Sam Langford vs Razor Ruddock

On second thought, Ruddock wins. As soon as Langford finds out Ruddock is "modern" he automatically falls over .

 

I believe he's Tommo/Glover/Collins. Probably his 7th incarnation.

 

Quite possibly.

 

You don't believe what excuses?

 

Yeah, I guess we should evaluate the ability of old time fighters based on the opinions of contemporary "experts" and newspaper write-ups instead of ****yzing the footage we have on them and their records....

 

Not convinced you really know anything about either fighter, other than that Langford is a highly-regarded ATG and whatever you've read about Ruddock on boxrec. You're not fooling anyone with your lame sarcasm.

 

These guys probably don't understand boxing well enough to ****yze footage. They just know that some fighters are ATGs and other fighters are not, which is all that they need to come up with their opinions and picks.

 

You watch footage, but you don’t ****yse it.

There is a crucial difference.

 

The word “instead” is quite telling here.

It implies that you think it is legitimate to base your interpretation on one source of evidence, and ignore the other.

Surely it is fool hardy to ignore either line of evidence?

 

I think opinions and second-hand accounts shouldn't be a huge component in rating a fighter, if we have actual footage on him. There's a solid half an hour long video of the tenth Langford-Jeannette fight readily available on youtube, and the quality isn't that bad. This was Langford at his best, it doesn't get better than that.

I think that people put too much stock in the opinions of historians and fighters of old, at the expense of objectivity. These men were not exactly impartial when it came to the fighters of their time.

I mean, I don't need Ray Arcel or Nat Fleischer to tell me how great Dempsey was. We have almost all of his essential fights filmed. I can draw my own conclusions.

 

Sam is possibly the greatest fighter ever, I just find it a big ask when he's being matched with huge, modern heavyweights. Against the best big man he fought, Wills, he lost many more times than he won. His heart, his punch and his pedigree give him a chance, but realistically if he fights Ruddock 15 times Sam is going to come out on the short end of the series.

 

I have to call bull**** on that. I'd put my boxing knowledge up against yours any day. And people like Janitor and Seamus definitely have valid opinions.

You are the one who follows the size beats all doctrine, ignoring virtually everything else. Your arrogance is beyond belief.

 

No, it's just part of the picture. It's looking at both fighters and their respective attributes, thinking how their styles might mesh.

Nobody really knows, do they? Who would have picked Holyfield to beat Tyson? Who would have thought Norton could out jab Ali?

Size, reach, weight are definitely factors, sometimes massively so. I just don't like this complete obsession with weight that some posters have. Does Frank Bruno beat every pre 1970's heavyweight, or do several much better, but smaller fighters beat him?

 

If it was a modern hwt who could really fight that's another story. Rudduck was not a great nor very good fighter. Left swing/smash and that's it. No defense, no great offense aside from one punch. It's an insult to Langford to make such a comparison.

 

Depends what you mean by "boxing knowledge." Plenty of people here can tell you all you want to know about who beat whom and which fighters are ranked higher on most lists (some probably with a lot of help via the Internet). None of that is any indication at all that a person actually understands boxing or can assess footage of fighters and diagnose their strengths & weaknesses, etc.