali's victory over Chuvalo not impressive because he couldn't knock him out? What you didn't mention of course, is that he beat Jeannette several times during the same period, a win that you have spoken very high about in the past.

 

you still didnt give me a straight answer if you had to pick one, who do you think would win.

What about a more mature jack johnson? Johnson was a skinny 185lb when he fought langford. Johnson grew into a ripped much more mature 205lb later on. Johnson when he fought langford had a 29lb weight advantage, that is a less weight advantage than jeffries had on Sharkey, Fitzimmons, and Choynski.

Sam Langford at his peak went toe to toe for 6 rounds with Stanley Ketchel and couldnt put him on the floor, managing a close draw(or newspaper win). Jack Johnson literally toyed with stanley ketchell outside of the one big shot in the 12th.

Johnson was faster, bigger, stronger, better boxer, much better defense, and darguebably hit as hard. Johnsons defense is not overatted, langdord's is. I dont think langford demonstrated any good defense on film, and I think he would be a sitting duck waiting to be countered to death by johnson.


the same result would always happen

 

1. Jack johnson was only 185lb. a far cry from the 205-210lb Ripped Mature heavyweight he would become in 1909-1910.

2. Johnson had just a 29lb weight advantage on Langford. Jeffries had a 29lb weight advantage on Fitzimmnons, a 63lb weight advantage on Choynski, a 32lb weight advantage on sharkey, and a 30lb weight advantage on corbett. So if johnson is critisized for the weight advantage, than Jeffries needs to be critisized too

 

cmoyle do you think jeffries should have fought jack johnson instead of munroe? also who do you think wins prime for prime johnson or jeff?