Sport (Adelaide, SA : 1911 - 1948) Thu 28 Jun 1928 Page 19 MY FIGHTING LIFE MY FIGHTING LIFE (By Sam Langford.). MY FIGHTS WITH SAM McVEY Boxing Adventures in Australia. It was somewhere round about this time that Mr. Mcintosh had Bill Lang, the Australian heavy-weight; in London, and when he put it to me that I might fight Lang, why, of course, I was more than willing to do so. "No match was ever so easy to make.” There were more than whispers that Lang was a particularly powerful fellow; and he certainly looked it. And, my word, he was big-enough for anything. I may be rather old-fashioned, but I always thought like Bob Fitzsimmons did: when a man puts most store on his height and weight and allows it to go forth that he is phenomenally strong, I take the view that even a good little 'un beat him. Well, the match was made and put on at Olympia. Bill Lang. This about Lang if he had been able to fight as well as he could talk, he would have murdered me. Mcintosh gave us white gloves to use, and mine felt like a couple of pillows. From the first sound of the bell Lang was all for hugging me closer than he would have done if I had been his own brother. And he did a most considerable amount of butting, so much that I imagined that I was fighting a billy goat. He fouled me no end, and what blows he sent along, he did not mind whether they were high or low or where they landed. It was a particularly poor fight and one that made me very sad. In the sixth round, I think it was, Lang.was disqualified. He should have been ruled out in the .first round. He would not fight as I understand fighting, to be. My Opinion of Wells The next occasion I was at Olympia was as second to Porky Flynn against Bombardier Wells. The Bombardier, at that moment, was just coming along and he had for his manager Jim Maloney. A shrewd fellow I found this Maloney to be. To the best of my recollection the fight went twenty- rounds, and then the good looking Englishman was the winner, and very properly so. Wells fought in a way that led me to expect that in him Britain had a world beater of the future. His style was splendid and for little more than a beginner as he was then, Wells astonished me. Porky Flynn was not what you would call a top-notcher, but he was more than useful and there were not many, of the tricks of the trade that he did not know. I have often thought that Wells was one of the most disappointing, heavyweights that England ever had. He should have got splendidly close, to winning the world's title if not actually winning it. He had everything in his favor; he was more than a clever boxer—he could punch with the best of them. Perhaps he did not have the temperament for the fight business, but as he was against Porky Flynn, he looked the goods. Beaten by Sam McVey. So far the colored heavyweights, Joe Jeannette, Sam McVey, myself, and the rest of the negro fighters, with Jack Johnson in the chair, were left with no other business but to try to hammer one another as often as the public would stand for us. It was often a heartbreaking, thing. And when Mr. Mcintosh cabled an offer for me to go to Australia I grabbed it at once. And when I got there I enquired, "Who do I fight?' "You, fight Sam McVey," I was told. So Sammy again it had to be. We had previously met in Paris, and I was most annoyed that he had stood up to me for twenty rounds. So I was pleased to have the opportunity of showing that I could knock him out. Now, McVey, who had been doing the rounds of the various stadiums in Australia, had captured the people entirely. He was, indeed, going-great guns, which made me all the more anxious to take a crack at him. All Australia were on the side of McVey, and they said I was sure to get beaten. And do you know that those Australian folk were dead right. McVey beat me. My Fights In Australia- Mr. Mcintosh had signed me on a contract which called for six fights. So after I had fallen to McVey he put me against Jim Barry, at Melbourne. I was the winner. It was reckoned that since I had put away Barry I had earned a return match with McVey. This time I was the winner. Later I beat Barry a second time, and I polished off Porky Flynn. Twice more did I go to war against Sam McVey, and on each occasion. I whipped him. You would have thought the public by this time had had enough of Langford and McVey. But they had not, and, truth to tell, I hadn't. I wanted to see whether I could do that which I had not yet accomplished—I wanted to see if I could knock him out. All my wins over him had been on points. This fifth fight was one of the most murderous of my career. We had got into a clinch in the first round, and I took the opportunity to whisper into Sam's ear: "This time, if you do not do so much running about, I'm going to knock you loose from your brains." Whereupon Sam. grinning all over his face, replied: "If you is the terrible boy, like you say. why don't you stand up and fight' instead of making speeches?" And that is where the real trouble began. A Hard Fight. The referee broke us out of a clinch, and as he did so I stepped close to McVey and said: "Come on. fight, you bicycle rider." Sam jumped forward and jolted my headback with a left and made me feel the full weight of his right. We punched one another with all we had, and the thirteenth round had come when I was beginning to wonder whether I would be taken to the undertaker fellow. In each of the next six rounds I was often in danger of being, knocked out. I have often wondered how I managed to stand up, and I am quite sure that McVey, for his part, was wondering the same. We were both in a terribly bad shape and almost without a kick. But no thought of surrender, not a bit of it. I do not mind confessing, even at this time of the day, that when, near to the end of the thirteenth round, Sam caught me with a left hook to the chin I was certain that my number was up. Then the mist and the ghosts cleared for a fraction of a second I saw Sam McVey, in front of me, and he was staggering. But he was getting his arms ready to throw one more punch at me. And then, just as McVey was going to let go, I am told that I steadied myself and with my whole body behind it, I let out a crack-right-hander to the jaw. It connected. McVey went down—and that was the end of the fight. But when they were counting McVey out I took to spinning round. "Out!" was bawled; I lurched forward, to be caught by my seconds and carried to my corner. That punch which floored Sam McVey in Australia was the luckiest and the biggest that perhaps I have ever sent along. McVey's Left Hook. It used to be said, of Sam McVey that he had a left hook second to none. Which was very true. But perhaps you will be surprised to know that what was considered to be his most deadly weapon was due to a physical malformation of the joints. How many times we fought I do not really know. There was a period when things in the shape of opponents got so slack that it was McVey or nobody. In my first few battles with him, I could not for the life of me understand why he never delivered a straight punch, so one night, after we had had a particularly rousing battle, I went to his dressing-room and said: "Say, Sam do you mind holding your hands out?" McVey did as he was asked, and do you Know that his arms were so bent as to be like a dog's hind legs. And in this regard he was a freak. From that night I knew the best way to fight him for I made it my first business to steer clear of his left hook which, whenever it connected, was a sure winner in most of his fights. Three Unlucky Negroes. It has often been asked whether McVey, Joe Jeannette, and myself were really as good as we were represented to be. This assertion, I make without a blush—a black man can blush just as surely as a white man we three negroes were the unluckiest men who ever took to the trade of fighting, in that we were barred from trying for the championship. Jack Johnson was the luckiest of the black race—in my time, at least. I am not going to pretend that he was not a great fighter; he was a great fighter. Perhaps we never knew how good he was. He was a master of defence undoubtedly. But he had the chance for the title and we other blacks had not; and to my-dying day I shall believe that had it been my luck to have met Tommy Burns I should have become champion. Johnson thought he was wise in giving the cold shoulder to McVey, Jeannette, and myself. When, he had disposed of Burns. If he had taken us on one after the other, the probability would have been that we colored fighters would not have been shut out in the matter of the championship, and he would not have lost whatever popularity he had. , Good Fortune. And I am going to say this also. If Jack had not gone to Europe with Sam Fitzpatrick behind him, and had he not been assisted by the National Sporting Club, as represented by the late Mr. Peggy Bettinson, he could not have, afforded to make the journey to Sydney. If Jack feels that he has a grievance about being put out of the game, he has only himself to blame. No black in the history of the game had greater chances than he had, none was ever paid so much money.
