BoxRec

Dempsey was a physcial freak.

A 195 lb man with the upper body of a 220 lb man.

Damn it, for a minute I thought you brought back a great fighter from the dead to dominiate the Heavyweight division.

Did he lift weights? I thought fighters usally didn't lift weights or at least heavy weights. If he was around he would demolish every fighter in the heavyweight division.

ferocity wrote:Danm it, for a minute I thought you brought back a great fighter from the dead to dominiate the Heavyweight division.

Zombie Dempsey KO 1 Valuev.

Dempsey said in his autobiography that when he was a hobo he took work wherever he could get it but his favourite job was "mucking".
Which shoveling coal and rocks into big containers latched onto trains for hours until they were full.

Enough of that kind of work would probably build your upperbody.

DEC, Langford lifted weights? Where did you learn this? I have never seen any mention of Langford lifting weights. He swung wooden clubs or pins, but I have never seen anything about weights.

I can't recall ever reading about Langford using weights either. Also, "A Flame of Pure Fire" is probably the worst biography ever written about Dempsey, so I would not put much faith into anything that Kahn says in it!

ebeneezer wrote:Dempsey was a physcial freak.

A 195 lb man with the upper body of a 220 lb man.

he was only 185lb which makes it even more scary

I've never read about Langford weighing 125 pounds. The lowest weight that I have ever seen given for him is 139 pounds and as I have said before, I have read and have most accounts of his fights! Where did you read this?

Some of Dempsey's measurements in some of his fights seem like exaggerations due to the great variation in measurements. I don't see how his bicep measurements would have varied so much in size.

>>>No, this was before he started fighting professionally.<<<

Where did you read this at?

Some book...well that cuts it down to about 4000 possible sources! Being that there are not many books that would be that in-depth about Langford’s career it would seem like it would be a pretty memorable, or easy book to remember!

They have 18 newspaper excerpts on the website though only eight are from when Langford was actually fighting…the rest are writings from the 1930, 40s and 50s, which I noticed that one of those excerpts stated that Langford had 600 fights, which is just incorrect, but I’m sure several of those excerpts are just some of those tall-tales that I spoke about a couple of days ago. I’m sure there are more just like it on the site. Besides, where does it say that he weighed 125 pounds?

>>>That same year, at the early age of 15, he started on his professional boxing career, with Woodman as his manager. He trained hard, up at six every morning, running, chopping wood, lifting weights. boxing, boxing all the time. This exercise packed on twenty pounds of muscle, and at sixteen he weighed 140 at a height of 5'5''. From 16 to seventeen he was in 45 matches and he took them all except one, and that was lost by a close decision.<<<

That very same paragraph also stated that Langford started fighting professionally at the age of 15 and that he lost only one of his first 45 bouts all before he turned 18 years old…which that is all wrong, he turned pro at 19. You see, it is those types of inaccuracies that I was talking about when I say that several others and I work very hard to eliminate and correct. It is those types of inaccuracies that get handed down from person to person as fact and until someone actually does the research and quits depending on things of that nature, then those kinds of inaccuracies will continue!

The article also states that Langford faced Jeannette when he was 19, but he was either 21 or 22 when that happened.

Probably worst of all about that article, it states that Langford held his own with Jack Johnson when in fact Johnson gave him as sound a beating as he ever received…and it also states that Langford put Johnson down for a six count which is incorrect. Not to mention that the writer stated that it was Langford and Johnson who at the time were the two top heavyweight contenders for Tommy Burn’s crown, but it would be a couple more years before Langford would be the top heavyweight contender.

Most of the articles that you see on the internet are only half true and you have to take what you read with a lot of skepticism as a lot is just incorrect...that is unless it is from a reliable source!

I have read Roger Kahn's A FLAME OF PURE FIRE, a biography
on Jack Dempsey and found that it is obvious that Kahn looked
at very few primary sources of information on Dempsey. As so
I agree that one should take the said biography's accuracy with
a grain of salt.

- Chuck Johnston

Langford had just celebrated his 17th birthday when he made his pro debut in April of 1902. He was described as a lightweight, but no weights were given for either man. Langford, IMO, and from what I have studied and researched on the man, never lifted weights.

So his birthday of March 4, 1883 is incorrect?

barry wrote:So his birthday of March 4, 1883 is incorrect?

a guy actually told me once told me langford was really born in 1886, and not 1883. but that was the only time i heard that, so i dont know how true that is. until theres absolute evidence, i believe langford was born in 1883.

I have census reports and other goverment documents that certify Langford's birth date as March 4, 1885. The 1883 date is incorrect.

Thanks for the update as I had the 1883 date in my record of Langford.

Barry, great info. I thought and have heard the Langford didn't fight J.Johnson and that Johnson dodged Langford. Now i've also heard that Langford fought Johnson and was robbed. So now for the record Johnson did fight Langford and beat him convinsingly?

He did beat Langford in convincing fashion. Now whether Johnson was ducking him is another matter because Langford sure tried like hell to get another fight and followed Johnson around the world, but it was never doing. RowanSmith is a lot more qualified than I am to speak about the Langford-Johnson situation, which someone could probably write a book just on the Langford-Johnson feud/rivalry alone as it lasted for years.

Clay Moyle has written a book about Langford which he is now looking for a publisher, but it should be a very good book and of course I mentioned elsewhere that RowanSmith will have another volume on his series about early African-American fighters out very soon, which will also be very good. Both books will be must haves for anyone interested in the era, the fighters, or just a fan of boxing history!

Thanks, will be looking for those books.

where can i find vidoes on jack dempsey ?

Are there any documents I could find which might vouch for the 1885 date as being Langford's true date of birth?