Ali/Norton 3: Horrendous Robbery ?

A terrible decision. I don't care if norton took the last round off, it wasn't close enough to make any difference at all.

Between this fight and the holmes fight norton was ruling the roost as far as i'm concerned.

Ali and leon were paper champs and most people realise the reality.

There is more to being a champion than "beating the man" a champ has to uphold his status against high ranked opposition without the bull**** of gift decisions.

 

So have you reassessed your outlook on Jack Dempsey?

 

Well on the holyfield, frazier, dempsey, liston thread I had dempsey listed 3rd. Puts him outside my top ten.

 

My card:

Ali - Norton III

1 10-9
2 9-10
3 9-10
4 9-10
5 9-10
6 9-10
7 9-10
8 9-10
9 10-9
10 10-9
11 10-9
12 10-9
13 10-9
14 9-10
15 10-9

142 - 143 Norton

 

I had Norton by a point, too.

 

Yeah, by taking them on in the first place.:hey

 

Ofcourse. The champ also needs to cleanly beat them.

Ali didn't deserve the norton fight so should have lost his belt. Struggling against shavers and losing to neon isn't the work of a champion imo.

By the time of the ali-neon rematch the top two were clearly norton-holmes imo.

 

Last time I watched it I had it to Ali by a round or two I think. Was a while ago though, and I worship Ali, so my card most likely wasn't as fair as most.

 

Norton, sure. Don't know if Holmes had proven himself the second best by that time, though. But Ali's claim to be the top dog was not at all clear cut even before losing to Spinks, that's true.

 

I've been thinking the same, reading his resume nothing much exists before norton, however he was top ranked for some reason. Maybe it's a result of a weak division coming to an end.

 

The other top contenders had more or less eliminated each other. Lyle had beaten Shavers, but lost to Young, and Young lost to Norton. So by beating Shavers, Holmes pulled to the front of the queu for meeting Norton,

I think that was a very good bunch of top contenders, and not many would beat all of them, since they offered so different challnges.

 

Well, Larry's win over Norton meant he was more proven than Spinks at the very least. While we're on that fight, it's always puzzled me that more ringsiders had Norton ahead...it's always looked a clear win for Peanut Head in my book.

 

We were talking about going in to Norton-Holmes, but it does seem reasonable Holmes got that shot after beating Shavers like he did. But outside of that his record was thin at the time.

I've only watched it once in it's entirity and then I had Holmes winning by a point. It still felt as clear as such a narrow win can feel, though. But it was a fight where Holmes did most of the work behind an excellent jab, but Norton was the aggressor and landed the biggest shots. Such fights can be viewed quite differently depending on personal preferences.

It's very rarely I see someone having this fight for Norton, though.

 

Maybe that's what you meant mate but you did answer to the statement, "By the time of the Neon Leon rematch", which was after Holmes won the crown.

Me too, these days anyway. They did at ringside though.

 

Ok. I thought it was the other way around date-wise.