Sam Langford

Samuel Edgar Langford (March 4, 1886 – January 12, 1956) was a Canadian professional boxer who competed from 1902 to 1926. Called the "Greatest Fighter Almost Nobody Knows" by ESPN, Langford is considered by many boxing historians to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. Originally from Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a teenager, and began his professional boxing career there in 1902. Langford was known as "the Boston Bonecrusher", "the Boston Terror", and, most famously, "the Boston Tar Baby". Langford stood 5 ft 6+1⁄2 in (1.69 m) and weighed 185 lb (84 kg) in his prime. He fought from lightweight to heavyweight and defeated many world champions and legends of the time in each weight class. Considered a devastating puncher even at heavyweight, The Ring rated Langford second on their list of the "100 greatest punchers of all time". One boxing historian described Langford as "experienced as a heavyweight James Toney with the punching power of Mike Tyson".

He was denied a shot at many World Championships due to the colour bar and the refusal of Jack Johnson, the first African-American World Heavyweight Champion, to fight him in a rematch. Langford was the World Colored Heavyweight Champion, a title vacated by Johnson after he won the World Championship, a record five times. 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. Many boxing aficionados consider Langford to be the greatest boxer not to have won a world title. On August 13, 2020, the WBC granted Langford an honorary world champion title. BoxRec ranks him as the 22nd greatest Canadian boxer of all time.