I think that Young is one of the more under-rated heavyweights of history. Why for example would you necisarily think that Ken Norton had a better resume.
I made a mistake. I meant to type "Norton," but I spaced out and placed "Shavers" name by mistake. I rate Young above Shavers. Easily.
I love watching the Ali--Young bout. Jimmy is the only guy I ever saw that had Ali falling for feints. Not reacting, falling. He made Muhammad Ali look clumsy & had Ali off balance. For a guy with supposedly no punching power, it's amazing how he was so effective with his feints. He must've had some sting to make guys like Lyle/Ali/Foreman hesitant to throw.And he had that great radar of his for incoming punches and rolled with shots like early Duran. The real mystery was that Ocassio fight and the ballgame was pretty much over except for I think, the Wendall Bailey fight. He looked real good against Bailey, but that was the last of those terrific performances.
He hurt Norton several times. Visibly rocked him. Not something you saw Ali for example do too terribly often. He busted Ali's eardrum as well.
Agreed. He was a good leading contender for about 2 or 3 years, but he wasn't enduring enough or well-rounded enough to be considered "great" IMO. His win over Foreman is impressive and is his defining moment, but I don't agree that he "clearly" beat Ali or Norton, they were close, often ugly and hard-to-score fights. Moreover, Young was only one of a number of fighters who lost controversial decisions to Ali around this time; and personally, I thought Norton and Shavers beat him even more clearly than Young did. He twice failed to beat Ossie Ocasio, who wasn't anything special, and then quickly faded away, after having risen to prominence only a couple years earlier. That pretty much removes him from any claim to greatness IMO.
Young is the most under rated fighter of the 70s "golden era." People like to say guys like Lyle in the second tier would of ran roughshod over most other eras, well what about the guy that gave Lyle two boxing lessons, beat Ali on every card but the judges, beat Foreman, beat Norton but was robbed, AND beat Shavers but was robbed of the win. I give Young credit for the fights in which he got robbed in. Just because the judges were in love with guys like Ali doesn't mean jack **** in my opinion. The guy was a top 20-25 ATG HW.
Had the decisions gone the rightful way in Young fights, he would have wins over Ali, Shavers, Lyle 2x, Foreman, and Norton. Try to name 25 Heavyweights who have better resumes than that. Him being outright robbed shouldn't be held against him, it should be held against the guys who were outboxed by Young but "won".