Book review by Antonio Santiago - March 2010

Book Review: Clay Moyle’s “Sam Langford, Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion”
Painters look for their art to reflect the culture and times in which their work was created, and so do writers most of the time. People like Hemingway, Capote, Caroline Cooney, Rigoberta Menchu, Nat Fleischer, Octavio Paz and my late friend, Enrique Laguerre, use or used their pen and pencils in the same way that Van Gogh, Money and Da Vinci used their brushes. Add Clay Moyle to that list.
As a boxing fan, I actually did not know much about Sam Langford. I had seen photos of him in the old Spanish edition of Ring Magazine, “Ring en Espanol”, and had heard about this knockouts and tremendous power, but there was a time, when I was about 16, that I actually confused him with Sam Crawford, a White baseball great! In fact, for periods I wasn’t even sure whether they were the same or not. When time passed, I learned more about Langford and that he was a Black boxer, but those were the basics. That’s why I received the book “Sam Langford, Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion” (Bennett & Hastings, 2008, ISBN-10: 1934733024, ISBN-13: 978-1934733028) with great interest and curiousity.
To my surprise, Mr. Moyle is not a Black writer but a White writer who, like me, has a deepened interest in the history of boxing. With all due respect to Black writers who have taught us, non-Blacks as well as Black peoples, the essence of the struggle for equality and the achievements that the Black community has reached not just in the United States, but everywhere else where there is racism, I expected Moyle to be a Black writer, because of the period in which Sam Langford’s story developed.
Clay Moyle’s book is more than just a book about a fighter during an era in the history of boxing. This book is about society in Canada, England and the United States at the times, and it’s differences. It is about how a country began to change from times in which Blacks were not allowed to fight Whites for championships or anything else, to the current times when the American President, Barack Obama, is Black!
The most interesting ting about the book is the inside view into the personality of Sam Langford that it presents. Details about Sam, the man, that one cannot see when looking at his record. Moyle gives us Sam Langford as an uneducated but very wise man who knew how to pull strings when needed. Moyle also explores Langford’s observations of the cultural structure that surrounds him, such as the time, in England, when he pointed out that while in Europe he could walk on the same side of the street with the Whites, while in America, he would have had to move to the side in front of a person of said race.
It’s like reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr., only the books topic fought for equality in the ring with boxing gloves on, not for equality outside it with words and a suit.
There also lies the beauty of this production. It does not excuse the inexcusable. It does not paint over the bigotry of past American society against Blacks, one that unfortunately now, to a lesser extend, turning against Latinos. Clay Moyle gives us a masterpiece that reminds us of what it was like for the people who had to face horrible treatment and for the man who had to face not only that, but also fearsome rivals inside the ring, like Fireman Jim Flynn, Tiger Flowers, Harry Wills, Tom McMahon, Joe Jeannette, Sam McVea, and many others. The truth is that, if you thought Mike Tyson was great (and he is an all-time great in my opinion), these guys were all as good, or almost as good as Tyson. Imagine getting off the ring after facing one of these guys just to face what Moyle so picturesquely portrays!
Also, the book does not paint over the negative side of boxing, the promoters, corrupters and so on, who have always existed and to this day act the same trying to steal boxer’s earnings and dignity, and who were out to get Sam Langford’s as well during this period. What Moyle delivers is a gritty, honest look at the man and the time in which he fought.
Moyle also manages to take us, imaginatively speaking, to the countries in which Langford fought in the early 20th century, and the contrasts between the people living in those countries. While Australia, for example, has had a well documented history of racism against Aborigine people, Langford rather enjoyed his time there with his wife and daughter. Clay Moyle’s investigative skills and research, however, revealed that among other things, one of Langford’s fights there was cancelled because, of all things, the hospital it was to benefit (or rather the director of it), did not approve of boxing!
Tome, it was good to read the book also because as a boxing fan, Like I said, I knew of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, of the Puerto Rican Wilfredo’s, about Julio Ceasar Chavez, Evander Holyfield, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, etc., hell, I even read about the great Marcel Cerdan and saw some of his fights on ESPN Classic or some old footage! But even though I had heard about Langford and sen one iconic photo of him, I learned so much about him and how difficult it was for him to obtain fights at the time (and the infamous “color line”), that I feel honored to have receives this piece of art by Moyle. Someone once said that we cannot understand our future without understanding our past, or something like that, and even as I don’t consider myself American per se, as I am a Puerto Rican Nationalist, the book helped me better understand the trials, triumphs and evolution of Blacks in society and in the sport of boxing.
If you truly want to enjoy a boxing book that takes you beyond the ropes and into a history lesson, this is really the book for you. I highly recommend it, and hopefully, when a book is written about Laila Ali or Christy Martin and their struggle to popularize women’s boxing, Clay Moyle will be the person typing it.