Langford or Burley? Whose legacy is greater?

As in the title - either by picking from a p4p head to head match, or in terms of overall legacy - who do you rate higher - Sam or Charley?

Both great fighters and by all accounts great men - but whose legacy is stronger?

Apologies if this is a bit brief - but I'm procrastinating and shouldn't be.

Pains me to admit it Oxy but am going to have to plump for Langford, Burley was a terrific fighter but if you look at his form in against natrual light heavies it is pretty patchy albeit in terrific company, if we take Sam's form at heavy, which for a guy of 5ft 7 and 170 pounds he really had no business being in and in his peak years it is nothing short of outstanding, winning records with the likes of Jeannette and Mcvea, only Wills can claim to have the wood on him and so many of their fights happened when Sam was on the slide to suggest they matched up a lot closer than the record suggested.

Add into that sterling performances against Gans, Walcott as little more than a novice and even I cannot make the argument for Burley having the stronger legacy.

I'd go with Langford.

Leaving aside the numerous very good ' fringe ' fighters whom he beat, ( men like Big Bill Tate and Bill Lang, ) he also has some truly illustrious names on his record, such as Joe Gans, Harry Wills, Kid Norfolk, George Godfrey, "Philadelphia" Jack O'Brien, Joe Jeannette, Sam McVea, Ed "Gunboat" Smith, Jack Blackburn, Dixie Kid, "Fireman" Jim Flynn, John Lester Johnson and "Tiger" Flowers.

Factor in that he was often the significantly smaller man, the fact that from 1917 onward he was fighting with one blind eye, and the fact that Jack Johnson, ( whether we believe that Johnson would have beaten Sam or not, ) shamelessly ducked him as too high a risk to entertain, and his is a resumé which is very difficult to beat.

Langford by a distance for me. I think there is a tendancy to overcredit Burley a little bit to compensate for the opportunities he missed out on and a sense of what might have been. Langford would rank alot higher in my view.

Can't disagree.

However - here's James Slater on eastside with his p4p top 10 - and there's space for Burley but not Langford. http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=30365&more=1

Why does Sam get forgotten so often by so many knowledgeable fight fans? Slater is probably the best hack on eastside...

Even I fall short of having Burley in the top ten, particularly when there is no room for Greb, given he fought and beat guys everywhere from middle to heavy surely he is the dictionary definition of a P4Per.

oxring wrote:Can't disagree.

However - here's James Slater on eastside with his p4p top 10 - and there's space for Burley but not Langford. http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=30365&more=1

Why does Sam get forgotten so often by so many knowledgeable fight fans? Slater is probably the best hack on eastside...

Id say because he was so long ago, very difficult to rank divisionally and never won a world title.

Probably right Manos does appear he has drawn a line somewhere date wise because very unusual to see such a list without at least one of Greb, Sam or Fitz

manos de piedra wrote:

oxring wrote:Can't disagree.

However - here's James Slater on eastside with his p4p top 10 - and there's space for Burley but not Langford. http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=30365&more=1

Why does Sam get forgotten so often by so many knowledgeable fight fans? Slater is probably the best hack on eastside...

Id say because he was so long ago, very difficult to rank divisionally and never won a world title.

All of which could be said to apply to Charley as well of course Manos. Do we rank Burley divisionally as a MW - where most of his fights occurred? As a LMW - where he would likely have fought in today's world or as a WW - where he believed he belonged?

The same with Fitz. Do we rank Fitz as a MW, which he was, even though he spent little time there - or as a LHW/HW - where the majority of his fighting career was spent.

rowley wrote:Probably right Manos does appear he has drawn a line somewhere date wise because very unusual to see such a list without at least one of Greb, Sam or Fitz

Can't have ruled out Greb due to the era he fought in - Benny Leonard is in there. Would be interesting to know why Greb didn't make the cut.

Excellent point Superfly, makes his exclusion even more mystifying.

oxring wrote:

manos de piedra wrote:

oxring wrote:Can't disagree.

However - here's James Slater on eastside with his p4p top 10 - and there's space for Burley but not Langford. http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=30365&more=1

Why does Sam get forgotten so often by so many knowledgeable fight fans? Slater is probably the best hack on eastside...

Id say because he was so long ago, very difficult to rank divisionally and never won a world title.

All of which could be said to apply to Charley as well of course Manos. Do we rank Burley divisionally as a MW - where most of his fights occurred? As a LMW - where he would likely have fought in today's world or as a WW - where he believed he belonged?

The same with Fitz. Do we rank Fitz as a MW, which he was, even though he spent little time there - or as a LHW/HW - where the majority of his fighting career was spent.

I would say Burley gets forgotten about, or at least as unrecognised as much if not more than Langford does though outside of boxing fans with interest in history.

I rate Burley as middleweight primarily as thats where the guts of his fights were at. He can be rated at welterweight too of course but his acheivements less significant there so he would feature higher in middleweight lists.

I dont really get to caught up on ranking fighters overall though as the weights have changed and evolved over time so it doesnt mean a great deal to me. Greb is rated at middleweight mainly but susrprsingly few of his top wins actually came within that limit so in a strict sense he would be spread over two divisions at least. The weights have become more stringent and quantifiable as the sport has gone on but Ive never really held any kind of obsession with trying to place fighters in lists as I see it as being kind of impossible to do accurately and pretty much arbitary at the end of the day.

I'd go with the general consensus on here and go for Langford in a pound for pound sense. Do think its a fairly decisive decision in favour of the Langford considering his resume and the fac that he competed with so many great who had so many advantages over him sizewise as he moved through the weights. Think manos' reasoning is basically where I'm coming from, because as good a fighter as Burley was I don't think he's one of the (very few) fighters with a record to equal Sam.

I'd agree that Langford's opposition ranging from Gans and Walcott to Johnson and Wills puts him ahead of Burley in the "legacy" stakes.

However judging from the little footage available and everything said of the two, along with their records, I think Burley was probably the superior and more rounded boxer.

I guess that one of the issues affecting the status of both Langford and Burley is that they were denied their one true defining fight - Burley against Robinson and Langford against Johnson (when Johnson was champion).

Had those fights taken place then it might be easier to place them pound for pound. Certainly, in the case of Langford, if he had fought and beat Johnson then I doubt many would be leaving him out of their top 10.

I think Burley faced the far stronger opposition where he faced great fighters between Welterweight and Light Heavyweight, the edge would still have to go Langford for world class victories ranging from lightweight to heavyweight but don't think there's much in it. As fighters would certainly take Charles, Moore, Williams, Marshall and the like over Jeanette, McVea, Godfrey and Wills.

Imperial Ghosty wrote: As fighters would certainly take Charles, Moore, Williams, Marshall and the like over Jeanette, McVea, Godfrey and Wills.

Would probably agree Ghosty but you also have to chuck the likes of Gans, Walcott and Ketchel into there, two of those guys have decent claims to be in their top five in their respective divisions and Sam more than held his own with both one whilst little more than a kid.

Part of the difficulty with Langford really is establishing what years to evaluate him on. Hes still scoring decent wins well into his 30s but he is obviously getting old with eye injuries and fighting naturally much larger men. His weights fluctuate so much is also very difficult to ascertain his optimim weight. For a 5'6 guy he should never really be over 175 pounds in terms of staying athletic yet theres reports for him turning up to some fights like a bit of tub flirting around 200lb mark which is ridiculous (he still seems to do well mind you). So its difficult to to know how much allowances to make for weight, condition, age etc

I remember doing a summary a while back of his record when I was thinking about the top all time heavyweights, and I evaluated him between 1903-1920 )aged 20-37 roughly). His record against the very top guys was 22-16-15 agianst Jeanatte, McVea, Wills, Young Peter Jackson, Ketchell, Gans, Walcott across a large number of weights which is impressive. But even those stats are somewhat misleading due to the terribly one sided series with Wills.

Its easy enough to treat Langford, McVea and Jeanette as a trio, albeit Langford being the naturally smaller man considerably. They were all similarly aged, around the same time and retired same time. Langords combined record against them was (1903-1920): 14-4-11. So he emerges as the best of those trio. You can also add a draw with Walcott and wins over Gans and Ketchell in there (albeit a 6 rounder with Ketchell somewhat takes some gloss off it).

Wills is the tricky one because he emerges when Langord is ageing and at the back end of a long hard career. His record against Wills in that period is 2-2-11. So its mightily one sided. But how much significance do you attach to it? Wills was coming into his prime, a full blooded plus 200lb heavyweight. Langford was a podgy, ageing, injury impacted fighter. It would be easy enough to dismiss these fights as being a case of Langford shot but hes still scoring good wins over other credible opposition including rivals McVea and Jeanatte at this time. So while its fair to say Wills came along when that trio were on the wane, its difficult to know exactly much to credit that for.

Manos, in his biography of Langford Clay Moyle outlines Sam'sa bsolute peak years as being between 1907 and 1912 if memory serves and I think during this period his record is something like only two losses in 51 outings, both of which were avenged, one on multiple occasions. Think he was mixing in pretty decent company throughout that period so does give some indication of the fighter Sam was when at his peak.

What is also interesting was during this period there were serious and concerted efforts to make a fight with Johnson so motivation was obviously not an issue, does seem to have been something of a correlation between the drop in Sam's form and the chances of him ever securing the Johnson fight fading, and a noticable drop when Willard took the title, although obviously age and miles on the clock then cannot be overlooked.

rowley wrote:Manos, in his biography of Langford Clay Moyle outlines Sam'sa bsolute peak years as being between 1907 and 1912 if memory serves and I think during this period his record is something like only two losses in 51 outings, both of which were avenged, one on multiple occasions. Think he was mixing in pretty decent company throughout that period so does give some indication of the fighter Sam was when at his peak.

What is also interesting was during this period there were serious and concerted efforts to make a fight with Johnson so motivation was obviously not an issue, does seem to have been something of a correlation between the drop in Sam's form and the chances of him ever securing the Johnson fight fading, and a noticable drop when Willard took the title, although obviously age and miles on the clock then cannot be overlooked.

I would agree with that, but the problem is do you evaluate him on those years alone? Or when do you draw the line. Hes still scoring big wins long past that period (including his only wins over Wills) so at what point do you stop on the basis he is past it? Its difficult to know.

rowley wrote:

Imperial Ghosty wrote: As fighters would certainly take Charles, Moore, Williams, Marshall and the like over Jeanette, McVea, Godfrey and Wills.

Would probably agree Ghosty but you also have to chuck the likes of Gans, Walcott and Ketchel into there, two of those guys have decent claims to be in their top five in their respective divisions and Sam more than held his own with both one whilst little more than a kid.

He's a tricky one really Jeff, I always feel more confident assessing the greatness of Fitzsimmons than I do Langford. Without Gans and Walcott his exploits at heavyweight don't look quite so good but they were in reality smaller men than him, his fights with Wills are for me the basis of rating him at heavyweight more so than Jeannette, McVea and Godfrey. I know what I mean in my head but difficult to translate it into a comprehensible sentence.