I don't believe that Quarry KO'd Norton in sparring

By "at this point" i'm sure you understood i was talking about when he was getting beaten and dropped a bit.

It's somewhat lazy writing off Norton's achievements to style clashes. The guy beat Ali and run him close every fight. On the downside of his career he ran Holmes extremely close in a 15 rounder for the title and bested Young in a close one just prior. He's got some decent wins aside too.

 

Who, in your opinion, actually won the rubber match between Ali and Norton?

 

I love how people try and discredit Norton's success vs Ali due to "styles".

Didn't Joe Frazier have a troublesome style for Ali aswell ? Yet he wasn't as competitive as Norton was in fights 2 and 3.

How about the fact that Norton was excellent at parrying jabs ? Especially two ATG jabs ? That's a skill in itself. Or the fact hes one of the most well conditioned Heavyweights of all time ? The fact hes easily able to go 15 rounds at good pace being constant aggressor ?

He fought 3 of the most skilled Heavyweights of the 70s in Ali, Holmes, Young, that's 5 fights all in all that he acquitted himself very well in two of them being ATGs.

But yeah let's not give Norton any credit and just say its "down to styles". When really Young, Holmes, Ali, fight differently so it can't all just be about styles Norton has to have some ability.

 

A fine post, great points.

 

Excellent post.

May as well say Foreman wasn't all that and only did well vs Frazier and Norton due to the respective style match ups.

I'm not comparing Foreman and Norton's resume, just pointing out it's silly to discount a fighters best win(s) or performance(s) because the style match up meant they were able to harness their greatest attribute(s).

Norton's tenacious pressure works well against "hit and move" boxers, just as Foreman's huge power is most effective against come forward pressure fighters. It was these attributes that made them the fighters they were.

 

Exactly of course a boxer is going to have certain stylistic advantage against a certain style, it's like Rock/Paper/Scissors.

Look at Salvador Sanchez he thrived against elite pressure fighters like Gomez, Lopez. But then looked very beatable against the likes of Patrick Ford when he had to chase his opponent instead of counter punching.

Boxing is always about style match ups which is why it's such an intriguing sport with so many aspects to it.

I don't think I've ever seen any other fighter though get discredited like Norton, for apparently just having a good style vs Ali. When in reality that's false because hes proven against 2 other very skillful Heavyweights one of them being an ATG in Holmes. That's not down to being a fluke due to styles, it's down to Norton being a very capable Heavyweight end of.

 

Agreed, styles are definitely material to how Norton's career panned out, though he was past prime for Shavers and inparticular Cooney, too.

Just as it would not be balanced to discount his losses when appraising his career because he matched up poorly vs huge punchers, we shouldn't discount his best wins and performances because the style match ups were favourable.

 

I agree but people just say he had "good style vs Ali" when really that's false.

Ali was more of an athletic unorthodox type boxer, where as Holmes was more of a technical boxer, and Young was a defensive boxer.

So whilst all 3 may be classed as boxers, they all bring something different to the table with their attributes. So for me Norton doing well against them shows he is a very capable Heavyweight.

Yes Norton may struggle against the top tier punchers, although to be fair he was past his prime vs Shavers, Cooney. But I don't think Norton loses to every guy that can hit at Heavyweight either based on those fights.

 

To be fair, I've always thought a pre-Foreman Norton would've beaten Shavers and especially Cooney imo. That bout hurt his confidence in his chin, and particularly against punchers.

 

I don't agree he was necessairily vulnerable against punchers until demolished by Foreman but I agree his stylistic advantage against boxers is overstated. Yes he gave Ali hell, but the same is absolutely true vice versa. Same goes for Holmes, and Young.

 

That's a big call Swag. Whilst I rate Norton higher than Shavers and Cooney, accept he matches up far better to pure boxers than either of them and accept he was past prime for both, particularly Cooney, conventional wisdom suggests a come forward pressure fighter, who is there to be hit, doesn't match up well with huge punchers unless his chin is cast iron. Cooney and Shavers were huge punchers and whilst I think Norton's chin is far better than most credit him for, it wasn't iron, imo.

All that said, I've noticed you comment a lot on HWs, particularly from the 50's through to the 70's, you've clearly studied that period in depth, so I'm curious as to your reasoning. Do you think pre-Foreman Norton would and could -1) Change up his usual style, hit and move, and outbox them; 2) Withstand their power; 3) Blast them out early before they could get to him; or 4) do you favour Ken for some other reason? Cheers in advance.

 

Norton actually boxed with a more conventional style vs Frazier in sparring, he stick and moved and didn't use his cross arm defense either.

Although he never showed this in actual fights though.

 

Excellent post. Some people only care about "style matchups" when it's convenient, such as when they want to discredit boxers they're not fond of. Norton and Foreman get blasted for this for their best wins all the time. "Tailor made" is another expression. It rarely gets used outside of the 70's boxers for some reason.

By that logic, Spinx, Tubbs, and Williams were tailor made for Tyson. Peter, Areola, and Briggs were tailor made for Vitali. I could go on.

 

Norton obviously did well with Ali. I've always wondered about the scoring for the Holmes fight. I think the boxing establishment wanted Norton to win, but it never looked like a close fight to me. Whenever I've scored the fight and if I remember right, when the board scored the fight for Fight of the Week, most of the scores were 10-5ish for Holmes. On the other hand, I scored all 3 Ali - Norton fights for Norton. I can't remember how I scored Young and Norton, but it was close either way.

As far as Norton vs. big punchers, I think Norton's cross arm with his right hand in front of his face makes him hard to hit with a jab, his left shoulder makes it difficult to hit him with right hands (unless you can "open" him up), but he doesn't cover his right jaw area and he is vulnerable to left hooks. Shavers threw a lot of hooks in a short time with Norton and hurt him with a hook first, Cooney always threw hooks, Foreman got Norton with the right, but he used the hook to make Norton adjust to deal with the hook and that left him open for the right hand. I don't know what Dutra, Gilmore, Eastling, and Garcia hit Norton with. Norton was the type of guy who would give 1-2 (jab - cross) fighters a tough fight, but a guy with a good hook was a problem for him.

Norton's cross arm worked against some good fighters, but against some that might be considered "limited" like Tua and Morrison I don't think Norton would have done well at all.

 

I've always thought Norton's confidence was never quite the same against punchers after the Foreman bout. He froze up, and never fought his fight particularly against Shavers when he tried about three different strategies within a round. Against Foreman, he didn't have this weakness. He stuck to his preferred style, and while not exactly setting the world on fire, had much more success in the first round against a far better puncher than either Shavers or Cooney so I personally can't see that version, getting knocked out in the first round as he did when he met them. He even gave Foreman something to think about as Pugs mentioned, causing him to adapt.

Shavers while a decent fighter, was very inconsistent and flawed. As seen by his loss to journeyman Bob Stallings, and his one round blow out to Quarry. While I do think Shavers' chin is badly underrated, I think Norton had the firepower to hurt him, and this was seen even in their fight, Norton hit Shavers a couple times, and while he didn't have him in trouble Shavers was clearly bothered imo.

Cooney is a bit of an enigma and a bit more difficult to assess. We don't know quite how good he was, because we never saw him go up against fellow contenders of his time period. He beat one ranked contender, the aforementioned Norton who was shot and didn't deserve his ranking at all. I don't think his blow outs of Lyle, and Norton tell us much considering where they both were in their careers. Young while definitely past prime, was still a good fighter, and I'm very impressed with Cooney's performance in this bout, which indicates to me, he may very well be better than his record suggests. All we really know is, he clearly wasn't as good as Holmes, but even in that bout I don't think he was quite as his best as he hadn't fought in over a year and was lacking ring time, fighting just over 3 and a half minutes in the last two years. I prefer the Cooney in the Young bout tbh.

So to answer your question, I don't think a pre Foreman Norton would or should change up his usual style, as imo that was a big factor in his downfall against Shavers.

I think a more confident Norton would be better able to withstand their power and wouldn't freeze up the first time, he was hit, and he'd be better able to stick to his game plan.

But you may very well be right, he may not have been able to handle their power at any time in his career.

Thanks for the compliments Greg and I'd like to return them to you. You are among the best posters here, and I have you in my top 5.