Let's put Liston in with some top 175lb fighters

They were fine at finishing whom exactly?

Joe Grim was never stopped for a while, does that mean he had a great chin as well? Great chin has always been understood to be about rarely if ever getting knocked down or stopped. Langford was knocked down too many times to claim a grat chin. Only his surviving and recuperative abilities were excellent indeed. But in Liston he faces an excellent finisher against opponents who stay in front of him and do not run.

Liston vs Marshall had taken place during his only 2nd year as a pro.

Langford used lateral movement somewhat, but he wasn't a runner type of fighter, he couldn't afford himself to waste his energy by running around. He won't be running from Liston when he is hurt. That kind of opponents Liston didn't handle that good, but Langford is none of them.

Both McVea and Wills fought a lot of lesser opponents as well in 1910's and many of them lasted the distance with him. Too many to claim them to be as big punchers as you want to pretend them to be.

If you want to claim Langford being such a hard hitter against big heavyweights, even go as far as claim he's more dangerous hitter to Liston, than vice versa, you have to come up with factual proof of his KO power against such big opponents. Langford doesn't have much proof of that kind.

 

They KO'd everybody except Langford, Jeanette and themselves? That's not what their records say.

Grim was a very awkward tomato can with no chin, but big heart. Only a fool would call his chin great.

So a great chin means you may be knocked down hundreds of times in your career, but if you are not stopped, your chin is great? Something tells me this logic will be considered flawed by almost everyone. Except you?

Joe Louis was also rocked several times in his first year as a pro. I'm not holding it as anything significant in evaulation of his chin. It takes not just natural ability to withstand impact of punches, but some skills as well, and he was lacking them somewhat at that point. Same as Liston.

In November 26, 1914 fight with Wills "Langford was outfought for practically every minute of the going up to the instant that he whipped in the two punches that sent his huge antagonist spent and unconscious to the mat."
"Thirteen rounds Langford was buffeted about the ring, driven from rope to rope like a pugilist derelict before the powerful, pistonlike blows of his giant opponent."
Indeed he was running circles around Wills... that is the impact of Wills' punches was driving him around at high speed.
"His movements, once executed with the supple smoothness of the perfect animal, are now labored and ponderous, and there lingers only a trace of his former speed."

When Langford was knocked down first time, "he instinctively crowded his man back to the north side."
"In the second round Langford litterally tried to pry himself inside his opponent's guard so as to get close, but it was no use. Wills floored him with another vicious right for the count of six. Sam got up and rushed, only to go down again."

"At close quarters, the powerful Langford was but a puppet in Wills' hands."


Pre-arranged no contests? Which ones were of that kind?

If McVea was considered such a fearsome puncher, why are Wills and Langford in that Top 100 and not him?


You're an expert on Langford to make that claim about one-punch finishes?
Langford's chin is proven in what way, in going down multiple times? How many times had not too young and not too old Liston gone down? Outside of the Ali's fix.

What's the final record of Langford's meetings with world class fighters, how many KO's has he scored against them?

See the quotes from the above fight. That's just one example. Had Wills possessed the killing instinct of Liston, Langford would have been finished in the first several rounds of that fight, but Wills preferred to play around and use his jab too much.

 

Senya, you really suck, please stop with your negative babbling, that´s just awful...

 

I will "babble" as much as I want when I hear ridiculous claims that McVea, Wills or Langford hit harder than Liston, or Langford has a better chin than Liston, or that he cannot be knocked down by Liston.

 

Liston is the overrated here, not McVea or Langford. Liston´s only real good KO-wins are over Patterson twice, who was in awful condition to fight. Against the journeyman Bethea, the shot and old Valdes, and against the mediocre DeJohn, his best KO-wins, I don´t rate them that high. 38 KO- wins in his 54 fights isn´t also that impressive (although we can´t look at a KO-% to judge a fighter´s punching power). But I rather criticize your negative view of things, everyone is a journeyman or overrated, he´s not that great, he wasn´t a great puncher, etc., that´s really sad, because I know that you have very much boxing knowledge, and if you wouldn´t be that biased and negative you would be definitely one of the best posters here...

 

I'll need time to dig up exact quotes about Grim. I remember i had read them once, but not sure which fight report it was. Grim was a wrestler, he could grab and hold and was just awkward in the ring, making it somewhat difficult to finish him.

Great chin and excellent durability are two different things.

A great chin should be able to withstand a lot of punishment before finally giving up. Langford's at times needed just a few punches to put him down, although it shouldn't be a knock on him, as he should have been fighting no higher than as a middleweight. But in this case we are talking about his matchup against a big heavyweight, so the evaluation should take into consideration his whole career, including the heavyweight part of it.
Same with his punching power. It is great in P4P sense, but against big heavyweights it is not that impressive.

Louis was badly hurt by Alex Borchuk (Al Delaney), he was very badly shaken by Jack O'Dowd.

You can find me a fight with Wills that was closer to Langford's prime than the 2nd meeting of him and Wills? You mean the first one, where Langford lost an official decision? Langford's prime was already behind him when he faced Wills. He was already described as being too fat and too slow than the more prime version of himself.

You are using so-called appeal to ignorance in your claim about pre-arranged no contests.

The KO of Wills was him being over-confident. He was in full control of the fight, Langford has been trying time and time again to land his lucky punch, but it was all in vain until that 14th round.
The fourteenth opened with Wills missing repeatedly. He was wild for the first time. Langford was becoming savagely aggressive. But his efforts seemed puny. After they had been boxing for a little more than a minute they broke from a clinch in the center of the ring. Suddenly an arm so short and big that it looked actually pudgy, shot out from Langford's left side. It was a left hook, and caught the confident Wills squarely on the jaw.

You have introduced the claim about comparison of Langford's and Liston's one-punch finishes, so it's your duty to provide proof of that comparison, not mine.

How many ranked contenders did Liston fight? Do you not have a Boxing Register book to look up?

Once again, how many times has Langford won by KO against world class opponents?

Wills had plenty of opportunities to finish Langford. The report points out how he instead chose to make Langford miss and look bad in general, and peppering him with jab from a distance.

 

Liston vs ranked opponents:
Marty Marshall L8 and TKO6
Wayne Bethea TKO1
Mike De John TKO6
Roy Harris TKO1
Zora Folley KO3
Eddie Machen W12
Floyd Patterson KO1 and KO1
Cassius Clay TKO'd 7 and KO'd 1
Leotis Martin KO'd9

W8(7KO)-4(3KO)

 

I dont think that the fighters in red were actualy ranked when Liston fought them if I am right then he is W4(3KO)-L3(3KO)

Not exactly going to stack up well against Langfords heavyweight resume either way.

 

Durability in general - yes.

Great puncher is not equal to very hard hitter. Langford was a great puncher, but his punching power wasn't that great at heavyweight.

Marshall was ranked in Top 10 when Liston was knocked down. Neither of those two fighters I named were.

What report do you have? I have the Los Angeles Times, which is pretty much local source.

Why did so many no decision fights end up in a knockout?

Wills painted what different picture, I didn't understand?

I posted a list of ranked opponents Liston faced. Of the losses two came in controversial circumstances and the last one when Liston was "officially" 37 years old.

A lot more is how many? You can't go through his record and count them? Then we will divide it by the total number of such fights and get a ratio of KO's against world class/ranked opponents.

Wills could have done that while Langford's ankle was still not ok. And even after that he had plenty of opportunities, Langford only had a shade the better of the 5th round, he clearly lost the other twelve according to LAT report.

 

Boxing Register sometimes makes errors, but 5 errors in one not very long record?

 

Here are some contemporary acounts

Langford regains world 'colored' heavyweight title claim (Indianapolis Star)
"With a left swing to the jaw, Sam Langford of Boston knocked out Harry Wills, the giant New Orleans negro, in the fourteenth round of a scheduled twenty-round fight this afternoon at Vernon. Both men were knocked down repeatedly, Langford himself taking the count four times in the first two rounds.

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Wills' effective straight-arm drives gave him an apparent even break in most of the rounds, but

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The final swing was delivered after a torrent of blows had left Wills staggering."

The second Langford knockout

Wills loses his World 'colored' heavyweight title claim

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(Reno Evening Gazette)

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(The Gleaner)

In Wills own words

"I was knocked out three times in my career, twice by Langford and in my last fight by Paulino Uzcudun. I still don't know, except from hearsay, what punches Sam used to knock me out. The first time it happened was 1914. We were supposed to go twenty rounds, when the fourteenth began I was going easy. Sam was in a bad way. I backed him around the ring trying to set him up for a one punch finish. His eye was bleeding and the last thing I remember was having him against the ropes just about five feet from his corner. It must have happened right then. Two years later we were scheduled for another twenty rounder. In the eighteenth Sam was in a peck of trouble and once again I tried to set him up for a quick knockout. He finished the round okay and when the bell sounded for the start of the nineteenth I was after him again. I figured if I could get him in a corner I could finish the fight. That was all I could remember. He must have caught me as I rushed in. I don't know how long I was unconscious but it must have been quite a while. He was marvelous as a fighting man, I'd venture to say unbeatable in his prime."

The testimony of oponents

Joe Jeannette once called Langford “The best all-around heavyweight” and said Sam hit him harder than anyone he ever fought.

Fireman Flynn, who fought Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Luther McCarty, Ed “Gunboat” Smith, and many others said “the hardest hitter I ever faced was Langford”
(Weston 1954 pg 20 58).

He shook hands with Morris Harris in the seventh-round of a ten-rounder, told him it was his last round, then kayoed him.

He stepped off six feet at a particular spot in the ring for Bill Tate, then knocked him out there.

He deposited “Fireman” Jim Flynn in the lap of columnist Beany Walker (at ringside), who had once said Flynn deserved a win in a previous bout with Langford.

(see Weston 1954 pg 59 60 and Houston 1975 pg 24 25).