sam langford the most underated heavyweight of all time

[SuzieQ49]

where do you rate this pitbull all time on ur heavyweight list? i notice many modern fans dont include him in there top 20 which is ridiculous when u look at his record and see who he beat

[Verstyle]

wasnt that the short guy that was like 5'6

[RockyMarcianofan00]

where do you rate this pitbull all time on ur heavyweight list? i notice many modern fans dont include him in there top 20 which is ridiculous when u look at his record and see who he beat

his record looks pretty good but he's got alot of losses and draws but next to his wins they seem insignifacant

[Piggu]

Freddie Steele= The most under-rated Middleweight Champion of All-Time.

[Verstyle]

Freddie Steele= The most under-rated Middleweight Champion of All-Time.

maaaaaaaaaybe cause he fought the same ppl over and over again

[Verstyle]

and the ko percentage is pretty low also

[sleazyfellow]

the reason hes not rated so high is cause theres not many fight films of the guy..he also took dives in fights just like gans did, so almost everything about this guy is a mystery...like how good he accually could of been if the fights werent fixed..but one thing did happen he lost his ass to jack johnson big time...but then again there was a big weight diffrence between the two.

[butterfly1964]

where do you rate this pitbull all time on ur heavyweight list? i notice many modern fans dont include him in there top 20 which is ridiculous when u look at his record and see who he beat

nope. he's maybe a close second to charley liston.

[mokele]

don't know where to place him

Langford remains an enigma, a relatively small man at somewhere between 5'6" and 5'8" who could fight anywhere from middleweight through heavyweight. I have to include him on my list of all-time greats pound for pound, but can't seem to find the right division for him. Realistically he was just too small to be an all-time great heavyweight, although his results put him close to the level of Harry Wills and George Godfrey. He fought Jack Johnson in 1906:

http://boxrec.com/date_search.php?yyyy=1906&mm=04&dd=26

weighing only 156 lbs. and went the distance. Johnson never fought him again.

Langford did well against 2 other outstanding negro heavyweights of his era, Joe Jeannette and Sam McVey, in spite of a substantial disadvntage in both height and weight. McVey beat almost everyone else he faced in the early part of the 20th century, and a good portion of his losses were to Langford. Harry Wills got the better of Langford the great majority of the time but lost a couple of notable fights to him.

It's hard to see Langford as anywhere in the top 30 heavyweights of all time due to his many losses to Harry Wills and his losses to the likes of Fred Fulton and Bill Tate. Wills eventually got Langford's number, beating him something like 7 or 8 times in a row in the late teens and early 1920s. Bill Tate was a much better fighter than his record would suggest but was dominated by Joe Jeannette, but could handle Langford.

In any case, Langford was sort of like a smaller version of what James Toney is today, a blown-up middleweight who could hold his own with world class heavyweights.

[Kid Achilles]

Langford beat better heavyweights than Toney though.