Langford is overrated

Norfolk especially is a glaring omission by the OP - he's a HoFer w/ a win over Greb, probably ranks among the best LHWs to never win the title, & had notable success as a HW as well. He was on a red hot streak when he fought what was supposed to be a stepping stone in an old Langford & was shockingly blasted out in 2.

 

Harry Wills was the size of Ali ... some said 6' 2" many said 6' 4" with a huge reach and fought between 215 to 220 in the days when they dried out ... the revisionist spins are always interesting. That said do you see Duran or DeJesus or Napoles or Monzon ever knocking out Ali ? I'm not saying he was invincible nor that at the larger weights big, tough guys with terrific jabs could neutralize him but there is no doubt that he was at least a top five all time P4P fighter to me right up there w Robinson, Greb and Charles and likely the top P4P puncher of all time ...

 

Pal he might be the best fighter of all time. Anyone within 160lbs-175lbs he would leave anybody today with a life long limp.

 

Does anyone remember when @Austinboxing did the same thing with Ezzard Charles? Poor kid.

 

he might be, in that the whole Era is overrated from an Athletic Stylish technique point of view.

I think they all for short from the Eras that followed and what Boxing became by the mid 20s and beyond.

That said, they definitely were Hard & Capable Fighting men - Prizefighters who would be a tough dance, but who would more often than not be beaten & in many a case outclassed from the Athletic evolution aided fighting & developments that the sport later became.

 

In Langford's case and many others your assertion is laughable.

 

You mean you disagree...

That's fine, but I believe the Era was generally a bit cruder, though still good and capable fighters

 

There's nothing hypothetical about the vast majority of heavyweights of that era being smaller than today's cruiserweights and many being super middleweights/light heavyweights.

Wills could easily make cruiserweight without any trouble whatsoever. Your simply flat out wrong here. He wouldn't be a particularly big cruiserweight either going by his weights given he was frequently under 210. Ramirez rehydrated to 204 at Light heavyweight so no at cruiserweight that's not a problem.

And logically one would expect Benavidez, Beterbiev, Bivol, etc to be top heavyweights in an era where guys like Hart, Smith, and Burns were in the top 10.

 

What you don't seem to get, is that heavyweight has always been the unlimited weight class.

There might have been men in the division the size of Benavidez, but there were also men the size of Klitschko in every era, and somebody the size of Valuev in every other era.

Harry Wills in his own era weighed more than say Eddie Chambers did when he fought for the title.

Given his height and reach I see no reason why he couldn't fill out to 230 today.

Just because he could make cruiserweight by nearly killing himself, it doesn't mean that this woudl be his choice.

Then you have guys like Tate who would be big heavyweights even today.

No I don't think that the criticism that you are leveling against Langford is justified.

 

Did somebody say Ezzard Charles?

 

Heresy lives

 

Just to recap some of the HLs of Langford's extraordinary career ...

With just his first 3 years as a pro, he:
-Decisively outpointed established ATG/ reigning LW champ Gans in a non-title fight.
-Gets no worse than a draw (& likely deserved more) vs. another already-established ATG, Barbados Joe, in a WW title shot.

Later,
-Gets no worse than an even fight (& possibly deserved more) vs. ATG/ reigning MW champ Ketchel.
-Destroys HoF LHW champ O'Brien.
-Wins numerous fights apiece vs. HoFers/ highly rated HW contenders Jeanette & Mcvea in fights where Langford was often outweighed by double digits.
-Twice KOs Wills, HoFer & future longtime #1 HW contender, while Langford himself was declining & conceding significant size advantages.
-Bombs out HoFer/highly rated LHW & HW contender Norfolk in 2.
-When ancient & nearly blind, bombs out HoFer/ future MW champ Flowers.

& again, this is simply "the best of the best" of Langford's resume - there's a whole host of other notable names from the era that he also beat, like Flynn & Clark.

 

By and large though these big men were rarely world class and you could easily avoid fighting them if you chose to do so (even the journeyman level guys). It's not until the late 1970s with Cooney and Tate that they start regularly featuring in the top 10. Muhammad Ali went his entire career without ever facing someone the size of Fury despite cleaning out his era which speaks to how irrelevant they were.

Pre Holmes it was rare to face world-class guys who couldn't make cruiserweight today
Fitzsimmons didn't beat any
Jeffries didn't beat any
Johnson didn't beat any (though he lost to Willard)
Langford beat Tate (though I'm skeptical Tate was really world class, his win over Langford seems like a fluke but I guess we could include him for the sake of argument)
Dempsey beat two (Morris and Willard)
Tunney didn't beat any
Bear beat one (Carnera)
Schmelling didn't beat any
Louis beat three (Carnera, Simon, and Buddy Baer)
Charles didn't beat any
Marciano didn't beat any
Patterson didn't beat any
Liston didn't beat any
Ali beat one (Bugner rematch)

It's only with Holmes and Tyson that they start to regularly feature in top 10 lists.

Anyway, I think Langford has a deep resume but people are overstating how impressive his individual wins were by a fair margin. For example were supposed to be impressed at him beating Ketchel but Ketchel lost to Frank Klaus immediately prior to fighting Langford and people don't really rate Klaus highly to give one example.

 

Slightly off topic, but it's come to my attention that there seems to be some discrepancy over Langford's year of birth.

I'd always understood it to be 1883 (which is what's indicated on his tombstone), but I see now some notations (including on his wiki page) that it's actually 1886.

Anyone know why 1886 has apparently supplanted 1883 as his likely year of birth?

 

A couple of observations.

Johnson did have multiple wins over Sandy Ferguson, who was the size of a modern heavyweight, and briefly considered as a challenger for Jeffries.

I think that Tate was much better than his record suggests, but that is speculation on my part.

In Dempsey's case you should probably add Fred Fulton and possibly Luis Firpo to the list, but you are the birthday boy.

So what do we take away from all this?

The champions of the past who were most proven against bigger heavyweights are Jack Johnson (ironically given that he is often criticized for feasting on smaller fighters), Jack Dempsey, Jack Sharkey, and Joe Louis.

You could also argue that Sam Langford is much more proven against big heavyweights, than the vase majority of champions up to the 80s.