Ken Norton vs Jimmy Young- Scoring

I disagreed with you scoring round 4 for Young but other than that our scoring is identical.

Ken Norton vs Jimmy Young

1 Young
2 Young
3 Young
4 Norton
5 Norton
6 Norton
7 Norton
8 Norton
9 Norton
10 Young
11 Norton
12 Young
13 Young
14 Young
15 Norton

143-142 Norton

@scartissue correct me if i'm wrong but didn't you ask for my scorecard on this fight ages ago ? well here it is if you did indeed ask.

For me the old saying "too little too late" springs to mind here, and i think that's exactly what Young did here. I felt like the rounds were pretty easy score to IMO, Young clearly won the first 3 rounds with his counter punching and boxing as Norton looked a bit puzzled.

But from rounds 4 to 9 Norton clearly won those rounds in my view. Norton altered his tactics crouching low and going strictly to the body, and i felt like Norton's effective aggression and body punching, were more than enough for Norton to win all the middle rounds.

The last 5 or 6 rounds the momentum then shifted again, as Norton for some reason stopped effectively going to the body and wasn't pressuring Young like before. Maybe Norton was a bit winded because he put in alot of work during middle rounds, whatever the reason Young was able to get back into the fight, by boxing and counter punching like he did in rounds 1-3. And Young clearly won 4 out of the next 5 rounds with Norton for me just nicking the 11th round.

Going into the 15th round i had the fight dead even, Norton came out and simply just worked harder than Young, and deservedly won the 15th round making Norton the winner on my card by 1 point.

Overall this fight had alot of momentum shifts but Norton won too many of the middle rounds, and with Norton clearly winning the last round i thought he deserved to win the fight. As i said earlier Young left it too late in my opinion, but i did feel two of the judges at 147-143 for Norton was a bit too wide but still the right man

 

This is one of those fights that you can score a dozen times and have it by a point either way every time, if any fight deserved to end in a draw, this was it.

For the record, I thought Jimmy edged Round 4.

 

For the record; the referee who was closest to the action, said if he had a say in the matter, he would've given it to Young. That being said, this was way to close an affair to justify calling it a robbery.

 

Best I can remember, one guy (Norton) was trying to fight and the other (Young) wasn't.

 

You thought Young won the first round?

 

Young had talent and really had a nice spirt between 76 and 77 but he was also very frustrating, almost always like a good sparring partner, enough to frustrate anyone but never seemed to put the petal to the floor and go balls to the wall which made him so hard to score ..

 

Jimmy Young was the spice of the 70s (not 80s) heavyweight that made his mark. I can say that he did not duck anyone.

 

1: Norton
2: Young
3: Young
4: Norton
5: Norton
6: Norton
7: Norton
8: Norton
9: Norton ( I could see this being a swing)
10: Young
11: Norton
12: Young
13: Norton
14: Young
15: Norton

Norton 145-140

Norton was the boss too often for the preponderance of each round. A few flashy combos that rarely stalled Kenny's attack didn't win much for me. Young was kinda garbage, out of shape, retreating, sloppy, and then a spark or two of effectiveness that everyone blows out of proportion. And Howard Cosell is the worst caller of a fight I have heard in 40 years of watching fights. Couldn't keep the fighters straight, couldn't recognize scoring blows, just an embarrassment that this sport should have never suffered.

 

Norton won the first.

 

I don’t think I ever posted a score but I remember having Jimmy winning by I think two points on my card.

 

That’s a good summation of the flow and complexion of the fight as I remember it - though I haven’t tried to methodically score it - I might give it a go.

As to any lulls on Norton’s part, despite always coming into fights in the best possible condition and appearing trained to the second on the veneer, it’s easy to forget that Norton was already 34 yo by that time while Jimmy Young was pretty much bang on a prime 29 yo.

Of course that’s just a qualification and doesn’t impact on the absolute scoring. I also think Norton’s advancing age gave cause for him to try and conserve himself in the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the Holmes fight in the following year.

Norton was smart to focus far more on Young’s body than the elusive head. Ali didn’t have a body game so he was missing his own punches quite a bit against Young.

If I were a judge, I would’ve hated having to score Jimmy Young’s closer fights.

In general his style was spoiling, rarely proactive. But just as difficult, perhaps even more so, would be scoring his landed punches.

In line with his defensive psyche, Young didn’t commit a lot to his shots and his manifest power was generally below average. As such, you’d have “weight” the value of punches more considerately against those landed by generally harder hitting opposition.

Depending on what weighting one applies to punches landed in their scoring, it’s no wonder that some scores can differ somewhat due to that somewhat grey area.

Finally, in a very close fight, rightly or wrongly, some might look to broader features to break the “deadlock”, like who made the fight, who fought hardest to win the fight etc - in that regard, some would see Young pulling up short.

No questioning of Young’s proven heart and resilience but Young himself made it very clear
that he didn’t want to take any punches or incur any permanent damage from boxing.

Very wise and a mindset that clearly influenced Young’s less audience friendly style and accents - a style that certainly took me a few years to better appreciate - his manner of fighting definitely wasn’t instantly gratifying.

 

Anything within 2 points either way would be fine, outside of that would be stretching things on the norm.