Between Joe Louis, Wladamir klitschko, & Larry Holmes

Wlad was destroyed by Brewster and went life and death with Peters and Thompson under Steward.

It was moving to Germany where he could clinch -box under his own rules that did wonders for his career.

 

I am not debating that Norton was a top contender when Holmes fought him, but I still have issues.

He was not the best contender in the world in his prime, and he had gone back a bit when Holmes fought him.

A fine win for sure, but remember the resumes that you are up against!

What the article actually says, is that he was #10 in the end of year rankings, but lets assume that he was #10.

That is still a pretty horrendous best win, for somebody being held up as one of the best contenders of the era.

This is a guy who is not in the class of Lou Nova, never mind Max Schmeling.

Yes I mean outlasted career wise.

Like Norton he seems to have lost to the best of the early 70s, then come into his own when the field thined out a bit, while he was himself past his prime.

Again, a fine win for sure, but you are not up against the Girl Guides here!

I consider Witherspoon to be one of the best heavyweights never to hold the title, but he was a little green when the fight happened, and it was controversial (as opposed to a robbery).

Look, I am not saying that Holmes's opposition was not good, I am just saying that it was not significantly better than Louis's or Wlad's.

 

Louis, Wlad, Wlad

 

Dude your logic is weird. Youre not denying he was a top contender but he was not the "best" contender? Top contender means top contender. The "best" would obviously be the #1. Guess how often Norton held that rank? He consistently appeared in the top ten for most of that whole decade, taking on the best consistently.

As i said, he was on a win-streak against other top contenders and had just won the belt from Young (easily the slickest hw boxer of the decade and top 5 in terms of pure skill). You cant get much better than that resume wise.

Floyd was past his prime when he fought Canelo. Had Canelo pulled off the unthinkable, no one would be sitting there saying "well, the victory doesnt mean much considering floyds age". If Floyd were 40 with multiple losses or struggling wih sub par competition, theyd be absolutely right. Its the complete opposite with Norton: he had bobbick, quarry, young, and ali (robbery) as some of his most recent wins. It had been several years since his blowout loss to Foreman and was on top of the world. The ONLY time Norton ever looked that good career wise was the first time he beat Ali, and thats a FACT.

When discussing the quality of a win over a name opponent, it is absolute nonsense to only look at their biological age. Arent you one of the guys constantly defending Marcianos win over Walcott as being amazing because Walcott was oast his prime but was flattening world class competition?

Cooney would have KOed Nova within 3 rounds. Schmeling would be a competitive fight at worst for Cooney.

I already addressed this: Cooneys handlers rushed him to become a great white hope. Holmes admitted several times Cooney had a lot of potential, that the fight was very challenging, that Cooney was a big hitter, and that he wouldnt be shocked if he became champion with more training. All of these assesments are 100% accurate.

Cooney was a prime, undefeated, hard hitter ranked in the top 10. Hed be a threat in any era, get over it.

This is very innacurate.

The only guys he lost to at his peak were Ali (1-2, really 2-1) and Foreman, who pretty much beat everyone else up too so no shame in that.

Him and Frazier were buddies and trained by the same guy, so they werent going to fight unless they had to.

So out of all the big names of the era, Nortons record is 2-2 against the the only guys that gave him a loss (Ali and Foreman). Is that horrible? Had he gotten he decision over Ali in the 3rd fight and ended his career the same way, people would be calling him a top 20 HW, especially if he retired before taking on shavers and cooney for one last hurrah. Its similar to how Roy Jones had an absolutely stellar career but wouldnt leave the sport and now people rate him lower based on the latter part of his career.

Yes 15 fights is not a lot against a veteran like Holmes but Witherspoon looked phenomenal and proved to be he real deal going on to win 2 belts in his career with a string of highlight reel kos and wins over top names. Its a "good" win for holmes no matter how you look at it. Youre acting like witherspoon was some 17 year old with 3 fights at a local ymca.

My main point in badgering all this home to you is that people will always find a way to nitpick a resume. If Witherspoon was 25-0 but coming off a layoff, theyd use that. If he had a loss, theyd blame that. If he were even 2 months older than Holmes, theyd say he was too old. If you try hard enough, any win can look bad.

And for the record, i wasnt trying to act like holmes' opposition was waaay above the other two, just that i think he gets a slight notch above them because the vast majority of his opponents were

-young, durable, strong
-good ring iq
-in the top 10
-tall, athletic, hard punchers
-coming off win streaks/big wins
-would continue to get big wins and be relevant
-would be serious contenders or belt holders in any other era

I cant say the same for the majority of wladmir and Louis' opponents, even some of their best wins dont meet all these criteria. And what helps Holmes' case is that some of the guys who beat/stopped/went to war with wladmir and louis would be mediocre at best against several other HW champs or contenders of other eras.

For example, Samuel Peter would be like an all you can eat buffet for the guys of the 80's and 90's. A big, slow target with little defense, speed, or ring iq. Wladmir went life and death with him. Galento likewise would have gotten demolished by several of Holmes opponents and Holmes himself. Holmes only got beat by the absolute best, elite hws (tyson, holyfield, mccall) and this was when he was past his prime. Louis and Wladmir struggled with or got beat by B and C level fighters IN their primes.

 

I should just warn you when you come back , anytime I see more than a paragraph of 5 sentences I bypass it and keep scrolling down..... I made an exception this time and my answer is...
NO !

I know its all dribble and unless I'm in the mood to laugh won't bother with any long post addressed to me concerning you half the time .

 

You misunderstand me.

I am not saying that Norton was not a top contender when Holmes beat him.

I am not saying that it was not a very good win.

What I am saying is that this version of Norton being one of the best contenders of the era, probably does not indicate an exceptionally strong era.

You don't know this.

Cooney might well have been better than his record indicates, but we have to deal with the fact that his resume is very thin.

Again, the fact that a fighter with such a thin resume, is being held up as one of the best contenders of the era, does not imply an exceptionally strong era.

I guess it comes down to whether you think that Norton was as good as Foreman and Frazier.

If you think that he was not, then you must conclude that the era where he was the leading contender, was at least significantly weaker than the early 70s.

This is a good win, but it did not happen when it should have done.

This is the case with a couple of key Holmes wins.

I think that Louis especially, was a lot tidier in terms of meeting key opponents, when the fight was logical.

 

Thats bullcrap.

The only reason people look down on this era was because they were spoiled by the golden age of Ali.

This era had

Norton
Holmes
Young
Quarry
Ledoux
Lyle
Bugner
Bobbick
Shavers
Berbick
Spinx

Just to name a few. If you notice, many of the names listed were guys who made a splash in the 70s. Did they suddenly become irrelevant C level side show bums simply because Ali and Frazier were about to retire? That doesnt even make sense.

Norton excelled in this era because he was a GREAT fighter in a "good" era. It wasnt as good as the early to mid 70's obviously but to imply it suddenly became a "weak" era is nonsense.

And for the 5th time, its obvious that this was when Norton had reached his peak career wise. The only other time he looked that phenomenal with so many good wins in a row was the first time he beat Ali.

Sure, i could say that in response to someone suggesting Johnny Paycheck vs Sonny Liston and it would be a valid response since i dont literally "know" for a fact Liston would annhilate him, but it would be asinine to use that line of reasoning to defend my argument.

And thats bogus. Erol Spence has a thin resume but youd sound very stupid if you didnt give someone credit for beating him or calling it a weak era.

Thats the thing, if you break it down, Nortons resume/h2h ability/etc are definitely comparable to both Frazier and foreman.

Who did frazier beat that puts him way above Norton?

-they both beat Ali
-both beat quarry
-both beat ron stander
-both lost to foreman

Frazier has more names in the early 70's while Norton has more names in the late 70's/early 80's.

Fraziers big names: Ellis, Bonavena, Bugner, chuvalo

Nortons big names: Young, Bobbick, cobb

So Frazier has one more big name than Norton, other than their 3 common opponents (quarry, stander, ali). So this begs the question, is there really anything Frazier accomplished that puts him a tier above Norton career wise? In my opinion, not really. They both beat the #1 guy of the era, both became champioms very briefly and beat a good number of top contenders. Both were stopped/lost a similar number of times. Other than Fraziers gold medal, he has nothing that puts his career above Nortons.

As for Foreman, its easy to say hes way above both since he beat them both, but context matters. The only noteworthy contensers Foreman fought before fighting for the title were

-chuvalo
-peralta
-wepner

Frazier had beaten chuvalo, peralta was ok but hes mostly known for his light heavy career and the two fights with foreman. Wepner was a cut prone journeyman at best.

Foreman lost to ali, a guy both frazier and norton beat at least once. That has to be factored in.

After losing the title, foreman beat ledoux, lyle, frazier, then lost to young.

Norton drew with ledoux, frazier was way past it, and Norton ended up beating young for the title.

So Norton beat two guys (ali and young) who beat foreman. So even though foreman beat norton, nortons career overall looks better since foremans championship reign was very short and norton beat more contenders (and more of them who werent shopworn/past their prime).

Ok i can at least agree on that, but we seem to be steering away from the main discussion.

Yes louis fought more guys at the best time, but who were those guys exactly? Isnt louis known for his bum of the month tour? Arent abe simon, buddy baer, schmeling, walcott, and billy conn the only decent names in his "long epic title run"...? Do i need to remind you of the horrible records, low ring iqs, crude barroom brawling, cruiserweight sized shopworn fighters he fought in between his handful of decent wins during his title reign?

The biggest names on his resume either came BEFORE he won the title (ex champs carnera, baer, sharkey, who were all past their prime) or AFTER (Charles, Marciano) when louis was past his best and he LOST.

 

I would say Louis had the best reign. What he did was incredible and he took on all comers. I would put Holmes second by virtue of Wlad never being able to fight the best or second best heavyweight of his era, worse luck. We know Louis and Holmes were the best of their era, we will never know that for sure with Wlad. H2H i'd say his brother has the majority vote.

Best competition is close. None had anything like the Ali era of competition. If Wlad was able to fight his brother that fight would have put him above the others maybe but he also may have lost. All three were well below the 70's and 90's to early 2000. Close.

Best performances i'd go Louis.

 

Who had the best reign out of the three during their time as champion?

It's hard to argue with Louis. Wlad is close but not close enough.

Who had the better competition between the three during their reign?

Wlad hung his hat on modern elite international heavies. Different echelon than the Galentos and Novas and Pastors of the world. We're talking both big bodies and skilled guys, fighters with pedigree and from every background known to the globe. He set a new paradigm in the division with a reign that shall echo in the Halls of Fistiana for centuries to come.


Who had the better performances between the three during their reign?

Does this really need to be addressed? Wlad.

 

This.

Especially the last point. Louis and Holmes might have been in better fights but Wlad over nearly a decade rarely lost any rounds. He was super consistent in his dominance. This outshines all the great performances of the other two.

 

Intelligent and reasoned post!