Sam Langford: The Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows

Sam Langford: The Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows 

By Simon Graham

The bell sounds for the 8th round, a stocky well chiselled black boxer walks to the centre of the ring and shakes his opponents’ hand, “what are you doing this isn’t the last round” says the confused opponent “It is for you” replied the Boston Tar Baby.

Sam Langford is considered by boxing historians to be one of the greatest ‘pound for pound’ fighters of all time, if this is true then how come most of us had never heard of him, including me. Intrigued by this enigma I made it my goal to get to know the man who was once side-stepped by the great Jack Johnson.

Langford was born March 4, 1883 Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia, Canada he stood 5ft 7in and weighed 185 lb.

Remarkably Langford fought various contenders throughout his career at lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight beating most of them however never once being named a champion at any of those weights, I shall let you take that in for a moment.

Langford fought during an era marred by the colour bar it remained in force even under Jack Johnson’s heavyweight rule. Once he was the world heavyweight champion, Johnson did not fight a black opponent for the first five years of his reign. In addition to Langford, matches were denied to black heavyweights Jeanette and to the young Harry Wills.

Langford fought a total 256 times winning 180 bouts with 128 coming by way of knock out a great record made even more impressive by the fact he was knocking out very good heavyweight contenders.

In 1922 toward the end of his career Langford fought and beat middleweight title contender Tiger Flowers with a second round KO he was partially blind. In 1923 he fought and won the Mexican heavyweight title, finally retiring in 1926. Lanford died aged 74 in 1956 at a private nursing home in Cambridge Massachusetts he was completely blind and penniless.

Not much is known about Langford personally, his fight footage is limited to a couple of restored fights on the web but one thing is certain he must have been one hell of a fighter. It saddens me to think that a man who achieved so much in the sport of boxing lived out his later years isolated from the world in darkness, however when I see pictures of him I imagine a happy-go-lucky man telling stories of his life in the ring, and that makes me smile.

So next time you’re in a debate about who the greatest boxer is ‘pound for pound’ remember to throw Sam Langford’s name into the hat, I’m sure he would appreciate it.

Langford’s career record is a reputed 178-29-39