Sam Langford vs. Joe Louis

Thank you.

I first read Langford as 5ft 6.5ins, the footage and photos I've seen made that look about right. Boxrec lists him 5ft 7.5ins, but a cursory Google search just now it seems most sources list him an inch shorter:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Langford
https://coxscorner.tripod.com/langford.html
He was probably capable of making 175lbs at his peak.

He's ranked most often as a HW because the highest volume of his impressive wins were in fights contested in that division.

I don't factor fantasy fights into my rankings, especially not across vastly different eras. There are too many uncertainties for me. Different sports, different rules, different weign in circumstances, advancements in sports science, PEDs, etc. There's no harm in engaging in fantasy fight speculation, but they play no part in my historical rankings or how I appraise a fighter, which is limited purely to what the achieved in reality, in the context of the era they fought in.

On that basis, I rank Langford #17 at HW all time, based solely on fights contested in and around that division. Whilst he has notable wins in every division from LW to HW, he didnt compete enough in any other division to rank top 20 all time, if your rankings only factor in fights contested at the weight division you are appraising.

P4P though, factoring in both his career as a whole and his size disadvantages at HW, he had a truly astonishing career. I rank him #3 all time.

 

I agree it's a tricky subject, because his weight fluctuated to a significant degree, as you allude to.

His HW best probably roughly around 1908-1914. He typically weighed between 170-190lbs during this period. Again, rightly or wrongly, and from memory, I came away with the impression after reading Clay Moyles brilliant book, that his natural, ideal fighting fight in his prime was 170-175lbs, though he sometimes weighed more than that during his prime, particularly towards the end of his prime years.

 

Thanks very much. So you mean you rank folks in the division bsed upon accomplishments-not, as so many others, by how they would have done against folks of similar size.
Your way, I cannot see Langford ranking very high at all due to his size.
My way is either speculating on how a guy would have done-uncertain but trying to be fair while recognizing that the oldies will still be handicapped absent those later avantages (but penalizing for illegal tactics like PEDs).

OR rank a guy against what he would be in later-most of boxing history, + different for the last 4 decades.
Whether or not we consider H2H, Langford was effectively a LHW for most of boxing history, then since 1983? A MW.

Maybe he was precisely the height you claim.

 

Exactly. When I ranked my top 20 in the original weight divisions I spent several hours each week, for several months, researching. I still have a spreadsheet that details all the fights each contender had in the weight division I was ranking them, and various pages of notes I made comparing them only on fights contested in that weight division.

There's nothing wrong with ranking based on predicted outcomes of fights that didn't happen. Its subjective and I'm sure some people find it fun, which is of course, completely fine.

Personally, I just find it both more enjoyable and particularly more objectively meaningful to rank fighters based on fights that actually happened. But that's just me. There's no right or wrong way.