A question about the 70's Heavyweights

Agreed on the first part; in fact, outside of Ali's entertainment value, the period of 1975-1980 wasn't all that. Ali basically kept the title hostage, refused to face Foreman, should've lost to Norton, Young and arguably Shavers. He had a lot of boring fights against undeserving challengers. Young, although one of my favorites, was not an exciting fighter, Foreman retired, Shavers was erratic, Frazier retired, and then Spinks became linear champ...Holmes looked promising though, and didn't have that "boxing used me, now i'm gonna use boxing"-attitude yet in the late 70's.


But i'm not sure if Bobick-Norton was such an unnecessary risk. Or well, of course it was a big risk (especially in hindsight), but didn't Bobick come off something like 30 or even 40 tomato can-wins in a row? A manager taking risk with a prospect is for instance Alexander Povetkin's manager; not 40 Foremaneqsue wins before stepping up.

 

It certainly wasn't as risky as Povetkin's stepping up (although Povetkin has had an even longer amateur career than Bobick) but it was a surprising choice. Bobick went straight from C level to A level, if one remembers that Norton was regarded as at least a top 5 fighter.

Also, one has to remember that the current generation of non-American heavyweights is an exceptional one in terms of stepping up. Wladimir, Vitali, Povetkin, Haye, Chagaev etc. are hardly typical. It's because of a rare correlation of hunger, brave management, television (which allows for early exposure; you needed 30-40 fights in the 1930s just to be known in boxing circles) and competitive spirit amongst prospects. The early-to-mid-1980s saw a similar period of boxers stepping up early.

Norton was a very risky choice for a boxer with limited experience against competition of even a top 20 calibre. It'd be a bit like Tye Fields facing Ruslan Chagaev in his next fight.

 

I wish more "experts" would correctly talk about the EARLY 70's because the late 70's were not a great era for Heavyweights. Aside from Neon Leon of course.

 

1966-1975 seems really to have been the golden era. During this time fighters like Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton, Quarry, Ellis, Bonavena, Lyle, Shavers, Bugner were at their best or close to it, and they more or less all fought each other and several of those fights are modern classics. Add a resurgent Patterson to that and you have a great set of fighters.

 

I hear ya man, very quality post..

The competition at the highest level was amazing but it was these top notch contenders arriving that made it a Boom period for heavys..

I actually thing some of the heavys in the early eighties weren't that bad, Larry ruled the roost and some great prospects made the champs fight very hard to strive to follow Alis lead..