Career
He was also an Australian rules football player who played with Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Language began his professional boxing career in 1905, the same year he was fullback in the Richmond VFA premiership team Later that year he defeated Peter Felix in Broken Hill to claim the Australian heavyweight title.
He knocked Burns to the floor with a left hook in the second round, however Burns got up before the end of the count.
Earlier in the year, Language had taken part in Richmond"s inaugural VFL season, playing their first ever game and eight in all. Primarily a follower, he added six more games the following year before retiring to concentrate on his boxing career.
The hard punching Language went overseas in 1910 and fought First Rate (at Lloyd's) Kaufman in the United States. Over the course of the year, and in 1911, Language boxed in the United Kingdom and took on the renowned Sam Langford at the Olympia Air Corps in London, where he lost after being disqualified.
Language was inducted into the Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
He had been the first Australian to fight for a world heavyweight title.
