I've been looking into his career lately and he's been moving up and up in my rankings, he just got into my top 15. He was one of a kind, certainly. I always used to think there were 14 elite heavyweights, after them there was a little bit of a gulf. I now think that Langford is in this class though as a heavyweight along with Ali, Louis, Tyson, Liston, Lewis, Holmes, Marciano, Johnson, Frazier, Foreman, Wills, Holyfield, Jeffries, and Dempsey. I'm curious where people rank him at HW and the reasons why. H2H or accomplishments, whatever you prefer.
It would be a poor case. I rate Langford in my top 2 lb for lb but just don't think his era translates well to those later, not at least in the heavies. I also don't think terribly much of McVea or Jeanette, at least not as much as some who exalt these guys to ATG status. He is a very difficult fighter to rank frankly given his era, the obstacles that were in place to his career and general shenanigans involved with fights at the time. Still I can 10 heavies easily whom he does not displace on the ATG list, probably 20. And if we are realistically talking head to head it goes much deeper.
Langfords KO wins over Wills say the most. Wills was a big, modern sized heavyweight who is a top ten all time heavyweight and they were pretty even before Langford got too past his best and started losing often. Opinions about him vary so much. Already we have one respected poster saying he has a case for the top ten, while another is saying he's top 30. That's a pretty big difference.
One could also say Wills was pretty green around 1914-1916 when he was outpointing a much more experienced and higher rated Sam Langford. I don't think Wills hit his prime until around the 1916-1917 period...and by that point he had already beaten Sam Langford multiple times.
His resumé is outstanding, but you have to take into account the amount of fights he had against Wills and the number he actually won. He record is obviously very poor against Wills in that respect. His losses to Wills don't hurt him in a P4P respect, but ranking him at heavyweight, they do. He would crack a top 25, possibly top 20.
Langford was fairly even with Wills before he started slipping hard, though. If you don't mind Janitor I'd like to hear the case for Langford in the top ten, do you have him above Wills?
Yes, that's the best approach but I still don't see it getting him quite high enough. As great as I believe Langford to be, I just don't buy the argument that these once in a millennia archetype fighters exist, wherein there is no analogous fighter at 5 foot 6, weighing at his best around 180 who is out there recently slaying giant, skilled heavyweights... or even decent sized heavies. It leaves me to surmise that the skill and size gap of the past was just not as great as it is in more recent decades, that a smaller-type fighter can just not bank on fighting chopping down lumbering oxen of the division. Ergo, Wills, who I believe was quite skilled, defeated Langford handily time and again, though admittedly Langford was a bit used up towards the end.