How modern was Sam Langford's style? (Poll)

How modern does Langford's style look to you? Could he have stepped out of a modern gym? Or is he still pretty far from what you'd see a well trained fighter looking like today?

@Pat M, particularly interested to hear you weigh in on this, if you're free.

This is one of those occasions where I'll be breaking down the poll by whether respondents have had a boxing match or not, for the data's sake. Apologies in advance to magoo and everyone else who's not a fan of that style of poll.

Personally, Langford always struck me as looking a lot more modern than his heavyweight contemporaries. But I'm no expert.

Some clips of Langford, for reference:

This content is protected

This content is protected

 

Roughly the same as that one judge's definition of pornography: people know with when they see it.

But I guess a VERY rough guide would be similarity to USA boxing's handbook.

 

You don't think there are significant differences between what were considered fundamentals in, say, 1890 and the fundamentals taught today?

I may be misunderstanding you. If so, my apologies.

 

I'm not saying everyone infallibly knows it when they see it. Most non-boxing fans might not notice at all. Nor am I saying that there are no criteria whatsoever. Hence my citation of the USA Boxing standards as one rough guide.

Think of family resemblances: You can often tell when people are related, but laying out specific criteria for when two people might look related is harder. Same with boxing or other martial arts. You can ask a knowledgeable person, "Hey, does that novice look competent?" and they can sometimes instantly recognize whether the novice knows what he's doing. But it might take a lot longer if you ask them to elaborate exactly what it is that looks wrong.

I have no problem with people clarifying their criteria for modern-ness in this thread. That's great. I encourage it, and @Pat M gave a few as part of his analysis above. But I'm not imposing precise definitions ahead of time.