Just How Great a Heavyweight Was Ken Norton?

Since I like to examine ratings, here’s some data:

Norton first appeared in Ring’s rankings at #10 in September 1972 (November issue - I’ll just use “as of” dates from here on, as opposed to issue cover dates, which are always behind.). He’d never fought a ranked contender prior to his own ranking.

His opponents and their at-the-time Ring ranking, for the rest of his career:

11/21/72 - Henry Clark - unranked
12/14/72 - Charlie Reno - unranked

3/31/73 - Muhammad Ali - #1 contender (Norton was rated 9th)
9/10/73 - Muhammad Ali - #3 contender (Norton was rated 2nd)

3/26/74 - George Foreman - world champion (Norton was rated 4th)
6/25/74 - Boone Kirkman - #10 contender (Norton was rated 5th)

3/4/75 - Rico Brooks - unranked (Norton was rated 4th)
3/24/75 - Jerry Quarry - #5 contender (Norton was rated 4th)
8/10/75 - Jose Luis Garcia - unranked (Norton was rated 3rd)

1/10/76 - Pedro Lovell - unranked (Norton was rated 1st)
4/30/76 - Ron Stander - unranked (Norton was rated 1st)
7/10/76 - Larry Middleton - unranked (Norton was rated 1st)
9/28/76 - Muhammad Ali - world champion (Norton was rated 2nd)

5/11/77 - Duane Bobick - #5 contender (Norton was rated 3rd)
9/14/77 - Lorenzo Zanon - unranked (Norton was rated 2nd)
11/5/77 - Jimmy Young - #1 contender (Norton was rated 2nd)

6/9/78 - Larry Holmes - #3 contender (Norton was rated 2nd)
11/10/78 - Randy Stephens - unranked (Norton was rated 2nd)

3/23/79 - Earnie Shavers - unranked (Norton was rated 2nd)
Big Book of Boxing, sister publication to World Boxing & International boxing, did have Shavers at #4, just behind Norton. Sometimes Ring wasn’t the most objective source for ratings
8/19/79 - Scott LeDoux - unranked (Norton was rated 6th)

11/7/80 - Randall Cobb - #13 contender (Norton was rated 15th)

5/11/81 - Gerry Cooney - #2 contender (Norton was rated 9th)

So, by numbers alone, Norton’s best wins were over:

1. Muhammad Ali
2. Jimmy Young (disputed decision)
3. Duane Bobick
4. Jerry Quarry
5. Boone Kirkman
6. Randall Cobb

Otherwise, his most impressive performances were close losses to Ali and Holmes, followed by wins over past (or future) lower top-10 contenders Henry Clark, Jose Luis Garcia, Ron Stander, Larry Middleton, Lorenzo Zanon, and future cruiserweight title challenger Randy Stephens.

 

hes not a great, just a top contender/transient titlist.

 

I'm glad you pointed this out.

I prefer the ratings of the actual sanctioning bodies to Ring, since the sanctioning body ratings dictated who fought who and are more indicative of who the people in line to fight for the title were.

For example, Norton was ranked #9 by the WBA when he fought Henry Clark. Clark had been ranked in the top 10 by sanctioning bodies for years and had just suffered his first loss in years to Jack O'Halloran (who he'd previously beaten) before fighting Norton. Then Clark went on another run that saw him ranked at #9 in the WBA at the fall of 1974 and as high as #6 by the WBA when he was introduced in the ring before the Ali-Lyle fight in 1975 (after beating Roy "Tiger" Williams and Jody Ballard).

So I wouldn't classify Clark as some unranked nobody like Charlie Reno. Clark was a contender for years before he fought Norton and remained a contender for years after he lost to him.

Randy Stephens had just upset the WBC sixth-ranked Stan Ward to get a shot at Norton, who was rated #1 by the WBC. Lorenzo Zanon was rated #10 by the WBC. And Shavers certainly wasn't unranked in 1979 by the sanctioning bodies. The Norton-Shavers fight was a WBC eliminator to fight Larry Holmes.

The list goes on.

There needs to be context when reviewing fights and where the participants were rated before and after fights, not just pointing out where Ring Magazine ranked someone in an end-of-the-year top 10, since Ring had nothing to do with who got title shots. That doesn't exactly paint an accurate picture.

 

^ I too don't like it when posters cite the year-end Ring rankings found at Boxrec. They don't tell much of the story. Those year-end Ring rankings from Boxrec are often incorrect, anyway, and when I tried to point that out to Boxrec editors they didn't seem to want to know. But I digress...

Anyway, my post, as I think I said, used the magazine rankings from the issue of Ring prior to the fight itself. I certainly didn't mean to classify Henry Clark as some unranked nobody, but rather (as I stated at the bottom) someone who was ranked before the Norton loss and someone who would be ranked after.

My issue with sanctioning body rankings after 1975 is that they seemed to be based SOLEY on who they wanted to fight for their title, via promotional connections or whatever, rather than actual merit.

I'm working on a project, which I may never finish, of getting all the heavyweight rankings I can find in a given month and averaging them out to get a consensus for that particular month. For example, here's what I have so far for November 1972, when Norton beat Henry Clark:

November 1, 1972

World Champion: Joe Frazier

1. Muhammad Ali
2. George Foreman
3. Jimmy Ellis
4. Floyd Patterson
5. Ron Lyle
6. Jose Luis Garcia
7. Oscar Bonavena
8. Larry Middleton
9. Ken Norton
10. Mac Foster
11. George Chuvalo
12. Ernie Terrell
13. Alvin 'Blue' Lewis
14. Joe (King) Roman
15. Joe Bugner
16. Al Jones

sources: Ring, Boxing Illustrated, WBA, WBC

 

Always difficult to rate Norton. Has a touch of the Iran Barkleys about him, as in he generally lost (sometimes giving a good account of himself, sometimes not) to the best guys he fought and has his reputation enhanced by being a bogeyman to just one of them...But that one guy he had the wood on was, curiously, a better fighter historically than most / all of those contemporaries he lost to. Luckily for Norton, his contemporaries were in the sport's blue ribband division in a golden generation and featured the most famous sportsman of all time, so he'll always command attention, praise and nostalgia where poor old Barkley might not.

I'd struggle to call him a 'great' fighter really - the word gets bandied about way too easily and I just can't shake the feeling that the chinks in his armour are just too visible and pronounced to see him being a long-reigning or dominant champion in any other era, which his biggest supporters often claim he would have been. Will always be 2-1 against Ali in my mind, though, and even in defeat against Holmes he proved more in my opinion than several aplhabetti spaghetti Heavyweight titlists have proved with their few defences against also-rans. But I wouldn't put him inside a top twenty Heavyweight list.

 

Right, anybody who say Ron Lyle could not swat maybe ask Duane Bobick, -1971 Lyle liked to have killed him , Duane was down and out for 5 minutes made Bob Foster / Mike Quarry LOOK LIKE A SPLIT DECISION!

 

Very good,...but not great.

 

Spider Rico (Lovell) lost to both Balboa and Norton.

 

And Mike Weaver. How many people can say they fought Rocky and Hercules and Kenny Norton?

Did Norton ever have a nickname? My dad called him "Snortin' Norton" but I think he's the only one.

 

The Fighting Marine was it at some point. After Ali I, some called him Jawbreaker but I don’t think he was ever introduced that way in the ring.

 

I remember "The Fighting Marine", now that you mention it. Thanks!