THE PASSING OF LANGFORD.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 28 August 1917, Page 2

THE PASSING OF LANGFORD.

BLACK JACK’S ONE FEAR. NEW YORK, July 3. Admittedly always one of the best in bis line, but always shunned by black and white. Sam Langford, negro heavyweight, is through. He fought them all, Sam did. He never barred any of the heavyweights He lost fights, plenty of them, hut he won most of them. His defeat at the hands of Fred Fulton, Minnesota heavy, i s something no man has accomplished in a decisive fashion since he began wrecking hopes of near champions. Gunboat Smith once had an idea he had stopped the career of Langford as a prominent heavyweight when he outpointed the black demon in Boston 1913. He was so confident he went back for more and Sam ; stopped him.

Harry Wills defeated Langford in 1916, and in his very next fight Sam popped Wills on the chin and stopped him. Sam McVey and Joe Jeannette both have victories to their credit over Langford, but Langford has knocked out both these rivals.

Since Langford began boxing as a featherweight, his record runs down the list of great fighters in every division. He fought Joe Gang when Joe was a wizz, and he won in fifteen rounds. He outpointed young Griffo, the marvel. He stopped Willie Lewis ; fought a draw with Joe Wal-. cott, and lost to Jack Johnson before Johnson became champion. Jim Barry, now dead, was a persistent challenger of Langford, and Sam was always accomodating. He stopped Jim several times, and won many other vicories over him. Jeanette, Wills, and McVey appear many, many times in Langford’s and he holds the best of these clashes by a good margin. Langford was the only man Jack Johnson really feared when Johnson was chamipon. He was the only man Johnson refused consistently to have anything to do with. When Jim .Tefries was champion, Langford was little better than a middleweight, but he was fighting heavyweights even then. Langford challenged Johnson repeatedly. Many efforts were made to get Johnson to meet him, but Johnson paid the Boston tar-baby the compliment of always squirming away.