Does anybody know anything about this...mad, mad, mad *******? He has a newspaper win over Langford (Anyone?) but his career seems to comprise mainly of a string of beatings from some of the most feared fighters who have ever lived. http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=017425&cat=boxer He fought McVey and Langford over and over again, and he must have had an astonishing jaw or have been very elusive, because he often carried them the distance. Billy Miske, Willie Meehan, Battling Levinsky, Joe Jeannette, Al Kaufman (KO39!!! Anyone?), Jack Blackburn...they all kicked the **** out of him at some point. This guy is a legend. Anyone know him? He didn't even retire! Someone shot him!!
According to boxrec he dropped Langford on multiple occasions. Puncher with a chin, sounds like! He was apparently a drung addict by the end, and upon being shot dead, he had upon his person a "gold and silver belt entrusted to him by none other than Johns Sullivan...the belt was never recovered". He was "capable and durable".
NY Evening World and wire report scored the fight for Langford. Wire: "He (Langford) outpointed his opponent in every round and several times had the Westerner in a dazed condition." Langford tripped in the 1st round and before he could steady himself Barry landed a slight swing on Langford's jaw and Sam fell to the floor, and sprained his ankle which affected his speed during the rest of the bout, but he still got the better of all five rounds. As Robert Edgren put it, after Sam rose from the floor, "No egg ever received a worse beating than came to Jim Barry during the seventeen minutes of fighting that ensued."
From the Los Angeles Herald, December 18 1907. "Barry In Poor Condition - Langford looked in perfect condition, but Barry was undoubtedly in no shape to fight anybody, let alone someone of Langford's class...Barry's game was to back into a corner then come out to meet the lead when Langford started something...Langford had all the best of the infighting and in every clinch, walloped Barry's kidney and face with jarring blows...Jim was unable to find any effectual way to stop this......Langford was the aggressor throughout..." "Barry Scores Knockdown - At the close of the [first] round Barry sent in a right to the stomach following it with one of the same variety to the head, and Sam went to his knees." He could hit a bit! "[in the second] Langford had all the best of it...and played a tattoo on Barry's body...a hard right to the eye closed Barry's right optic." Langford dominated a close third with body punching and seems to have broken Barry's nose. There is nothing on the fourth, in the fifth: "...two nicely timed swings sent Langford across the ring...but Barry was to slow to follow up on the advantage...Langford had all the better of the period, paying for the body whenever Barry ran into a clinch." I wonder was Barry's apparent derth of speed his fatal flaw? The sixth and the seventh carried on in the same vein with Barry opening well before Langford's body attack begin to tell, and by the end of the 7th, "Sam [had] cut Barry's eye wide open and the big fellow was spitting blood...the eigth was one of the slowest rounds of the fight, the men standing off each other for the first time and sparring instead of trying to do damage." Anyone think Sam was supposed to carry Jim to the finish? At the end of the 7th it sounds like big Barry is in serious trouble, but Langford, the great finisher, is "standing off...for the first time". At the end of the tenth round, "Langford...was given a good decision".
"Jim Barry never drew the colour line because he was usualy too flaked out on drink or dope to make out the colour of his oponent" Sam Langford
In one bout (not sure which one) Langford bet his entire purse that he would stop Barry inside the distance and failed to do so.
You think these two didn't like one another? Because that seems a bit harsh to me...I mean credit where it is due, surely!
The top white contenders who did take on the black dynamite crew generaly did so because of personal and financial problems. Sandy Ferguson had his gambling debts and Barry had his varuious adictions. I dont think Langford was under any illusions about why these men were willing to fight him.
