Ken Norton Would Get Slept by Povetkin in Every Universe

If you think the missing fights for Garcia and Huck are so important that the stats are invalid, I don't know what to tell you.

The fact remains, of their available fights, Huck's average opponent was 10lbs bigger. You can't hang your hat on Garcia being rated for longer at heavyweight, while Huck was champion against bigger men.

This Huck/Garcia comparison is ridiculous anyway. Huck is clearly the much better fighter, and Garcia knocked Ken out. Povetkin won a close decision.

His entire career lmao, go and watch him fight. A face first brawler who got hit full blast with everything his opponents threw. For a start, going the distance with Povetkin with a 20lbs weight disadvantage; as well as going the distance with hard punching Arslan, Ramirez, and Lebedev. In fact, even the absolute beatings he took in all of his stoppage losses show a much better chin than Norton.

But the weight class itself is irrelevant to the situation. The fighters were bigger than Garcia, and on average bigger than Garcia's opponents.

 

People to whom most here (bar some of the venerable members of this community) would be consider a newcomers to boxing voted him in into the International Boxing Hall of Fame third year of its existence along the likes of Schmeling, Burley, Arguello, Jofre, and Benvenuti. He will always have that borderline or near asterisk next to his status as an all-time great because his most famous bouts (and the Ali trilogy sprinkled with Holmes bout and its famous 15th round are one of the famous heavyweight bouts) were toss coin split decisions or one-round-the-other-way bouts. He still has wins over the Greatest in Ali, the momentarily excellent #1 Young (coming off of a championship form wins over Lyle and Clancy Foreman, though we know each other's opinion here), #5 Quarry, Futch-trained Great White Hope (Hypejob) Duane Bobick who was a ranked contender three years in a row up to that defeat, #10 Lorenzo Zanon, #9 Tex Cobb coming off of the Shavers upset, and some lesser names unranked at the time like Kirkman, or Garcia in a world eliminator.

You cannot ignore that Norton had relatively prime time at the world level comparable to Ron Lyle in length. Without modern magic they both began to slide (Lyle's stabbing definitely took something out of him, and Norton was an incredibly active star athlete since a young age) around '78 to '79. Ken was ranked as #9 when he battered Henry Clark in 1972 and was both earning pennies and according to Futch avoided as after the Garcia fiasco (which Futch mocked him for, as he was growing overconfident prior to the bout and took Garcia lightly) given he was high-risk, low-reward bout, on top of being notable for being Frazier's sparring partner (with Joe noting how tricky he could be to fight.) There is a reason he was saying Ali saved his career by giving him the title shot.

He doesn't fall apart h2h. Not really. People just prefer to pick on him being stopped by literally the three of the absolute greatest punchers in the history of boxing (Foreman in one of his best forms, Cooney while Norton was old, and Shavers in similar circumstances with an abysmal gameplan.) He absolutely cannot be picked over hard punching juggernauts, but he's show elite bodywork, bending Ali like possibly only Frazier in FotC did, he had hard, sneaky jab, a varied shot-selection set-up from behind the crossguard and similar positions, and was extremely comfortable working inside on top of that. Sprinkle it with top tier conditioning, awkward rhythm and history of troubling some of the best outboxers to ever lace them, and it's not hard to see why he is being picked over the lighter punchers in mythical match-ups.

 

Rear hand parries and frames are absolutely effective when properly deployed, and the supposed weakness of their (same as the supposed crossguard weakness to the left hook) are not easily exploited unless in a context of craft plied by operators of a high-level, working with rhythm, timing, and distance on a level going beyond 'left hook him when he extends his rear hand.' The first time Ali tried doing that, Foreman countered with a left hook of his own sending him to the ropes. Don't you think fighters of this caliber were trained to expect the counters that a 16-year old boxing gym newcomer could come up with? Norton used that rear-hand movement to set-up numerous overhands and right crosses, to find space, pitch and catch shots. Similarly, there are countless instances where he 'hold the phone,' slips or riders a left hook taking steam off of it (because that's what you do to left hooks with a crossguard unless you are at a distance, or much taller than your opponent where you can just elbow flip them.) You get caught at the highest level, especially by fighters with notable lead hook like Cooney, Foreman, and Shavers (dropped Lyle like a sack of potatoes), who could fart on most fighters and drop them for the count.

That rear-hand movement is also one of the notable tricks of Archie Moore whom Norton strongly emulated early on, as well as something you'd the likes of Leonard and Foreman do, both ready for the most obvious immediate answer.

High guard and hands up is cute until you **** out your soul like Cardenas and Zhang after Kabayel and Inoue nailed them with a body shot. They dropped their hands into more crossguard like shape immediately. Norton was finding space for body shots in a surgically low amount of space, and you just knew they hurt.

 

Yeah, the mere fact that someone fought at heavyweight can be overstated. Might as well say that 160-something pound Choynski would overwhelm David Haye with his heavyweight size and power because Choynski technically fought there. Nobody would seriously expect Roland Lastarza to bully Usyk in the ring. It's form over function.

Wonder what the average weights are if we're only counting Ring ranked guys Garcia and Huck fought.

 

Your not taking into account at that time period huge muscles were considered bad by almost every trainer and weight lifting was frowned upon heavily if you were a boxer.
I can point to countless boxers that just happened to have great genetics and they didn't take steroids.
Mike Weaver is a prime example.

 

Your talking about two of the greatest heavyweight punchers the division has ever seen in Foreman and Shavers and one was in his prime.
Pov is not near that level of punching power.
And the Cooney fight is a cheap shot on your part considering Norton should not have been fighting.

 

Yeah, I'm actually on your side of the fence on this one. Boxing strength & conditioning knowledge was still frozen in the past when Norton fought. And even after Norton fought; witness the attitude of Angelo "Nutrition Sucks!" Dundee to weight rooms, eating fruit, or doing wind sprints in 1985.

 

Imagine Dick Sadler doesn't badly dehydrate Foreman because dehydration 'ionizes' the cells, increasing speed and reflexes. Sugar Ray brushed his doctor aside similarly before the 175 title shot bout and it cost him.

 

Quack?

 

I find Angelo as a guy who spent his whole career stealing credit having a hard stance on anything funny… he’s got more in common with Ali’s Dr the windbag they bring on then REAL great trainers like Bill Miller. I believe the whole “I’d hit my fighter with a bat if he lifted weights” huff and puff is to make him feel more “legitimate” to the rubes, he’s a caricature almost of old school boxing guys- good manager and motivator perhaps but I’d go no further without cautioning folks as he has very vague credentials at best and built 0 fighters, can he teach you to box credibly? Probably but is he up there with Miller, Steward, Futch, Goldman and Whitey? NO.

 

It's all the promoters I swear.

 

As a trainer? No.

As a cornerman? I would want him in my corner over anyone else. Angelo would do anything humanly possible to get his fighter the W. He could think on his feet but most importantly he gave his fighters confidence.

He learned from the best. Being around his brother Chris was exposed to the legendary teachers. Charlie Goldman, Ray Arcel, Al Silvani.

 

Don’t disagree with most of this.

 

Who cares about this opposition?

 

So do want to debate why I think Norton was just a good contender? You seem to think he’s a fringe great what does that mean to you? who else is there? Will you be willing to hear me out if we chit chat? - I think you seem reasonable not that your view is unreasonable.