Burns, Ketchell and Langford.

Poetic and true.

 

Lets pretend for a moment that you have never seen or heard of Ketchel... and then you are shown the film of his fight with Papke! Would your immediate reaction be: wow, this guy in the black trunks has got to be one of the greatest fighters ever... or would you think you were watching two primitive nobodies pushing and showing each other around?

 

The problem with that statement is that you are taking a fight which was considered not good and not indicative of either of these guys skill set even during that time period, essentially one of the worst performances of both guys, and trying to draw conclusions about how good or bad they were from it. Kind of unfair.

 

So was that the general opinion at the time... that this particular fight caught both men on their worst night? Even if this is true (and you usually seem to know what your talking about, so I wont question that!)... how much different could they have looked on a good night? I mean, there is a long way from what we see in this film... to something we would recognize as skillful boxing. Or am I completely wrong?

 

Answer : Let's pretend that you have never heard of Ray Robinson...and then you are shown the film of his fight with Ralph Tiger Jones. Would your immediate reaction be:"wow, this guy in the black trunks has got to be one of the greatest fighters ever"...or would you think you were watching a fighter who was not that good ?...Or after watching Ali for the first time against a Leon Spinks or Trevor Berbick, or Larry Holmes, get the impression this guy was mediocre at best ? I'll bet you would sir.
My contention is that Stanley Ketchel was considered by all who saw him
through his prime and thought he was the greatest 158 pound fighter of all
times because they watched him tear away joe Thomas, mike and jack Sullivan, ko billy Papke, Phil Jack O'Brien a LH, and 44 other opponents in his sensational career. You must take a fighters whole body of work and what his contemporaries thought of him, before you rush to
judgement....For example I as a youngster saw the great Henry Armstrong
be terribly outclassed by the rising Ray Robinson at MSG. Robbie played with Armstrong his idol. But young as I was that night,I and the crowd knew enough about Hammerin Hank to not judge his past greatness solely
on this one bout...Stanley Ketchel before opium and a dissipating lifestyle
got to him was a great and feared middleweight...

 

Great post Burt.

 

Yes, it was considered a very unsatisfying fight. I think Papke looks great against Carpentier and this is when he was well past his prime, had lost his speed and athleticism, was no longer training, and had stopped boxing as much in favor of mauling. Not everyone is going to look like Ray Robinson or Ray Leonard. Ketchel I cant speak to from any experience because the only films that exist of him are his **** poor fight against Papke, his loss to Johnson, and a short training clip. Its hard and unfair to draw conclusions from those films when during his era he was considered a phenom and also during his era it was pretty much the consensus opinion that he got his ass handed to him by Johnson and that his fight with Papke was a poor one. I could see your argument if they thought he was fantastic and said that the Papke and Johnson fights were terrific performances by him but they didnt. They thought he was fantastic and stated that those fights were very poor showings by him. So I have to believe he looked a lot better when he was "on."

 

Langford wins both matches via KO.

For 2nd place I think Burns had better speed and skills and would defeat Ketchel.

 

matt, not to be redundant, but why do most posters who comment on the Stanley Ketchel/ Sam Langford fight in 1910, NEVER consider the fact that
Ketchel was outweighed by about 12 pounds against the 1910 edition of
Tham Langford who by the way, had already fought heavyweights as Jim Flynn and Jack Johnson ? I am not suggesting that POSSIBLY Langford,
12 pounds heavier than Ketchel might not have eased up on Stanley to
have a lucrative money match later..But Ketchel a dissipated fighter by this time gave "Tham" all he could handle and DESERVES credit for his
bravery and unmatched violence tackling a great LH that Sam Langford was in 1910...So my question to you is why does posters too often forget the weight disparity between the fading Michigan Assassin and
the broader and heavier Boston Tar Baby.?

 

What were their weights when Langford and Ketchel fought?

 

In his book " The Michigan Assassin" by Nat Fleischer,circa 1946 which I value and hold before me Fleischer writes, "On that April night in the last year of his short life,soon to be ended by tragedy and murder, Ketchel
tipped the beam at 159 lbs.
The Tar Baby, as Langford was called, not without regard and affection scaled at 178 pounds. Ketchel was not a big man. He stood only 5 feet 9
inches in height. Sam was even shorter. His height was 5 feet 71/2 inches.". UNQUOTE...I have this valued book since 1946, and I hold it dearly, and NEVER loaned it out which is why I STILL have it...
So there was a great weight discrepancy between the smaller Ketchel and
Langford...Nat Fleischer was at that fight in Philadelphia...

 

There were talks of a Ketchel vs. Langford 45 round match in San Francisco that would have paid the fighters far more.

Some say Langford held back a bit in the final round, while Ketchel closed strong in the six round match. Langford, at least on the films was not one to hold back.

 

I am convinced on what I have read from old mags and writers who were
witnesses to Stanley Ketchel's bouts, and absolutely raved about his
prowess in the ring, notwithstanding a film or two against Jack Johnson and Billy Papke still shown, that Ketchel was as GREAT as they proclaimed him to be as an immortal middleweight fighter, before he turned to drugs and alcohol, leading to his untimely death. Were it not for these bad habits he formed, Ketchel would not have gone to his friend's ranch in Conway,
Missouri, to attempt to dry out and recuperate, where he was shot in the back by a misfit named Walter Dipley...