¿What exactly puts Frazier above Norton at the legacy level?

To answer:

Frazier's win was over a twenty-nine year old Ali. The first to beat him. Ali then went on to bigger and better things, including a ten fight win streak, after that loss.

Ali beating Norton in the immediate rematch as well as Patterson, Fraizer and Foreman after losing to Joe, shows Fraizer had the better win when it came to Ali.

Norton's win came two years later. Ali had gone on to win several after his first loss and had taken damage, particularly from Foreman. Norton wins but then loses his rematch to Ali and then loses to Foreman. Norton didn't really go on to bigger and better things.

Norton's win was also because Ali hadn't been able to figure out Ken's cross arm block. Once Ali did, Norton lost to him twice.

 

Frazier has more wins and way better wins over the best fighters of the era. Norton really only has the Ali win. Young was a close fight that could have gone either way Quarry was past his best and that's pretty much it in terms of Norton's wins. Frazier has Ellis, Quarry, Bonavena, Bugner which are all great wins which Norton really doesn't have. Plus I'd argue that the Ali Frazier beat in the FOTC was a way better Ali then the one Norton beat. All that together means that Frazier is a solid top ten heavyweight whereas Norton was just a good fighter that had a style that gave Ali problems at least that's my perspective

 

Frazier - Olympic Gold Medalist. Heavyweight Champion. Nine successful title defenses. Only lost to Ali and Foreman.
Norton - Nothing major at amateur. Retroactively named champion. No successful title defenses. Lost to Ali, Foreman, Garcia, Shavers, Cooney.

 

Well, for one, Frazier won the greatest fight of the twentieth century, beating Ali when it mattered. Norton got the leftovers. There is that.

Secondly, Frazier has a much better supporting record. Besides his win over Ali, Norton has the wins over Quarry and Young. After that, it gets REALLY poor, with Tex Cobb, Duane Bobick, Lorenzo Zanon, and Ron Stander being amongst his better wins. Frazier has...

Muhammad Ali
Jerry Quarry I
Jerry Quarry II
Jimmy Ellis I
Jimmy Ellis II
Oscar Bonavena II
Oscar Bonavena I
George Chavulo
Buster Mathis
Eddie Machen
Joe Bugner
Doug Jones
Bob Foster
Ron Stander
Terry Daniels
Manuel Ramos
Dave Zieglewicz
Billy Daniels

Finally, Frazier never lost to Jose Luis Garcia.

 

Better amateur career, better professional career, was the first to beat Ali. Also, decked Ali. Yeah, Ali got right up, but post-exile Ali was as durable as it got.

Why is this even a question? Frazier had a solid career before beating Ali. Norton? Beating Ali basically was his career.

no disrespect to Norton. Good man and a good fighter. But there’s not much comparison here.

 

Bugner, Bonavena and prime Quarry are better than most of Norton's wins.

 

If Norton got the nod over Holmes, this would be very interesting.

 

I was going to say something like this but you explained it better.
I will add that there was a "Frazier reign" (which includes FOTC), but there was no "Norton reign".

 

Norton never won the world title while Fraizer was undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

 

Frazier has more world titles Norton never defended his title although to be fair he had a prime Holmes in his first defence.

Beat better opposition overall.

Frazier beat better versions of Quarry & Ali.

Has less damaging losses to his legacy.


Nortons best wins....

Muhammad Ali
Jerry Quarry
Jimmy Young
Tex Cobb
Duane Bobick
Jose Luis Garcia

Fraziers best wins....

Muhammad Ali
Jimmy Ellis x2
Jerry Quarry x2
Doug Jones
Buster Mathis Jr
Eddie Machen
George Chuvalo
Oscar Bonavena x2
Joe Bugner
Bob Foster

 

Their best win is against the same version of Ali, 29 and 30 respectively, Frazier’s second best win would have to be Jimmy Ellis 1 and Norton 2nd best win would have to be Jimmy Young, both similar quality, Frazier’s 3rd best win would be Jerry Quarry 2 IMO and Norton’s 3rd best win would also be Quarry, a Quarry who was the same age as he was against Frazier.

Their resume was similar in terms of quality and IMO, Norton edged the Holmes fight, his Cobb win was underrated also.

Even if someone thinks Frazier’s resume is slightly better, the way people place Frazier way above Norton is a bit unfair IMO, and IMO it’s because Norton had some losses against guys of a much lower level than Frazier, but that’s because Norton actually took on punchers, we now know that Norton wasn’t great against punchers, but that’s not a reason to rate him way below Frazier because Frazier never actually took on any devastating punchers who could put together fast devastating combinations, so we don’t even know how he’d fare against them.

 

Am I missing something here. Joe Frazier was 10-2 in World title fights while Norton was 0-3. Why is this a debate?

 

How is he possibly not.

FotC Ali is the win in heavyweight boxing (though Norton arguably won 2-3 against him, including a split decision against possibly the best 70's version of Ali.)

Prime Quarry and shopworn Quarry. Prime Ellis and shopworn Ellis. Prime Mathis. Bonavena twice, and Bugner. He beat longtime, top Ring contenders multiple times and sprinkled it with Ali.

That being said, Kenny is underrated legacy-wise. There is a reason he got into the Hall of Fame second year if its existence with some stellar names.

Young was a top 3 contender coming off of a Lyle and Foreman wins.
Quarry was past it, but ranked. Originally meant to fight Oscar.
Cobb just beat Shavers and was a ranked contender.
Garcia was an eliminator.
Lorenzo Zanon was a ranked contender, and somewhat underrated.
Bobick was fighting under Futch. Can't remember if he was ranked, but he was the padded hit stuff meant to trouble Kenny.
And add the Ali win, and two extremely close coin-toss losses. Holmes bout was a one point either way fight as well, earning numerous mentions as one of the best heavyweight bouts of all time, with the 15th round winning round of the year.

Kenny was ranked 9th when fighting against Henry Clerk, but didn't get his breakthrough until beating Ali in '73. Futch claimed he was strongly avoided as high-risk, low-reward fighter until then, which gave him only five or six years of competing at the top.

 

They did not beat the same versions of Ali, Quarry.

Ali FOTC was clearly a better version than the one Norton beat who wasn't in the best of shape.

Norton beat a shopworn Quarry where as Frazier beat a prime Quarry.