I don't believe that Quarry KO'd Norton in sparring

I agree with this. Not much else in the quote. Norton is so overrated today based on his win over Ali which is more of a issue of a style clash than how good Norton really was. The guy remains the only HW champion to never win a HW title fight. He was literally handed his title retroactively based on a gift decision over Young and then lost it in his first defense.

 

By "at this point" i'm sure you understood i was talking about when he was getting beaten and dropped a bit.

It's somewhat lazy writing off Norton's achievements to style clashes. The guy beat Ali and run him close every fight. On the downside of his career he ran Holmes extremely close in a 15 rounder for the title and bested Young in a close one just prior. He's got some decent wins aside too.

 

Who, in your opinion, actually won the rubber match between Ali and Norton?

 

I love how people try and discredit Norton's success vs Ali due to "styles".

Didn't Joe Frazier have a troublesome style for Ali aswell ? Yet he wasn't as competitive as Norton was in fights 2 and 3.

How about the fact that Norton was excellent at parrying jabs ? Especially two ATG jabs ? That's a skill in itself. Or the fact hes one of the most well conditioned Heavyweights of all time ? The fact hes easily able to go 15 rounds at good pace being constant aggressor ?

He fought 3 of the most skilled Heavyweights of the 70s in Ali, Holmes, Young, that's 5 fights all in all that he acquitted himself very well in two of them being ATGs.

But yeah let's not give Norton any credit and just say its "down to styles". When really Young, Holmes, Ali, fight differently so it can't all just be about styles Norton has to have some ability.

 

A fine post, great points.

 

Excellent post.

May as well say Foreman wasn't all that and only did well vs Frazier and Norton due to the respective style match ups.

I'm not comparing Foreman and Norton's resume, just pointing out it's silly to discount a fighters best win(s) or performance(s) because the style match up meant they were able to harness their greatest attribute(s).

Norton's tenacious pressure works well against "hit and move" boxers, just as Foreman's huge power is most effective against come forward pressure fighters. It was these attributes that made them the fighters they were.

 

Exactly of course a boxer is going to have certain stylistic advantage against a certain style, it's like Rock/Paper/Scissors.

Look at Salvador Sanchez he thrived against elite pressure fighters like Gomez, Lopez. But then looked very beatable against the likes of Patrick Ford when he had to chase his opponent instead of counter punching.

Boxing is always about style match ups which is why it's such an intriguing sport with so many aspects to it.

I don't think I've ever seen any other fighter though get discredited like Norton, for apparently just having a good style vs Ali. When in reality that's false because hes proven against 2 other very skillful Heavyweights one of them being an ATG in Holmes. That's not down to being a fluke due to styles, it's down to Norton being a very capable Heavyweight end of.

 

There's something related to "styles" going on, I think.

Norton's results were pretty consistent. He got blown out by top-end power punchers (Shavers, Foreman) and either won or lost close fights with slicker guys (Young, Holmes, Ali ×3). I dunno whether you'd want to explain it by "styles" or something else, but whatever it was, his performances were pretty predictable for certain types of opponents.

 

Agreed, styles are definitely material to how Norton's career panned out, though he was past prime for Shavers and inparticular Cooney, too.

Just as it would not be balanced to discount his losses when appraising his career because he matched up poorly vs huge punchers, we shouldn't discount his best wins and performances because the style match ups were favourable.

 

I agree but people just say he had "good style vs Ali" when really that's false.

Ali was more of an athletic unorthodox type boxer, where as Holmes was more of a technical boxer, and Young was a defensive boxer.

So whilst all 3 may be classed as boxers, they all bring something different to the table with their attributes. So for me Norton doing well against them shows he is a very capable Heavyweight.

Yes Norton may struggle against the top tier punchers, although to be fair he was past his prime vs Shavers, Cooney. But I don't think Norton loses to every guy that can hit at Heavyweight either based on those fights.

 

To be fair, I've always thought a pre-Foreman Norton would've beaten Shavers and especially Cooney imo. That bout hurt his confidence in his chin, and particularly against punchers.

 

That's true enough. He ran over Bobick. But the vulnerability was there.

On the boxers thing, you raise a good point that the three guys mentioned had differences (although Holmes learned from Ali). But I think there's enough of a profile there that you could predict Kenny's performance against other guys broadly classed as "boxers."

I'm actually not sure he had a stylistic advantage, per se. More like he produced really close fights with those types. Like a mirror universe Chris Byrd.

 

I don't agree he was necessairily vulnerable against punchers until demolished by Foreman but I agree his stylistic advantage against boxers is overstated. Yes he gave Ali hell, but the same is absolutely true vice versa. Same goes for Holmes, and Young.

 

I wonder, when reading descriptions of how he insisted on jabbing with Ali, whether Norton's approach simply forced a boxer to trade evenly with him. Or shut guys down. And when the boxer was durable, as all three of those guys were, it resulted in a stalemate.

That also would explain why you see the same result against different levels and types of "boxer" across multiple years. Ali from fight #3 wasn't nearly as good as Ali from fight #2, and Jimmy Young was inferior to Holmes. (Though maybe there's something to Holmes's claimed injury making the difference.) But all those fights, you see similar result. He doesn't bulldoze them.

An analogy could be drawn to other negative fighters like Ruiz, Young, and Byrd, who tend to have even fights. Dunno if it's possible that Kenny could be a negative pressure fighter, though. That would be a little odd.

 

That's a big call Swag. Whilst I rate Norton higher than Shavers and Cooney, accept he matches up far better to pure boxers than either of them and accept he was past prime for both, particularly Cooney, conventional wisdom suggests a come forward pressure fighter, who is there to be hit, doesn't match up well with huge punchers unless his chin is cast iron. Cooney and Shavers were huge punchers and whilst I think Norton's chin is far better than most credit him for, it wasn't iron, imo.

All that said, I've noticed you comment a lot on HWs, particularly from the 50's through to the 70's, you've clearly studied that period in depth, so I'm curious as to your reasoning. Do you think pre-Foreman Norton would and could -1) Change up his usual style, hit and move, and outbox them; 2) Withstand their power; 3) Blast them out early before they could get to him; or 4) do you favour Ken for some other reason? Cheers in advance.