The fight in which he fought Johnson for the title would have taken place in Australia. It would have been Johnsons retirment fund regardless of the outcome. How long Langford could have lasted would depend on how principled he was as champion. Like Johnson he would have had a long hard journey to the title and might have decided he deserved some easy pay days. On the other hand Langford was a fighter down to his bones and enjoyed the fight game more than the money. An honest Langford would have lost the title to one of the black dynamite crew and perhaps become the first champion to win it back. In the end of course, he would have got to old and Harry Wills would have come to dominate the scene. If he played the same game as Jack Johnson post Jeffries, he might still be champion now.
Top 5 of all-time at Heavyweight, absolutely. At least Lewis anyway. P4P is a totally different matter, though and if that's what you mean I'm in agreement with you. Wlad Klitschko is in no way or form amongst the best 15 ever. Despite improving fundamentally as a fighter over the last few years and being the current best, he's still not in the class of a Lewis, Holyfield, Tyson or Bowe either. I struggle to see him going onto achieve or impress as much as most of them did given the fact he's into his thirties now.
I like to think he and Wills would have traded it until Wills proved his dominance. Imagine Langford-Dempsey? Sweet Jesus.
At their respective primes I dont want to imagine it! Personaly I think that a more likley scenario, is young Jack Dempsey fighting Harry Wills in Reno for the title.
Interesting you say "young Jack Dempsey" because you wonder if in the roll of "white hope" Dempsey would have been pushed into a confrontation with Langford a bit too quickly. If Dempsey really was as intimidated as he made out, the combination might be to much...
Sonny's Jab, you're a genius! There are so many ways of being great . . . . it's hard to balance them all . . . . . but I think the idea of just asking whether it sounds right to say 'The great (boxers name)' is a really good -- i.e., 'a great' ;-) --comprehensive test. One neat thing about this test is that you can check a boxer against any sort of 'great', eg. "The great Charles Chaplin, the great Jim Brown, the great Isaac Newton, the great Louis Armstrong, the great Ray Robinson, ect." Do you feel like Robinson continues the sequence? Or is there a sort of bump? One problem, though, are guys who are great boxers, but at the margins of heavyweight greatness. 'The great Bob Fitzsimmons, the great Sam Langford, the great Ezzard Charles'. Here are the guys who pass my initial test: John L Sullivan James Jeffries Jack Johnson Jack Dempsey Joe Louis Rocky Marciano Muhammad Ali Can any of these guys extend a sequence such as "The great Bob Fitzsimmons, the great Joe Gans, the great Sam Langford, the great Benny Leonard, the great Harry Greb, the great Ray Robinson, the great (X)" ? I don't think any of the above heavyweights work on the Chaplin, Brown, Newton, Armstrong test. Not for me. Now, if I were being charitable, I might say there were 15-22 great heavyweights . . . .
The same was true of Lewis. He was still considered a "maybe he will be" great almost unanimously when he was 34 ! Then 5 or 6 wins and 1 embarrassing loss later, at 36 or 37 he suddenly done enough to be "top 4 all-time" ?? I didn't understand it then, nor now.
Just out of personal curiosity Sonny, why exactly do you not think so highly of Lennox Lewis? I mean, I can certainly agree that he has become a tad overrated, however he still qualifies for the most part as an all time great in my book. The McCall and Rahman losses are weighed a bit too heavily towards the negative side in my opinion. Many great champions have had losses to average or mediocre fighters, and what's worse, some of them went unavenged. Lewis defeated every fighter that he ever stepped in the ring with at one point or another. He fought a rather large number of ranked opponents, titlists, prospects, etc, and looked fairly impressive against most of them. I can't see rating too many fighters above him.
I think that Langford would have been pushed back one way or another by the time Dempsey challenged for the title. If they were in the same ring it would be a verry faded Langford against a prime and fearfull Dempsey. Not a good scenario for Sam. If Jack Dempsey is the man that Mike Tyson wanted to be then Sam Langford is the man that Jack Dempsey wanted to be. Jack Dempsey almost seems to have regarded the half blind shell of Langford as a greater threat than the prime Harry Wills who was available at the same time. Rather like Mike Tysons genuine if misguided fear of the 40+ George Foreman. Dempsey gave money to Langford later in life when he was blind and living in squalor.
Johnson did meet contenders. he beat mcvea 3 times, jeanette 3 times, and battered langford. mcvea and jeanette were no more inexperienced than many of holmes challengers. At least johnson has there names on his resume, unlike jack who doesnt have wills name on his resume
Thanks. Great post. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm interested in Good point you made about truly great fighters who held the heavyweight title who were only marginally great as HEAVYWEIGHT fighters. Example, Bob Fitzsimmons. I think Jack Johnson might pull it off, alongside Joe Louis. Perhaps Jack Dempsey. But then we can cast a critical eye upon whether they deserve the label. That opens up a whole cascade of debate. I remember reading I think it was Budd Schulberg (or perhaps another Jewish-American writer) grew up in a household where his mother and father would refer to "The Great Benny Leonard", and all Jewish-American households of that era would refer to the lightweight champion in that way, or at least feel it was an acceptable and proper way to call him. According to Budd Schulberg.
How convinient given they are your two favourites My understanding is that he gave busted fighters money "as a rule".