Why did jimmy young had a lot of losses on his record?

I think he lost a lot of his passion after what he saw as another robbery against Norton. He was also badly out of shape for the first Ocasio fight, iirc. Never saw the rematch.

 

2 main reasons.

1)Jimmy Young was a strict point fighter who barely had any 12 and 15 rounders(5). Point fighters are going to have a hard time winning consistently in 10 rounders against good opponents. Especially if judges aren't fans of their style. Let's look at Young's fight v Ali. The judges would have biased towards Ali anyway because he was Ali but unlike when Ali fought Ken Norton they were also biased against Young. Throughout 10 rounds the fans(42 people on boxrec) had it 6-4 or 7-3 for Jimmy Young but the judges had it 9-1 for Ali. One had it a shutout. Young's style was divisive. Key differences between Young and someone like Floyd Mayweather is that Floyd was a WW- who transitioned to this sort of style as an established champion.

2)Jimmy Young declined very young. Young is one of those people that started seriously declining at 30 and is totally done by 35. Ezzard Charles was another one. When a fighter rely's on their "fast twitch" the earliest aging hits them harder then it does everyone else because these are the first traits to go. A lot of the fighters that decline on the timetable Young did don't stick around to eat the losses but Young kept fighting until 41. Most other fighters in his situation would have pulled the plug after loss 11 or 12.

A difference between Young and others who seriously decline at 30 is most of these hit the scene early and it evened out to an extent. Ezzard Charles hit the scene at 19-20. Charles had 11 years in Rings top 10. Young became a top HW at 25-26. He only had 4. So Young had a very limited window of his career he was great. He was a prospect had those 4 years then he was old. During those 4 years he was 13-2-1 and that records the one that shows you the kind of fighter he was.

Some added bits of context.
Young took 16 of his 18 losses by decision 5 of which were split.

Young took 3 of his 18 losses in fights under 10 rounds.

13 of Young's losses were to high level opponents and 17 retired with a winning record.

 

Close friend of mine was a friend and sometime sparring partner of Jimmy. He told me after the Norton bout his motivation was gone and he started doing coke. He wound up losing his home as well.

 

Excluding retirements, long layoffs, and the Liston-Ali rematch, since I don't consider that a legitimate performance, I can't think of a bigger drop-off between consecutive fights than Young from Norton to Ocasio.

 

Absolutely 100%

 

Excellent!