Dublin Herald - Sept. 20, 2008 by Pat Myler
BOXING COLOUR BAR CRUELY DENIED LANGFORD HIS JUST REWARD
NOWHERE in the long list of world champions will you find the name of Sam Langford -- and that's nothing short of criminal.
The title of Clay Moyle's long overdue biography, Sam Langford: Boxing's Greatest Uncrowned Champion, says it all.
If justice had been done, the Boston Tar Baby would have won a world title at any weight from lightweight to heavyweight, probably several, but he never got the chance.
One of Sam's problems was that he was a black man in an era of blatant racism in boxing. The other was that he was too good.
He beat lightweight king, Joe Gans, held welterweight champion Joe Walcott to a draw, and took heavyweight legend Jack Johnson the distance in a hard-fought 15 rounder, but they were all non-title fights.
So prevalent was the 'colour-bar that gifted black fighters like himself, Sam McVea, Joe Jeannette and Harry Wills were forced to fight each other over and over again in order to stay active.
The great Jack Dempsey admitted: "There was one man, smaller than me, I wouldn't fight because I knew he would flatten me. I was afraid of Sam Langford."
In a career spanning 23 years, the only title Langford managed to acquire was the relatively meaningless heavyweight championship of Mexico, and by then he was heading for 40 and nearly blind.
American Moyle, a dedicated and respected historian, has done the sport a genuine service with his thoroughly researched, loving written account of a remarkable man and fighter. To find out how to purchase a copy ($35 including postage (to the U.K.) check it out at www.samlangford.com
Monday, September 22, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Price break on international orders
As of September 8th, international orders placed on www.samlangford.com will receive a price break on shipping. Int'l shipping charges for orders placed on that website will now only cost $5.05, bringing the total purchase cost to $35.00. This applies only to orders placed via that website.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Review from September 2008 issue of 'Boxing Monthly':
"Boxing Monthly – September 2008
Reviews by John Exshaw
Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion by Clay Moyle, Bennett & Hastings Publishing
More than a bit-part player. Langford was feared and avoided by the leading fighters of his day, including the legendary Johnson. B
In 1917, when heavyweight prospect Fred Fulton found himself matched with an ageing but still dangerous Sam Langford, he sensibly decided to seek advice on how best to defeat the legendary “Boston Tar Baby” from Harry Wills, a fighter who had suffered a couple of early-career losses to Langford but who was no winning their bouts on a regular basis. “The best way,” Wills informed him, “is to take a club and when he ain’t looking just bust him on the head, and when he turns around with ever so much surprise, just bust him again and knock him dead.” “And then?” enquired Fulton. “Nothing,” replied Wills, “only don’t miss the second shot.”
While this may not have been quite the advice Fulton was hoping for, it nicely illustrates the high regard in which the murderous-punching Langford was held by his peers, among whom he seems to have been both liked and feared in equal measure. Long recognized as one of the great fighters, Langford has finally received his literary due in Clay Moyle’s admirable biography, Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion (Bennett & Hastings Publishing, $29.95), which not only succeeds in recounting Langford’s remarkable ring exploits, but also in rescuing him from his recent position as little more than an extra in the Jack Johnson story.
Over the years, of course, one has learned to be wary of accepting at face value claims of supherhuman powers supposedly possessed by fighters in the early days of gloved boxing, claims that often seem to have more to do with myth-making and nostalgia than with any notion of objectivity, to say nothing of possibility. In Langford’s case, however, the evidence is persuasive, not least because so much of it is based on the testimony of his opponents and fellow professionals, rather than that of contemporary newspaper reporters more interested in fiction than fact.
As for his record, it too speaks for itself. In 1903, 20 months after turning professional, Langford decisioned world lightweight champion, Joe Gans, in a non-title bout, and the following year, was considered unlucky when his bout against welterweight champion, Joe Walcott, was ruled a draw. In 1909 and 1910, he twice stopped Walcott’s successor, the “Dixie Kid”, in addition to boxing a no-decision draw with middleweight champ, Stanley Ketchel. At the same time, Langford, who stood only 5 ft 6 ½ inches in height and whose best fighting weight was about 12 stone, also turned his attention to the heavy mob, regularly flattening opponents who outweighed him by as much as two stone. Not for nothing did Jack Johnson remark that “Sam Langford was the toughest little son of a bitch that ever lived.”
Much as been made of the fact that Langford, Joe Jeannette, Sam McVea, (and, later, Harry Wills) were forced into endless round-robin of match-ups between themselves due to the unwillingness – based on either fear, prejudice, or both – of white fighters to face them, but Mr. Moyle’s research reveals a rather more complex picture. After all, it was Jack Johnson himself who denied Langford & Co. a shot at the title, while, with regard to the “white hopes”, there seems nothing particularly remarkable in the fact that then, as now, managers would choose to protect their charges in the hope of a lucrative title shot. Not that there was any doubt in people’s minds about the outcome of any such bouts; as James J. Jeffries put it, “How long do you suppose these fellows would last with Sam Langford? Why, he would just name the round he would knock them out in.” Attempts, particularly by the Australian promoter, Hugh D. McIntosh, to make a Johnson-Langford match, were continually rejected by Johnson who, as Joe Jeannette observed, “beat Sam once, when Sam was only a middleweight, but…wouldn’t have anything to do with him when Sam got bigger and better.”
And so Langford was doomed to engage in a never-ending dance with the same partners (including the suicidally brave – or stupid – white heavyweight, Jim Barry, who, despite 11 beatings from Langford, never stopped trying) until he could dance no more. Though blind and broke, Langford continued to be held in high esteem, living quietly but seemingly contentedly until 1958. Sam Langford, which contains 98 photographs and a ring record, is, it needs hardly be said, an essential requirement for any self-respecting pugilist-specialist-reader, and can be ordered through amazon.com or from www.prizefightingbooks.com. A revised edition, including an index (and hopefully with better punctuation), is apparently in the offing.” (NOTE: The book already includes an index)
"Boxing Monthly – September 2008
Reviews by John Exshaw
Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion by Clay Moyle, Bennett & Hastings Publishing
More than a bit-part player. Langford was feared and avoided by the leading fighters of his day, including the legendary Johnson. B
In 1917, when heavyweight prospect Fred Fulton found himself matched with an ageing but still dangerous Sam Langford, he sensibly decided to seek advice on how best to defeat the legendary “Boston Tar Baby” from Harry Wills, a fighter who had suffered a couple of early-career losses to Langford but who was no winning their bouts on a regular basis. “The best way,” Wills informed him, “is to take a club and when he ain’t looking just bust him on the head, and when he turns around with ever so much surprise, just bust him again and knock him dead.” “And then?” enquired Fulton. “Nothing,” replied Wills, “only don’t miss the second shot.”
While this may not have been quite the advice Fulton was hoping for, it nicely illustrates the high regard in which the murderous-punching Langford was held by his peers, among whom he seems to have been both liked and feared in equal measure. Long recognized as one of the great fighters, Langford has finally received his literary due in Clay Moyle’s admirable biography, Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion (Bennett & Hastings Publishing, $29.95), which not only succeeds in recounting Langford’s remarkable ring exploits, but also in rescuing him from his recent position as little more than an extra in the Jack Johnson story.
Over the years, of course, one has learned to be wary of accepting at face value claims of supherhuman powers supposedly possessed by fighters in the early days of gloved boxing, claims that often seem to have more to do with myth-making and nostalgia than with any notion of objectivity, to say nothing of possibility. In Langford’s case, however, the evidence is persuasive, not least because so much of it is based on the testimony of his opponents and fellow professionals, rather than that of contemporary newspaper reporters more interested in fiction than fact.
As for his record, it too speaks for itself. In 1903, 20 months after turning professional, Langford decisioned world lightweight champion, Joe Gans, in a non-title bout, and the following year, was considered unlucky when his bout against welterweight champion, Joe Walcott, was ruled a draw. In 1909 and 1910, he twice stopped Walcott’s successor, the “Dixie Kid”, in addition to boxing a no-decision draw with middleweight champ, Stanley Ketchel. At the same time, Langford, who stood only 5 ft 6 ½ inches in height and whose best fighting weight was about 12 stone, also turned his attention to the heavy mob, regularly flattening opponents who outweighed him by as much as two stone. Not for nothing did Jack Johnson remark that “Sam Langford was the toughest little son of a bitch that ever lived.”
Much as been made of the fact that Langford, Joe Jeannette, Sam McVea, (and, later, Harry Wills) were forced into endless round-robin of match-ups between themselves due to the unwillingness – based on either fear, prejudice, or both – of white fighters to face them, but Mr. Moyle’s research reveals a rather more complex picture. After all, it was Jack Johnson himself who denied Langford & Co. a shot at the title, while, with regard to the “white hopes”, there seems nothing particularly remarkable in the fact that then, as now, managers would choose to protect their charges in the hope of a lucrative title shot. Not that there was any doubt in people’s minds about the outcome of any such bouts; as James J. Jeffries put it, “How long do you suppose these fellows would last with Sam Langford? Why, he would just name the round he would knock them out in.” Attempts, particularly by the Australian promoter, Hugh D. McIntosh, to make a Johnson-Langford match, were continually rejected by Johnson who, as Joe Jeannette observed, “beat Sam once, when Sam was only a middleweight, but…wouldn’t have anything to do with him when Sam got bigger and better.”
And so Langford was doomed to engage in a never-ending dance with the same partners (including the suicidally brave – or stupid – white heavyweight, Jim Barry, who, despite 11 beatings from Langford, never stopped trying) until he could dance no more. Though blind and broke, Langford continued to be held in high esteem, living quietly but seemingly contentedly until 1958. Sam Langford, which contains 98 photographs and a ring record, is, it needs hardly be said, an essential requirement for any self-respecting pugilist-specialist-reader, and can be ordered through amazon.com or from www.prizefightingbooks.com. A revised edition, including an index (and hopefully with better punctuation), is apparently in the offing.” (NOTE: The book already includes an index)
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