Is Sam Langford the most under rated heavyweight of all time head to head?

I personaly think so.

While Sam Langford is rated highly on this forum pound for pound, his name is rarely mentioned in discussions about the most dangerous heavyweights head to head. This is curious because most fighters who shared a ring with him thought that he was as dangerous as Jack Dempsey or Joe Louis. I have compiled a list of observations by people who were on the business end of his punches or saw him fight from ringside.

Fireman Flynn

“I fought most of the heavyweights, including Dempsey and Johnson, but Sam could stretch a guy colder than any of them. When Langford hit me it felt like somebody had slugged me with a baseball bat. It was like taking ether. You just went to sleep.”

“If you ask me, Il say that the hardest hitter I ever went up against was Sam Langford”.

Gunboat Smith

On being asked who was the best he ever fought (he fought Dempsey and Wills).

“That’s an easy one. Sam Langford and nobody came close to being as good as he was at his peak”

“Langford vs Dempsey both in their prime would have been bad news for Dempsey. He could be hit with a right hand and if anybody had a right hand it was the tar baby. I will go further and declare that Langford would have waded through every heavyweight champion we’ve had including the current soldier boy Joe Louis. Louis is a great champ, but he is inclined to get hot and bothered when the going gets rough. Langford was as cool as an iceberg every minute that he was in there. He never lost his head.”

Joe Jeanette

“Sam would have been champion any time Johnson would have given him a fight and Johnson knew it better than anybody”

“How that baby could hit. Nobody else could hit like that. Well, maybe Joe Louis could but Sam only weighed 160lbs. Joe Louis was about 195.”

Jack Blackburn

“My boy (Joe Louis) is still two years removed from his prime. By then I will have him in Langford’s class.”

Joe Williams

On being asked how Sam Langford would do against Joe Louis.

“Just too much of a fighter. There wasn’t anything Sam couldn’t do and if he had a weakness then nobody ever found out what it was. I have plenty of respect for Joe Louis as a hitter, but I can’t see him hitting Sam hard enough to make him mad”

Harry Wills

“He was a real professional, the kind of fighter you’d like to be but know that however hard you try you’ll never make it. Sam never made a mistake, he always held command and when he knocked me out in New Orleans, I thought I had been killed.”

“He was marvellous as a fighting man, I'd venture to say unbeatable in his prime.”

John L Sullivan

“Jim Jeffries has gone to the place that forbids him from facing a young strong fellow like Jack Johnson and he will never enter the ring again. Sam Langford is the worlds best and he can trim Johnson, Ketchel, Papke and the rest one after the other. Johnson knows this and is sidestepping