Thoughts on Ken Norton?

He was in rare air to be able to give those two guys headaches. Especially considering he did as a boxer. Norton had an exceptional trainer and to his credit he got the most out of it.
I would think he is somewhere in the top 20. He fought alot of good fighters.

 

He didn't achieve enough to be in discussion as the greatest. He was probably one of the hardest though.

 

He very well may be in the top ten hardest punchers in history.

 

Absolutely dead on!

 

You're right, you're pretty young

 

And how would one go about beating Ali, what's the strategy?

 

Tomorrow I'm gonna wake up older though. But I'll still know about skills then too. Bet.

It's not that complicated. You guys always act like he's like super smart or whatever but everyone from then knew he wasn't great inside and was literally open for the same left hook his entire career and never, ever learned to defend against it. Kind of a joke with modern fans, really. We all know the old dudes just can't process this because they fell for the hype. Look at the Foreman fight and tell me these dudes are from the greatest heavyweight generation ever and one of them is throwing lead rights all the time and the other is actually into them. It's like, if this were AJ or Fury in there on that night...? Come on, dude. Be real. They'd take them out to the heap and shake their heads in disbelief at how easy it is if they didn't see it ahead of time. Chuvalo put Ali in the hospital and he's not even as skilled as today's Chisora. It's crazy.

 

Sorry but I dismiss any comments that use the word dudes that many times,,,,it's a red flag

 

Not to excuse sloppy defense, but one of the traits of excellent boxer-punchers that have a good chin, is that they will sometimes "sacrifice" their jaw in order to accomplish something in the fight. The result is often a positional advantage of one type or another, or a timing advantage, or maybe even a psychological advantage, or it somehow effects momentum, or causes the opponent to throw a certain punch, or something else completely.

When I was young, I once asked my dad, (who boxed quite a bit in the gyms around Philly many years ago), "who is the best boxer that ever lived?" He immediately replied "Joe Louis". I remember going through his fight tapes and watching Louis, and thinking his defense sucked! Like I said , I was young.

May I suggest watching guys like Louis, Ali, Robinson, Leonard, Holyfield, etc. A LOT. They could take a page from the brawlers handbook and use the 'take one to give one' concept (or a page from just about any handbook, cause they had absolutely brilliant boxing brains). There is sometimes a method to their madness. I'm not saying it's something that happens all the time, of course. I'm sure Holy, for example, sometimes brawled as much as he did, not just because he couldn't resist a tear-up, but rather he saw a strategic advantage in it.

 

I confess I'm a big fan of Ken Norton, (I watched the 1st Ali fight live on UK TV) so with that confession out of the way, here goes.

I rated him top 20ish all time about 10 years ago (same ball park as Walcott, Charles & Patterson for me) but as time goes on and more, bigger HWs come along that ranking must go down.

IMO a borderline very good/great fighter (I favour the latter) who was a cornerstone of probably the greatest and certainly most glamorous period in the history of the HW divison.

Many say he struggled against "big" punchers but, his pre-prime loss to Garcia aside, Norton did not lose to just "big" punchers, he lost to monstrous punchers in Foreman, Shavers & Cooney who are probably locks for top 10 heaviest punchers in the history of the HW division. He fared similarly to Frazier when facing Foreman; he was post-prime against Shavers and finished by the time he fought Cooney.

Personally I feel at his peak Norton would have abetter chance against Cooney & Shavers; Cooney would always present difficulty due to his height & reach but with Shavers, Norton at his peak could quite possibly crush Earnie.

Ali for example stopped Foreman & Lyle both of whom are perceived to have iron chins, but couldn't make a dent in Norton; Holmes has a good stoppage record but barely made a dent in Norton...go figure.

I think Dubblechin's post above summed Norton up very well. Of the pre 1990's HW champions I believe Norton would beat more than he would lose to. IMO he deserved the win against Ali in '76 and would then have been lineal probably until meeting Holmes. If you were around in the mid 70s you will be aware that Ali shamelessly ducked a 4th fight with Ken and so did Leon Spinks.

IMO Norton deserved to be the lineal champ between 76 and 78 - his place in history would then be greater than it is now.

Yes, Ken Norton was a great fighter IMO - and Larry Holmes agrees, and he knows more than likely anybody on this forum!

 

I feel your pain, Reinhardt....












dude.

lol

 

Somewhere below Hasim Rahman.

 

why below Rahman. ?.

 

Ken Norton is somewhere in the Top-25 All-Time.

He sustained a fairly prolonged period in the Ring Top-10 Heavies, during the '70s - arguably the greatest era of Heavyweight boxing in history.

He'd be competitive in any era.

 

Rahman accomplished more.