Best fighter never to win a world title?

[tino]

what about obba "motor city" carr ?

[LuKahnLi]

Not necessarily. Is there really that much of an abundance of Burley fights? The few that do exist are hard to find and rarely show the full fight. Does a handful of highlights really help evaluation that much? Yes, it is helpful, but not that much. Even if we did have a lot of footage of these early century fighters, it really wouldn't be too accurate. Many of them have missing frames, so the speed is distorted. I think Burely is just as much an "unknown commodity" as Burley is.

However, i do think that one can adequately assess a fighter, or more specifically, his body of work with in-depth research. Learning more about their opponents and reading fight descriptions can give a lot of insight on a fighter. Footage is important in deciphering a fighter's style, but you can see his greatness or accomplishments on paper.

And by looking at Langford's resume, you can see that not many boxers in the history of the sport have accomplished as much as he has. Fighting lightweights to heavyweights, he beat every viable opponent: Joe Gans, Jack Blackburn, Joe Jeannette, Jim Flynn, Stanley Ketchel, Sam McVea, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, Harry Wills, Kid Norfolk, Tiger Flowers, and list goes on. His body of work is simply astounding and possibly exceeds that of Greb and Robinson. And the fact that many of these fighters had a significant size advantage makes these accomplishments even more amazing.

No you are correct that is pretty damn good. I forgot about how many times he fought McVea and Wills. He didn't beat Ketchel. But the KO over Flowers makes up for that.....you could have something here...... I think you may have convinced me.

[Yogi]

He didn't beat Ketchel.

That's debatable since most of the out of town newspapers were split in their opinion on who got the better of things that fight (and most of those out of town newspapers wrote their reports going on hearsay).

With me, I tend to trust a newspaper account that came from the city in which the fight took place, and most of the Philly papers at the time thought Langford was better. For example here's the opening line in the April 28, 1910 edition of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and their opinion as to who won the fight;

"Sam Langford, of Boston, defeated Stanley Ketchel of Grand Rapids in a six round bout at the National Club last night"

And it is also well known that Langford wasn't giving his all in that fight against Ketchel (especially during the last couple of rounds, which some opinions say are the only ones Ketchel won after losing the first four), as he was hoping to get a future middleweight title shot sometime after that fight, and didn't show Stanley what he was fully capable of.

Obviously it's tough to prove what actually happened without seeing the fight for ourselves, but most first hand, eye witness accounts thought Langford got the better of things in that fight.

And yes, it's also my opinion that Sam Langford was the greatest fighter to never win a world title. Charley Burley was right up their as well, and he may have been the strong second choice for this distinction.

Some other greats who never won a world title; Jimmy Bivins, Billy Graham, Les Darcy, Jim Driscoll, Mike Gibbons, Tommy Gibbons, Peter Jackson, Joe Jeanette, Holman Williams, Lloyd Marshall, Packy McFarland, Harry Wills, Sam McVey, Billy Petrolle, and Lew Tendler.

[KJ]

what about obba "motor city" carr ?

Yeah good one.

[paulmmv]

I think Charley Burley as well

[jpboxer3]

Micky Ward

[blackbelt2003]

How about Herol Graham?

He walked onto a Julian Jackson right hand bomb when one punch away from stopping the champ.

And then he lost on a SPLIT decision to a prime Mike McCallum.


And then, aged 38, he dropped Charles Brewer twice before getting stopped in the 10th.



Black

[plexmc]

Charley Burley EASY

[Great]

Best fighter never to win a world title?

It`s me.

[Dude]

Sam Langford has to be the one. He fought and defeated the best the world had to over in any weightclass (he even gave a prime Jack Johnson something to think about with a huge weight disadvantage). He fought until he was 43 years old and blind and still won some of his last bouts. It just makes you feel bad when you think about this All Time Great who has never won a World Title and left the sport broke and blind.