How Norton fought Foreman while he lost just before

Quarry has a solid chin was a good counter puncher and handled many big punchers of that era like Foster, Shavers, Lyle.

I think stylistically Quarry would be a troubling opponent for Foreman.

 

Not sure I’ve ever seen a thread criticizing the champion for fighting a top-five challenger rather than another top-five challenger (when neither of them are No. 1).

FWIW, they fought in March 1974. Here are the heavyweight rankings in that month’s issue of The Ring:

Champion: George Foreman
1. Muhammad Ali
2. Joe Frazier
3. Ken Norton
4. Jerry Quarry
5. Ron Lyle
6. Earnie Shavers
7. Oscar Bonavena
8. Joe Bugner
9. Jimmy Ellis
10. Chuck Wepner

I don’t see the problem here. It’s fairly common in history for someone to get a title shot coming off a loss. Manny accomplished champions won titles when losing their previous bouts.

 

Foreman has made many overly generous claims later in life, almost always at the detriment to himself, while praising someone else.

For example, he said he would’ve lost to FOTC Frazier.

I’ll take Foreman’s comments with a grain of salt.

 

Yes, I also do in most cases. This one lines up fairly well with what happened, though.

 

My bad. I misunderstood where you were coming from. My apologies.

I was still a wee lad, a young boxing fan, so I can’t give real insight into how it was perceived in real time, but I can hopefully add some perspective:

* It wasn’t terribly unusual for a guy coming off a loss to get a title shot in those days. Ken’s loss was a close one to Muhammad Ali, the No. 1 contender, after beating Ali in his previous fight. It certainly didn’t say ‘easy pickings.’

* Ken had one stoppage loss at the time (and iirc two losses, the other being to Ali, which many disputed … close fight could have probably gone either way). The retro narrative is ‘Ken couldn’t stand up to punchers, didn’t have the chin’ but that really didn’t come until he had lost to George and later Shavers. At the time he wasn’t seen as packing glass … he was seen as a guy on par with Ali head-to-head.

Glancing at the Ring top 10 ratings at the time, all but Ron Lyle and Ali had been stopped at least once at that time. Quarry, for instance, had four stoppage losses (along with some good wins). Even Bonavena and Bugner had been halted inside the distance. There was no reason at the time to look at one loss in Ken’s still-formative years and say ‘this guy can’t take a punch.’

Presuming Ali was holding off on a Foreman fight (waiting for the right money or wanting to assert himself as better than Frazier and Norton, the men who had beaten him) and George had just clobbered Frazier, so if those two weren’t going to happen then I think Norton and Quarry were the next tier … can’t see how either is a bad choice.

 

Anyone know if Foreman’s claim he was compelled to fight Norton by the bodies (& that he didn’t want the match, as he was “kind of afraid” of Norton), is accurate? Or is this just usual George, talking someone else up?

 

All due respect I disagree.

Quarry had already lost to Ali twice, and Frazier once, who Foreman had just dominated with ease.

Norton beat Ali once, and lost a close SD in a rematch (I really don't think it was all that close tbh but that was the general narrative) doing far better than Quarry did in either effort.

Norton undoubtedly looked like the more dangerous fighter imo.

 

I highly doubt he was afraid of Norton or anyone for that matter.

 

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, seeing how well Quarry did against fighters that were much more similar to Foreman, but there wasn't much between them. WBA actually had Norton higher. But from a stylistic standpoint Quarry would seem a bigger threat, though, but perhaps that had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was only the (promised) Caracas tax breaks even though the gross purse for Quarry was higher. Seeing how well Quarry had done against big punchers, it doesn't really surprise me that the choice fell on Norton, though. And Foreman's talk about ducking Quarry makes sense from that perspective.

But there's nothing really clear cut here.

 

I don't think guys like these are afraid in that sense. But they know you're not guaranteed to win every night, and some opponents seem trickier than others. I'm sure Foreman felt he'd beat anyone if he was at his best, but you can't be sure of being at your best always so there's sense in taking risk/reward into account even if you you're confident that no one is really your equal.

 

Thing is though, Ali had a superior record against punchers in that regard.

He'd beaten Liston twice, also beat Foster like Quarry.

Unlike Quarry, he also beat Frazier (in the rematch), not to mention Quarry himself.

If Foreman was going to avoid anyone it'd be Ali.

I really don't think Foreman was worried about Quarry from a stylistic standpoint. You're correct that Quarry had a good record against punchers, but so did Ali.

Ali was far more proven than Quarry, and the former champion who never lost his title in the ring.

Quarry also had losses to Frazier, and Chuvalo who Foreman wiped the floor with.

With the tax breaks, he would've gotten far more money out of the Norton bout than he would've with Quarry.

It still makes me angry, the government agreed to the deal then were allowed to renege AFTER the fight was already over and held both fighters' hostage at the airport. Absolutely absurd.

 

At the time, in numerous interviews during the early 1970's, he was extremely hesitant when asked about taking on Jerry Quarry, a guy Liston expressed great interest in facing after stopping Henry Clark to Howard Cosell. So to me, George's claims about deliberately avoiding Jerry seem to have a ring of truth.

Joe Frazier from Jerry Quarry I to the FOTC was a different animal than he was post FOTC. He did demonstrate movement when dealing with Chuvalo and Stander, as he also did when way past it for his rematch with Foreman. Winning a first time match with Foreman had Ali remained in exile would've always been a tough proposition, but at a lighter weight like 203 (over 20 pounds lighter than Frazier was for his 1976 rematch with George) he could win a rematch with Foreman, having Durham and Futch strategizing for him. He proved he could damage George by swelling his right eye with his hook in 1976, and demonstrated enough to prove he could go beyond five rounds if he was in pre FOTC form. Coming on late, he had the stamina, late round power and energy to reverse an initial defeat like Patterson did with Ingo.

 

Ali was just to much money to avoid, but it seems Foreman was prepared to wait for the right offer.

We went through the bids in another thread and after tax they were pretty similar from my memory, the Quarry one likely to become a bit bigger with take from gate and close circuit.