The first three fights were draws, the fourth a decision win for Langford, the fifth another draw and the sixth a no contest.Īlthough Langford is often credited as the greatest fighter to never challenge for a world title, he fought World Welterweight Champion Barbados Joe Walcott on September 5, 1904, for his title. He fought Jack Blackburn, trainer of the legendary Joe Louis, six times. Langford considered Gans the pound-for-pound greatest fighter of all time. Gans' title was not on the line, however. Langford defeated World Lightweight Champion Joe Gans on December 8, 1903, via a 15-round decision. Langford's most memorable fights were his numerous encounters against fellow black boxers Sam McVey, Battling Jim Johnson, Joe Jeanette and Harry Wills, who all experienced similar barriers in their fighting careers. Jack Johnson, the first African American, world heavyweight champion, defeated Langford but refused to offer him a rematch, circa 1910–1915 JSTOR ( July 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. According to Dempsey: "I think Sam Langford was the greatest fighter we ever had." Significant fights Renowned champion Jack Dempsey claimed that as a young boxer in 1916 he refused a fight with Langford. Despite the fact, Langford never received a chance to fight for Jack Johnson's heavyweight title, Ring magazine founder Nat Fleischer rated Langford as one of the ten best heavyweights of all time. However, he was never able to secure a world title for himself. Langford was a boxer who fought greats from the lightweight division right up to the heavyweights, beating many champions in the process. He won the amateur featherweight championship of Boston at age 15.
Not long after he started working he was sparring and improving his own boxing skills. He made his way to Boston where he eventually found work as a janitor in a boxing gymnasium at the Lenox Athletic Club. Langford left home as a youth to escape an abusive father. Early life īorn in Nova Scotia, his grandfather was a former slave from the USA who helped settle Weymouth Falls. BoxRec ranks him as the 22nd greatest Canadian boxer of all time. On August 13, 2020, the WBC granted Langford to be an honorary world champion. Many boxing aficionados consider Langford to be the greatest boxer not to have won a world title. Alongside this, Langford also defeated the reigning Lightweight Champion Joe Gans, the first African-American World Champion in boxing history and widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, in a non-title bout. Langford was the World Colored Heavyweight Champion, a title vacated by Johnson after he won the World Championship, a record five times. He was denied a shot at many World Championships, due to the colour bar and by the refusal of Jack Johnson, the first African-American World Heavyweight Champion, to fight him in a rematch. One boxing historian described Langford as "experienced as a heavyweight James Toney with the punching power of Mike Tyson". Considered a devastating puncher even at heavyweight, Langford was rated No. 2 by The Ring on their list of "100 greatest punchers of all time". He fought from lightweight to heavyweight and defeated many world champions and legends of the time in each weight class. Langford stood 5 ft 6 + 1⁄ 2 in (1.69 m) and weighed 185 lb (84 kg) in his prime. Originally from Weymouth Falls, a small community in Nova Scotia, he was known as "The Boston Bonecrusher", "The Boston Terror", and his most famous nickname, "The Boston Tar Baby". Called the "Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows", by ESPN, Langford is considered by many boxing historians to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. Samuel Edgar Langford (Ma– January 12, 1956), known as the Boston Tar Baby, Boston Terror and Boston Bonecrusher, was a Black Canadian boxing standout of the early part of the 20th century. 314 with the inclusion of newspaper decisions
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