Young Griffo

Jem Mace was the greatest London Prize Ring, LPR, heavyweight champion. He was a student of the sweet science one hundred and fifty years ago, and a scientific boxer in his own right. Today Mace is known as the “Father of Modern Boxing”. He probably had the greatest influence upon boxing during the pre-1900 era.

After retiring in 1873 Jem Mace became a teacher of boxing and opened his first school inEngland. He taught using gloves, which was an innovation. Mace stressed science in attack and defense. Mace also taught “clean, sharpe, hitting” and scientific punch selection and targeting. In particular, he developed striking under the heart with a “half arm punch” that would later be known as a left hook to the solar plexus.

Mace traveled all overNorth America teaching and demonstrating boxing with gloves. He taught “Gentleman” Jim Corbett, who was a bank clerk at the time, the finer points while staying in San Francisco before he immigrated to Australia. There he was responsible for the great champions who came roaring out of Australia in the 1890’s through his student Larry Foley. Foley trained Bob Fitzsimmons, the man who defeated Corbett with a left hook to the body, to be the next heavyweight champion. He taught Peter Jackson, the great black fighter Sullivan refused to fight, and Frank Slavin, the man Sullivan did fight and defeat.

But Foley’s very first champion was a featherweight named Albert Griffiths, better known as Young Griffo. He was the size of a modern super-bantamweight, 5’4”, 121 lbs., but he fought at every weight class from 122-145. Young Griffo’s is an extraordinary boxing tale from the era of the birth of the modern sport.

In 1928 Nat Fleisher of The Ring magazine wrote a book titled “Young Griffo: the will o’wisp of the roped square”. Fleisher considered Griffo one of the greatest he ever saw in over fifty years of watching fights and fighters. His abilities to feint, move his head, and not get hit were unparalleled. When Willie Pep came along in the 1940′s with his amazing bag of tricks, Nat Fleisher said he reminded him of Young Griffo and he named him “Will O the Wisp.” The original, Albert Griffiths, has always fascinated me at least as much as Gugliermo Papaleo.

Albert Griffiths won the world featherweight title September 2, 1890 in Sydney Australia by defeating “Torpedo” Billy Murphy over 15 rounds. This 122-126lbs title was recognized in Britain and Australia. He was the first Australian to win a world title. At the time of that fight Griffithswas 38-0-15 and he weighed 121.

Like Billy Murphy, New Zealand Lightweight Champ [pre 1905 rules], before him and the other great fighters to come out of Australia and New Zealand after him, Griffiths came to America in 1893 to pursue his boxing career. At this point Griffiths’ record in Australia was 46-0-18 and he was just getting started.

Before he finally stopped fighting in 1904 Albert Griffiths had 236 fights and boxed 1665 professional rounds! Griffo won 70, lost 9 [KO 4] and had 44 draws in fights of record. As he got older he got hit more often and the four KO’s came in the last four years that he fought. Wild partying and exuberant risk-taking became hallmarks of Griffo’s behavior; sometimes he mixed the two. He was disqualified twice for turning up drunk on fight night and was just a general raconteur.

Meanwhile Griffo went 20 rounds or more with Hall of Fame bantam and featherweight world champion George Dixon on more than one occasion. These fights must have been something to see for the knowledgeable fight fan, at 20 to 25 rounds, over an hour each time watching two masters of defense, angulation, tactics. He also had several fights with another all time great lightweight, Joe Gans, the “old master.”

On August 27, 1894, while weighing in at 133 pounds,Griffiths went 10 rounds at the Seaside A.C. in Brooklyn with former lightweight champion Jack McAuliffe who weighed 145 that night. There is no substitute for experience in boxing and Griffo gained tremendous experience with the greats of his time. This was a time when all around skill was more appreciated by fight fans and displayed by fighters than it is today.

Young Griffo was a spoiler, like Harry Greb twenty five years later, on good nights he made superior punchers look bad. He was phenomenal with his head movement, slipping punches, feinting, blocking and returning rapid combinations. With a 14.18 % KO ratio he was in company with other fighters who were very difficult to hit but had little knock out power, like Memphis “Pal” Moore or Willie Pep.

“Young Griffo was not known as much of a puncher, but his skill was uncanny. He had wonderful headwork, almost impenetrable defense, dazzling feints, and rapid two-handed methods of attack. The cleverest boxers and hardest punchers were made to look ridiculous when exchanging swats with him.”
March 6, 1916 Tacoma Daily News

He fought many more exhibitions and no decision fights than his record indicates, but it is what he did as a vaudeville act after his fight career was finished that got him into trouble. Young Griffo’s act consisted of this; he used to take a handkerchief, put it on the ground, and put his left foot on it. Then holding his hands at his side he would bet you that you could not hit him though his foot would never leave that handkerchief. He traveled across the country doing this night after night at fairs and in vaudeville halls. At his peak no one could touch him up, but as he got older he got hit more and more often. But Young Griffo’s defensive talents were never forgotten by the old timers who continued to talk and write about him more than twenty years after he retired from boxing, largely because of his demonstrations of skill on stage.

In the later years of his life Griffiths sat on the steps of the Rialto Theatre in Times Square and begged for money. He had become the archetypal “punchy” alcoholic ex-fighter. But not just any fighter, he had been one of the greatest of his era. The Morning Bulletin December 9, 1927 of Rockhampton Australia noted his passing in New York City at age 56, adding that he was destitute. Young Griffo was hailed as a hero by then mayor Jimmy Walker, and he was buried in a plot contributed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard. Many old boxers attended the funeral.

Sam Langford

By Wilson Pitts

In the gym I grew up around I often heard the stories of the injustices done to black fighters of the past, and especially stories of Holly Mims, who several of the old fighters in the gym had known personally, and Charley Burley. As a result of those stories, I have a long standing interest in fighters with outstanding records who were never given a title shot. Many of these men were black and discriminated against in America and egregious examples can be found  through the 1970’s.

The prototype for Charley Burley, among other lost legends we will talk about some other time,in the 1930’s and 40's right on through Georgie Benton and Holly Mims in the 1960’s was from the turn of the century, the other century, 1900. His name was Sam Langford and he might have been the best all around boxer of all time.

                                                                            Sam Langford

Sam Langford was born March 4, 1883 in Nova Scotia. At age ten he ran away and worked at a logging camp. When he was a teenager he landed a job as a laborer at a brickyard in Cambridge Mass. In this way, through hard work, his amazing physique was developed early.

While still a kid he defeated the “Champion of Cambridge Street.” Eventually he got a job as a janitor at a boxing gym owned by Joe Woodman. Woodman let Langford join his amateur program and Sam learned to be a good amateur boxer. Woodman began to realize Langford’s potential and turned him pro in April of 1902 at the Lenox AC in Boston where he won via KO in 5 rounds.

This was the beginning of an amazing twentyfive year career in which Langford fought successfully in every weight category from welterweight to heavyweight. He fought an astounding 2,548 professional rounds over a 316 fight career. He had severe eye injuries that later caused blindness and he fought any number of fights and exhibitions after he had been injured and was greatly diminished.

Because of racial discrimination against black fighters, especially ones that were great athletes, or tended to win, Langford was forced to fight men who weighed 30 and 40 pounds more than he did, to fight 61 no decision fights and to take fixed fights. He was denied a shot at any recognized title, however, it was a black man, Jack Johnson, who refused to meet him for the heavyweight title.That was because of a fight they had four years before Jack Johnson won the title in 1910.

In 1906 Langford was 5' 61/2” and weighed 156 pounds with a reach of 72 inches. He had a record of 32-4-15. He could also be compared to Mike Tyson and Dwight Braxton from 80 years later! Short, hard to hit, big power with the upper body of a much larger man. On April 26 of that year, in a unscheduled fight on a night when Johnson had planned to fight two three round exhibitions with whoever showed up, two of the greatest athletes of the early 1900’s met by chance and went 15 rounds for a non existent title.

 Jack Johnson, known as "Lil Aurthur," was 6' 1 ½” and weighed 185 and had a 74 inch reach. His record was 25-5-5. He declared himself world “colored” heavyweight champion after beating Denver Ed Martin in 1903. The white heavyweight champions had refused to meet black challengers since John L. Sullivan twenty five years earlier. On several occasions, largely because there were so few heavyweights willing to meet him, Johnson had fought 3 round bouts against two different opponents in one night.

This was supposed to be one of those exhibitions in Chelsea that night, but the only fighter who showed up willing to go with Johnson was middleweight Sam Langford. Johnson stipulated that Langford had to bet $250 to Johnson’s $500 in a side bet that Langford could not stay the distance. Langford got backing from locals who clearly believed in him despite the huge size difference between the men. That $250 would be like a $10,000 dollar side bet today.

These men had amazing physiques for that era. They were much more muscular with lower body fat than heavyweights would be for another thirty years, until Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott came along in the mid-thirties. You really have to look to the post war era black fighters in the 1950’s and 60’s to next see the morphology and conditioning that Jack Johnson and Sam Langford displayed in the early 1900’s.

As the fight started Langford fought cautiously but was knocked down in the 6^th round. For most of those early rounds Johnson had a hard time finding Langford. Johnson was content to use his defense and smothering tactics to keep the smaller man from getting off. He was playing a waiting game.

In the 10^th round Johnson started clinching and leaning on Langford and tried to rough him up. He used his size and upper body strength and slung him around the ring. The referee broke it up. Langford was heard to exclaim “Boy, that has got to stop!”

When the referee broke them for the third time Johnson reached out to grab Langford again and Langford rolled under Johnson’s right and threw the best punch of the fight. He hit Johnson on the chin with a short left hook and Johnson’s knees sagged, he landed two more shots before Johnson clinched him and held on until the end of the round. Johnson, great champion that he was, sucked it up and continued to fight.

 In rounds 11 and 12 Johnson continued holding, hitting and leaning his weight on Langford, tiring the smaller man. Johnson opened up after he thought he had tired him out and tried to KO Langford in the last 3 rounds but he could not get to the smaller man. He won the decision over 15 rounds but he ducked Langford for the rest of his career. At the time Johnson told the press that Langford would never beat him, because he would never fight him again!

At different times Jack Johnson told people that the toughest fight he ever had was with Sam Langford and the hardest he ever got hit in his entire heavyweight career was that left hook from a man 30 pounds lighter than him! Later in his career Langford bulked up to 198 pounds and fought many heavyweights, but not Jack Johnson.

Sam Langford died “blind and penniless,” as they say all too often about old fighters, in 1956 at age 72. Langford was considered the greatest heavyweight of all times by Nat Fleisher and later the 1968 Ring Record Book.