How good was Ken Norton?

Underrated. In my opinion he was the one fighter who was Ali's Kryptonite. He was not only robbed of decisions vs. Ali...but robbed of a legacy. He would give most heavyweights in history hell. The guys who beat him would be the wild hooker-types; Ken did well as the jab/right-hand sect. I think Ken would beat about 80 percent of heavyweight champs in history.

 

Ken was a great contender and he had a successful career. On his night a handfull for any champion because he was good enough to take great fighters close and beat top contenders. Ken edged Ali and always took him close. He gave Holmes a tough time but lost fairly IMO.

You would have to pick Ken over most of the best contenders in history based on his being a very strong contender in his own life time. Whilst on his day he might beat or edge other great champions it does not make Norton a top 30 ATG heavyweight because a position like that is reserved for men who showed enough dominance to win their biggest key fights. The 1970s being a strong era should not give him a pass on another era. It does not work like that.

Yes Ken beat ALi and always took him close but one has to remember that whilst these were great achievements these were not dominant wins and nor was he reliable against all types of opponent. A fighter can't wait for a champion that is suitable for him. A champion champions his peers regardless.

Ken blew both his title fights what ever way you look at it. Foreman was green and Ali was ripe.

 

No. Ken might give 80 percent a tough fight but no way is he beating all within that 80. You must measure how he performed in his key fights. Without making style allowances for Norton he fell apart against Foreman when a George was still a work in progress. That was unacceptable. He was dismissed with the same ease as Jose king Roman. Unable to put up a fight. Ken was better than that. He flopped at world level. He should have been competative.

In the title fight with Ali the 15 round distance intimidated him and he allowed Ali to kid his way into making it look so close. Took his foot off the glass and everything against an old champion. He did not seize that opportunity either. Leon Spinks did.

A man who failed where Leon Spinks succeeded at world level is not beating 80% of all champions.

 

Might be that no fighter ever beats 80% of the heavyweight champions. It's a damn tall order to win 4/5 against the best you can find in a hundred-year span, never mind Kenny Norton doin' it.

Between that and Norton being better than "the bum Klitschko's", I'd say this topic is going swell.

Norton was good, especially against boxers, vulnerable against punchers. I think we got a real clear view of Norton through his career.

 

Choklab I respect your opinions mightily but feel you are being too harsh here.

I cannot see Norton not being a top 30 HW, likely top 20.

Era must be accounted for, & legacy fights are important, as is how close to prime one was then. Norton still was 40-4 when he barely lost, a bit past his prime, to a peaking Holmes. I will add in your favor that while he should have earned 2 out of 3 with Ali, if Ali was peak he would have gotten at most 1 legitimately.

But Foreman was still green? It was 1974 & Foreman was at his absolute peak, ~ 6 years after his Gold medal win in Mexico CIty, & that win made him 40-0 with 37 KOs! Foreman was not green, just a Force of Nature with some boxing skills too.

His crucial losses were in part against clear ATG like Ali & Foreman. Though he does have that weakness for sluggers, I do notr see how he is not top 30. Some sluggers like Shavers had far more flaws & would do worse against all comers.

The comparison to Spinks it not entirely fair since Ali was detiotrating (from a very high point admittedly) by the year & Spinks got him later. I would be curious to here what else you think he easily could have done against Ali.

 

If like most people you consider Holmes to be an ATG then you must rank Norton high .Their skirmish in 1978 was one of the best HW fights iv'e seen and Holmes was pretty much peak,whilst Kenny was probably past his absolute best.
After that fight he was never the same understandibly as he was getting older by that point.
Great fighter ..unlucky be caught Foreman at his peak..think he wouldve outboxed an older version of George.I dont think Ken is under rated as most HW fans have alot of respect for him....his book was a good read..better than most boxing books.

 

Can you elaborate on the ducking of Quarry, please.

 

I think Kenny is a good fighter and all but put him in the Bowe type category when it comes to opponents he faced and opponents available.

Guys like Lyle and Shavers wanted him for years before Kenny signed the contract. And there was never much of a possibilty of a Foreman rematch because nobody would have given Norton a chance whatsoever.

I think if Young could have have easily got the decision in their bout. I thought the Ledoux fight was stopped by the ref at the end and Scott was getting the tko win. I even thought Cobb should have got the nod.

But when he was at his best, the opponents he fought were just c grade type guys. Rico Brooks. Way way out of shape Stander on that Ali-Young undercard. Rematch with former conquerer Garcia when he wasn't on anyone's map. Middleton. Zanon--another guy who was just another of the when you need a W fight him.

But Ken was always in top shape and gave you what he had. To me, he kind of fits in with the rotation of guys a decade later like Weaver/Page/Thomas/Witherspoon/Tubbs and so on. Not Holmes and certainly not Tyson.

 

Quarry and some of the west coast promoters had been after a Norton fight on the coast for a long time. Supposedly Norton refused to even spar with Quarry much less fight him in a fight that would have been a natural anytime between 1970 and when they actually fought. Instead Norton was continually steered away from Quarry despite the money involved until he finally agreed to the fight in 1975, a year after Quarry was totally dismantled and looked awful against Norton's friend and stablemate Frazier. A prime Quarry would have given Norton all kinds of problems. Norton was susceptible to punchers and Quarry could bang, particularly with the left hook. Norton love to come forward and Quarry loved to counterpunch off the ropes. I think Norton would have been lured in thinking he was having success by working Quarry onto the ropes and Quarry would have gotten a lot of opportunities to land traps and catch Norton.

 

Quarry was never really one for excuses, he complained about losing but knew when he just plain lost or would have had a better chance. Jerry plain out said he was completely shot and untrained for Norton, he said he was doing drugs and drinking late in his life,He said he completely prostituted himself fighting Norton. Ken had a good jab but IMO Jerry would get to him and stop him,Quarry could bang to the body and head and would get to Ken at some point of the fight but it would be competitive until then

 

An all time top 25 heavyweight for sure

 

I certainly can't see the prime Quarry of 1969 to 1973 being beaten as badly as he was by Norton in 1975. But I'm still 50/50 on him winning even when at his best. It typically took a puncher of ATG status like a Foreman or Shavers to make him fold and more often when he was past prime. Quarry could crack but he wasn't a huge puncher and nor is he the type that I can see forcing Ken to fight off the back foot ( his real weakness more so than his chin. ) The other kind of fighter who "sometimes" bested Norton was an elite boxer like an Ali or Holmes, and they both had their fair share of trouble. Again, Quarry doesn't meet this criteria. Norton had a physical advantage over Jerry and wasn't the type to just walk into his counter shots. Quarry also had the tendency to cut and bleed and was knockdown prone as well. I could see these two at their pinnacle battling it out for probably 8-12 rounds with each having good moments. But at the end of the day I'm still up in the air about who wins.

 

I still see Ken winning a prime for prime one with Jerry. For the reasons you state

 

Yeah if forced to bet money I'd probably have to go with Norton over whatever version of Jerry was prime. Ken didn't fall into the mold of a slow moving plodding fighter that Quarry was accustomed to beating. He certainly had better skills and ring generalship than Mathis, Lyle or Shavers and was well capable of going 15 rounds. His conditioning was superior to that of practically all of Quarry's victims. Ali gave him everything he had in three fights and it still wasn't always enough, leaving me to believe that Quarry's counter punching efforts with brief spurts of aggression just won't cut it.

 

Two problems with this analysis: 1. Quarry was a bigger puncher than you are giving him credit for. Its not necessarily reflected in his record but his contemporaries all gave Quarry credit for his power and for years (and maybe still) he held a consecutive KO record in the Golden Gloves. The second problem with the analogy is that Norton's lack of a resume against the same level of competition that Quarry faced across so many different styles makes it easy to say "Norton only had problems with this type or that type." When in reality those types that gave him problems (Holmes, Young, Ali, Foreman, Shavers) are the only elite fighters he ever faced. Beyond the guys he struggled with his resume falls off dramatically. This is partly because he came out of nowhere to beat Ali the first time and then was leap frogged into the ratings so he didnt have to face a lot of guys like Quarry, Bonavena, Chuvalo, Jimmy Ellis, Ron Lyle, Mac Foster, Buster Mathis, Floyd Patterson, etc. When you go from fighting the class of fighter of Henry Clark (coming off a loss) to Ali x2 and Foreman in your next three fights and then drop down to the C level opposition before fighting Ali again it doesnt really give me a lot of confidence to say Norton would beat Quarry categorically. The guy simply didnt have enough wins over guys of Quarry's level (much less fights) and his success against the guys a step above that is limited. The fact that Norton was so selective about his opponents below the cream of the crop tells me that his handlers knew enough about his limitations not to bet the house on him against anyone.