Johnson v The Avoided?

Moyle has Lanford's birthdate as 1886, Box Rec has it at 1883. I haven't researched this myself so would probably defer to Moyle's research on this one.

While I'd agree that Langford was below his best weight, I'm not nearly so sure that Johnson was so much below his. Johnson, by my reckoning, was fighting regularly and was still fighting serious black fighters when he was hovering around 185. He went up over 200 when he was defending his title -against white contenders who he did not take very seriously.

 

You'd agree that this exercise is more or les speculative, but it seems to me that his diet had improved by the time he was faced Langford. In 1900, he was 168 and those were lean times -still sweeping out cigar stores to eat. By the middle of the decade he was finding some success.

He was 205 when he fought O'Brien in 1909, but didn't train a lick because he knew and said that he could beat "6 O'Briens." He was in his 30s when he was defending his title and was by then totally convinced of his supremacy. Despite some false starts, he wasn't about to fight any of three amigos of similar complexion he faced coming up, so in his mind he had no worries. I have real doubts that he trained very hard for any fight after Burns with the exception of Jeffries. This is why I suspect that he was not underdeveloped at 28, and that he was already beginning to dissipate by 1910.

 

My take on Langford in 1906 would focus on two issues:

1. Size--he is a middleweight fighting a heavyweight

2. How good was he as a middleweight in 1906? He lost in July 1905 to Larry Temple and later fought a draw with him. He drew with Young Peter Jackson and then was stopped by Jackson in the fight right after the Johnson fight. How impressive is it for a heavyweight to do what the middleweights Temple and Jackson were also able to do?

 

Very good point, Jack did what he should have done, no more, no less.