In the case of Schmeling, and every fighter before WWII, one should be very aware that black fighters fighting on a very unlevel playing field which made the overall competition less fierce. I think this is glossed over too much.
In fairness to Schmeling he fought Joe Louis who was clearly the most dangerous black contender of his era and Larry Gains who was also one of the better ones. The wildcard is George Godfrey who should have been in the tournament to find a sucessor to Gene Tunney (as the No2 ranked contender). Jack Dempsey went on record as saying that he thought George Godfrey was the best of the current crop after Tunney retired.
This content is protected That's Dempsey by the way, not Max. One could easily confuse the two. :good This content is protected
walcott's first loss to marciano was something like Griffin-Jones-1. Norton was stopped by even by fighters who were not so good. and even if i will rank walcott at 175 , still check this : vitali klitschko , wladimir klitschko , lennox lewis joe louis , rocky marciano (should be really #1 at 175) david tua , mike tyson , frazier chris byrd , evander holyfield , ali , holmes foreman , 13 already the problem is that even if mccall and douglas are not top 15-20 hws , then they still must be ranked higher than norton. young , lyle , cooney , michael spinks should all also be ranked higher than norton. and some posters here will add more to the list above. norton even not a top 30. and that's for sure. maybe not even a top 50.
Interesting post. I would rate Norton above all of them. Imo,Young would be just a couple of places under Ken. I do n't get your rationale on the others at all. It could be argued that Young's resume is comparable.
and also tucker must be ranked higher than norton : he went the distance with prime lewis and tyson , stopped douglas , outpointed mccall , and yes , he had some shameful losses but so did norton.
Tucker's wins over Douglas and McCall were viewed as nothing special at the time. Both of those men were basically nobodies, and it wasn't until they both scored upsets years later that made Tucker's wins over them rise in stock. Outside of that, Tony really doesn't have much to speak of in terms of wins. Norton's win over Ali was better than anything Tucker did, and a case could also be made for his victories over Quarry and Young.
I reckon that Norton is definitely better than any of the alphabet boys of the 80's for a start. He would've beaten Dokes,Page,Tubbs,Weaver and so many others.
Norton was better than most of the alpha 80's boys. BUT this is a all time ranking here, and I cant see Norton relly making the top 20. Though I would not have to think twice to rank Norton over some one like Dokes.