Which of the lineal heavyweight champions would Sam Langford have beaten?

Nah, not at all. In fact, it's almost the opposite.

Langford wasn't finished or washed up when he met Fulton. Not at all. In fact, in the run up to that fight he fought a draw with Wills (The barometer of his slide into oblivion) and after he would smash up Kid Norfolk and draw with Wills again. Implying that he was in any way as badly washed up as Muhammad Ali was versus Holmes is surely more questionable than deducing he struggled with very tall fighters because results indicate this?

Sam was OK at the start of '17, but struggling at the end of it due to the injury Fulton inflicted on him whilst outboxing him. Before this fight, Langford has another inexplicable loss to a giant, Big Bill Tate, who outpointed him early in 1917. Bill Tate is one of the very worst fighters i've seen on film who fought at this kind of level - his advantages are purely physical ones, and they are height and reach. Langford did beat Tate later that year, but Tate did about as well as McVey did overall around this time inspite of his being nothing like as good. My conclusion is that Tate's physical advantages helped to close the class gap.

I believe he had slipped, but not as far as you seem to think.

Langford in his prime beating an arguably pre-prime Wills up is impressive, but so are many of his results around this time. You really consider that Wills is so much worse than Langford that their fighting on even terms on occasion around this time indicates that Langford is shot? He was also able to beat McVey, Clark, Jim Johnson, Kid Norfolk, Jeanette...but not Fred Fulton.

I don't think he would manufacture it because he struggled to do so versus much, much worse fighters of similar physical dimensions. If he couldn't do it to Bill Tate in a losing effort in the same year he was able to beat Norfolk, Jeanette and draw with Wills, something is odd...if not physical advantages, what?

 

I don't favour Langford to beat any of those fighters, and i'm not in the habit of concealing my opinions on this forum

Yeah, I think so.

I nearly asked you this before, but what do you mean by "suffering badly"?

 

What's the evidence of a tank job? Because these things are one-handed, usually, it's still possible.

CMoyle's book has Langford receiving a brain-injury, possibly, that would continue to affect his vision at during this fight.

 

Are you sure? I'll tell you why I ask. I have his career set and although he's a little more cautious, the difference is there but not huge - I actually think the Achilles injury is the one that did the damage.

Any evidence of this, or is it just one of these internet things?

 

Yeah, I don't think that Chagaev was as good for Wlad as he was for Vyrchys/Sprott. I agree that it's a tainted win. Check out his thrashing of Skelton for a good example. He has his man ready to go in 10 but takes his foot off the pedal - he's just not confident in his own stamina any more. I think it was a mixture of inactivity, injury and illness that did it, combined with a style that called for a certain nimbleness that seemed to betray him along with maybe the very top sliver of his stamina. I'm a fan, and i'll be one of the very few guys in the UK who wouldn't mind if he stopped Haye in his tracks, but I don't expect to see it, could be an ugly fight however.

 

I don't think so. I tend to think of him as past his best by 1915, unquestionably, but you seem to be talking about a shot fighter regarded as shot by the public - I don't see how that can be when he is knocking out world class fighters, and fighting draws with the world's best HW. He was often out of shape, but when he was in shape, as was the case with his 1916 one-punch KO of Harry Wills (possibly his best result) he absorbed an absolutley helatios beating before boxing back for the win. He wasn't training as seriously as he had, and was suffering for this, but he was still capable of outboxing Wills for spells, as seemed to be the case on their January 3rd meeting of that year.

In short, Langford was out of shape for a lot of these fights.

But I really don't think that he was "shot" or even regarded as shot, as you seem to be saying. He was unquestinably a world class fighter.

As you like it; but he was unquesitonably a world class fighter, and likely the best fighter of any weight in the world.

31, 26, 35, 29...

Let's flip this then. As neither Wlad or Lewis lost to anyone who were 5'6, which fighters, outside of Tate to whom he also lost, who were 6'6 did Langford trap onto a KO?

 

Langford was badly out of shape for the fight, and it showed. Fulton appears to have jabbed him at will, although Langford seemed to have success countering the right hand, forcing Fulton back to the jab, for which Langford had no apparent answer.

In his corner, after the fourth or fifth, Langford begged his corner to open up his blinded left eye, believing there to be swelling - but there was none. Langford, whilst trying to close the gap on Fulton had taken a big blow to the head which appears to have blinded him in his left eye. The damaging blow was apparently to the temple, not the eye. Langford described it as an enormous pain in his head.

From memory, Moyle has not sense that this is a tank job.