A peak 73-74 norton beats prime larry holmes

I was just re-watching this fight on Youtube to refresh my memory, and saw the comment I wrote as I was watching the fight for the first time. (Apparently there's a feature that moves your own comment to the top of the board if you're signed in.)


"Man, I'd always heard that this fight was razor close, but from what I've seen so far, that is complete and utter horse****. Larry Holmes has easily dominated the first few rounds; then it's fairly competitive for while with Norton still getting the worst of it, and now in the thirteenth Holmes has Norton badly hurt and seemingly on the verge of going down. Unless Norton opens up two industrial strength cans of whoopass in rounds 14 and 15, I don't see how this could possibly be considered close."

I was fully expecting Holmes to come within a hair of getting knocked out and saved by the bell in the 14th or 15th (what else could POSSIBLY make this fight bear any resemblance to what I'd always heard?) but needless to say that didn't happen and if anything it looks even more one-sided as I watch it now.

Bull**** like this must be why Larry has such a huge chip on his shoulder.

 

Holmes admitted to being a stronger fighter when he weighed over or about the 220 mark. His words after the Witherspoon fight was he came in at leat 10 pounds too light otherwise he wouldn't have struggled at all.

Holmes absolute best was in the 80's not 70's.

 

I quoted the comment I wrote as I was first watching the fight two years ago, which gives a rough breakdown of the fight as I was watching it. Can you tell me where you disagree?

Can you give me timestamps for any parts of the fight where it looks to you like Norton is getting the better of Holmes? Because I can just start giving timestamps at random and odds are Holmes will be whipping Norton's ass at that given point.
So to begin let's go with the current year, and convert that to the timestamp 20:18. (I don't know exactly what we're going to see before I post this link but somehow I'm not at all worried about looking silly.)

This content is protected

 

Hi John! Yes; you're referring to a 73-74 Norton vs. prime Larry. A Norton, at that time, was 'approaching peak' , IMO not quite there yet, turning pro rather late in 1969. Always a bad matchup for Ali, he did well in the first two and, IMO won the 3rd fight in 76.
I'm sure many would agree that you can't really cite a specific Holmes "prime".
In closing, my reasoning is simply that ANY Holmes 'prime' would have piled up points on Kenny and I simply don't think Norton could have stopped Larry in any scenario. I'm sure it would have been a great scrap but with Larry's size, jab, good whiskers, and big right would have prevailed everytime.
Sidebar: Larry could be stupid and lazy with his style as evidenced by his plan in round 15 against Kenny. He had the fight won but chose to go toe to toe with Kenny in the 15th, knowing Norton had nothing left at that point that could put him away. He was hurt (a little) but was blasting Norton in pure Championship mode. That's just my take John...

 

How could he? He nearly beat a TOP 5 ATG in his prime!

 

Holmes vs Norton if they fought a Ali - Norton / Frazier like trilogy it would
always be hard fought contests. Norton would probably win once.
However as per title thread in the one off prime vs prime Holmes on pts.

 

The fight was clearly close and the most easy round to score for Norton would be round 8 ..a crystal clear round he won.

I had Holmes winning by one round and that was the last rnd which won it for him.

If there was ever a misperceived fight that Holmes was in it was Spinks 2 . A fight not remotely as close as the announcers led you to believe and a fight very easy to score unlike this one, where so many punches were picked off by both guys.

 

It is simply not true .. Norton was a young 34 .. he was coming off a very impressive fight against a prime Jimmy Young and was fighting as good as ever against better opposition .. the year before that he clearly outpointed Ali in Yankee Stadium but was robbed .. What performance do you use to support that Norton was way past his prime ?

 

Come on now, Foreman & Dempsey. We know that by making out that 78 Kenny is shot and yet still forced Holmes into a life and death struggle that makes the appearance of anyone who blew 'prime' Ken away in, shall we say 1974?, look even more awe-inspiring. Agenda? I should coco.

Kenny was still fine in 1978. He'd turned pro at 25, 26 and looked after himself. 34 was a good age for him. Larry did well to beat him when he did

And you can't just say 'don't listen to excuses like shoulder injury blah, blah'. It had a big effect. Holmes' main weapon was his left jab and he had injured that arm. If you don't give Larry a bit of slack for that affecting his performance, don't take umbrage when people deride your man Foreman's excuses for losing to the better man in Zaire - drugged water, loose ropes, quick count, Long stay in Zaire blah blah - as being just that, excuses.