FANTASY FIGHT: Sam Langford vs Ezzard Charles (15 Rounds/Poll)

great fight, but the era's clash... more stylish, athletic and faster pace fighting in Ezz's period.

Langford isn't winning this unless he stops Ezz, but Charles on the other hand should just point up round after round.

Ezz a clear winner.

 

Langford was great but so was Charles - Ezzard by a wide margin in a fight filled with sporadic action and Charles in control.

 

I think the earliest point in which i'd invoke evolution would be the 30's and the absolute latest point in time boxing evolved to the point this argument stops working is the 50's.

Boxing participation would peak between 1920 and 1940, so the "evolution" would largely happen during this time.

Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ezzard Charles, Henry Armstrong, Archie Moore, Fritzie Zivic, Tony Canzoneri etc all peaked before this time and there's not really been anything new or innovative from a technical, cultural, stylistic, or even strength and conditioning standpoint since this time.

The gloves that boxers fight with and the rules they fight with have been mostly consistent since this time.

The best fighters between the 50's and now don't seem to have any clear gap between them H2H. If you snapped Ezzard, Henry and Robinson straight from the 40's to the 80's & 90's and they had to fight RJJ, SRL and Duran I think they'd be extremely game.

We also have a fair amount of footage by time so we don't really need to guess or infer how good they would have looked H2H.

I think Heavyweight is a good proxy for this as well due to it being the glamour division. There was a point in time where it was possible to step into the ring as a Middleweight and become a Heavyweight champion (a la Bob Fitzsimmons) and then there was a point in time where this very much stopped being possible. That point seems to have started by the 30's.

 

I have posted the same sentiments for this many, many times... 100% agree.

the only thing I will add to this, which I have also posted many, many times, is that many Fighters of the last 3, 4 Decades would be fighting UP a Division or two going back to the 20s, 30s, 40s and on a few more, where as bringing those past Era Fighters forward to these last few Decades, many, many of them would be fighting in Division's Down.

that leaves for a whole lot of consideration & evaluation in H2H meet ups.

 

Good point, and I find it odd / kinda annoying that people don't talk about this actually, especially on this forum.

If you were to put a poll with SRR vs Roy Jones Jr at Middleweight you'd probably have it 50/50 in SRR's favour.

If you were to point out that SRR weighed 155lbs at against LaMotta and RJJ weighed 181lbs vs Hopkins, the results would probably change.

But this is the Classic Forum so you'd think you wouldn't have to remind people of this sorta thing

 

yes, but even that misses the point, that the likelihood of the two ever meeting, would be slim, because in Ray's time, Jones would be a L-HW cum Heavyweight.

and in Jones' time, Ray Robinson, would be a LW cum WW.

that is the thing that most people won't happily adhere too, this just spew because a fighter was a MW, then lets pair them, but in each others own time frames, they'd be weight divisions apart.

Yes, it frustrates the heck out of me too, because it has to be addressed over & over again.

 

Langford would’ve stopped that version of Louis, what techniques were Ezzard Charles and Marciano doing that Langford, Gans, etc weren’t?

 

I do not believe that a 5'7" Langford would ever get past his jab.

 

Joe didn't really have much left apart from that jab when he returned, lost his explosiveness that made him special. Also even judging from the footage Sam is excellent at parrying jabs and countering off of them.

In their respective primes it's a different story but I think Langford does some nasty things to the Louis that Charles and Rocky beat.

 

The jab is what I was talking about in terms of Langford won't get though it. He may have been excellent in parrying it, but at 5'7", I don;t think he is going to parry it all night long, and not without getting caught by right hands and left hooks.

 

Joe had little left outside of his jab though, he'd lost the explosiveness that made him so dangerous past his jab in his prime. His speed was gone, combo ability near non existent. I don't think Sam would have much to worry about once he gets past Joe's jab. Most of Joe's power came from his fast twitch and once that left he didn't have nearly as much pop

 

He stil had a good hook. He just didn't have power in the right because he has a cyst in his arm, or something of that nature.