Who's the best HW Sam Langford can beat?

[sonnyboyx2]

Harry Wills was 6'2" and a top 15 all time heavyweight. Langford was blind and at the end of his career for most of their series but was able to beat him. Not really a stretch to think he could beat other greats.

This is bordering on the ridiculous. "Harry Wills top 15 all time"

I am pleased that you have been allowed back on the site, your posts are howlers... why am i not surprised, that you never learnt anything about the sport of boxing on the other site?... because you try to impose your fallacious, inaccurate knowledge of the sport onto others.

It's like when you tried to instill into members that, "Tommy Morrison was an All Time Great".. ... if Wills is top 15 then what's Morrison?.. top 5

[sonnyboyx2]

At his HW prime, in your opinion...

Because of his stature, i think he would not have much chance, against today's behemoths. who are 6'6'' and over. But i would give him a huge chance of beating:

Hasim Rahman
Frank Bruno
Oliver McCall
Sultan Ibragamov
David Haye
Alexander Povetkin
Oleg Maskaev
Samuel Peter
Chris Byrd

[The Old LefHook]

Because of his stature, i think he would not have much chance, against today's behemoths. who are 6'6'' and over. But i would give him a huge chance of beating:

Hasim Rahman
Frank Bruno
Oliver McCall
Sultan Ibragamov
David Haye
Alexander Povetkin
Oleg Maskaev
Samuel Peter
Chris Byrd

That really is a good list. Those guys he would indeed have a good shot against. None of your list contains a ridiculous claim. There are others I think he would have a good chance against as well. But eventually the choices become very iffy. This list stays within bounds.

[billeau2]

And to answer the question beating Wills when Langford was pretty much washed up is a great win

"I always carry my own two referee's for every fight, my left and my right"
--Langford

Its hard to say how Langford measures up. he fought in the older manner where distance was controlled, a lot of deception and footwork was used to set up attacks.

When trying to see preceden one must ask how good was Wills? Thats also not an easy question to answer. Wills started fighting late, obviously was talented, but never got an opportunity to fight Dempsey. From what I can gather from anecdotal evidence, the guys around back then...most didn't think the Black Panther could take Dempsey, but we won't ever really know.

With that said langford was a talent and like Grebb, had a punch that could carry him upwards in weight class....I could see him being similar to Toney, a guy who is competative with any heavyweight because of his chin and punch abilities...he had a better workrate than Toney, but Moore and Toney had other qualities that allowed them to fight upwards.

Pinpointing exactly who he would beat is kind of like searching for a needle in a haystack though. Perhaps another precedent would be Tunney, though with tunney, he was through and through a lightheavy/cruiser...with Langford he was probably naturally not quite that big.

I don't think he beats Dempsey or Tunney. langford came right at the time when boxing was changing but I think given his age Langford was more similar to Corbett than Tunney. What one sees in the division is a big change in many aspects of the sport ushered in by Dempsey and to a degree by Tunney... Different fighting distance, squaring up and smaller upper body movements, etc. To get an idea of these changes watch the Corbett Tunney exhibition, Corbett is showing the older ways fighters did things, to a very respectful Tunney....then watch Tunney versus Dempsey. This was imo a watershed fight. Tunney is fighting the first modern heavyweight, and using a comnination of Corbett's technical know how and his own understanding of new concepts involving distance and timing.

I bring this up because Langford was not a modern heavyweight in the way Dempsey and Dempsey's theories, learned no doubt from his trainers and experience, were. Not saying one style is better than another either: Tunney shows brilliantly how to use elements of both styles! But I do think that to be fair to Langford, he was fighting different men from a different theory of boxing....so it becomes a tad tricky comparing him to....oh lets say Larry Holmes. Could he combine them brilliantly like Gene Tunney? if he could he might beat a guy like Holmes actually. I think Tunney would beat Holmes.

[JAB5239]

This is bordering on the ridiculous. "Harry Wills top 15 all time"

I am pleased that you have been allowed back on the site, your posts are howlers... why am i not surprised, that you never learnt anything about the sport of boxing on the other site?... because you try to impose your fallacious, inaccurate knowledge of the sport onto others.

It's like when you tried to instill into members that, "Tommy Morrison was an All Time Great".. ... if Wills is top 15 then what's Morrison?.. top 5

Let's see...Wills has a better resume than Dempsey, was ducked by Demsey and yet you think of ole Manassa Jack as one of the best ever. Pretty convoluted thinking on your part given the circumstances. Will is in MY top 15. But please don't try and make that so ludicrous as it's you who loves to rely on other opinions to back your own So much.



So it not really a stretch, is it?

[Rspen46]

He beat Joe Gans after Gans had a full hard fight the day before, Gans Traveled a long way, hours by train to get to the City to fight Langford, then he had some kind of Cold/Flu virus, not sure what it was, but it's definitely documented he was sick, also it's well documented he won the early rounds of the fight, then gave out in the later rounds, telling me the fight the day before, the long train ride and being sick affected him and he still won the early rounds, how Langford with all those advantages in his favor did not dominate from the beginning also tells me a lot about Langford and why would anyone put down someone else's posts by saying they are dumb, it shows your own intelligence and the fact you look at the gans fight with all those things wrong with it as being a dumb statement by you as you obviously had no clue all those things existed, I would take the top 20 all time HW's to beat him, he did beat Wills once and they had a draw in their Prime the rest of their dozen other bouts Langford went downhill fast, other blacks were champs before and after, so don't cry he had not chance to try for a title, with out all those things wrong for gans, he clearly beats Langford. and personally your post is the dumbest I've seen.

[Rspen46]

Keep crying for SAM, he did not get a chance so therefore he did not do it, so stop including him in all time lists at a weight he could not have competed in, I wish Dempsey & Tunney had fought them all as I say both would have defeated them all but they did not, so it's all speculation, and with no big titles and no big names other than the lower ranked guys like Mcvey and Jeanette, and Mcvey weighed well under 200 pounds so no HW during his Langford fights, but keep wishing, I put guys in my top 20 that showed it and deserve it, not someone on a hope and prayer.

[Rspen46]

I agree 100% with this, great fighter in his time against the other 3 or so black fighters in his era, but since he was not a HW champ, you have no way to include him in any top 20 list of all time, people that try are just wrong to do so.

[QueensburyRules]

So it not really a stretch, is it?

- -Jab sources the most authoritative all time rankings in history.

Sam one of the precious few to get 3 rankings by Ibro.

#15 Hvy
#3 LH
#6 P4P

Anyone badmouthin' Sam won't see what he does in Valhalla with the rest of the greats.