Do Ali's Loss and Trouble With Norton Get Enough Consideration When Judging Ali?

A fight between a 1967 Ali and a 1973-76 norton would still go the distance. Only difference being,that there would be some more daylight between them on the scorecards. I can see Muhammad saying,post-fight,something like "Ken Norton has been my toughest ever opponent" Norton,indeed would have been a '67 Ali's toughest opponent. Same thing would apply with Frazier. Muhammad would have beaten him,but would still have had a tough fight. It just illustrates that Ali had the best resume out of all the heavy champs.

 

I agree: saying that Ali would've "easily" beaten Norton years earlier is pure speculation. Let's not forget that Doug Jones ran a younger, faster Ali to an extremely close decision, too.

As for talking about diminished stamina: i've never seen him throw more punches than he did against Frazier in '71. In 73, his stamina was fine as was his form. He was great during the 60's, but the horrible level of his opponents made him look better, too.

Norton simply had a style that neutralized Ali's strengths and would've always given him Hell. And yes, that's a bad mark on Ali's resume, considering Norton wasn't all-that, in my opinion.

 

good point

 

In all fairness,the young Cassius Clay who fought Doug Jones was still very much a 'work in progress' version of Muhammad. He was n't yet at his 1966/67 best. Nonetheless,Jones was still pretty good.

 

Yeah but don't you see where this itches?

He was past his best for the Norton/Young bouts. He was green against Jones and Mildenberger(?). I'm not just talking about you specifically, but in general about this argument. You basically throw out all the negatives that are not in the period '66-'67. Fine, but if you want to stay objective, shouldn't you throw out the positives as well? This doesn't give you much to work with.

How about i say Frazier isn't susceptible to a huge hitter early on because he had no such trouble during '69-'71? Or that Lewis was never knocked out between '97 and '00?

 

He certainly was n't green against Mildenberger. I see your point. You do some good posts,by the way :good

 

No, he wasn't green, but there is definitely another factor to consider there. Mildenberger was the 5th or 6th title defense that Clay had fought in just about 11 months, with most of those defenses coming in his opponent's own back yard. Few champions that I can think of ever fought at that frequency except for Joe Louis, and he didn't always look invincible against some of those second rate contenders either. Ad on the fact that Mildenberger was one of the few, or even perhaps the ONLY south paw that Clay had faced to this point, and you can't really blame him for having a little trouble.

As for the Doug Jones bout, he was barely 21 years old with 17 pro bouts, and close fight or not, he still won. I know that Ali is an easy fighter to make excuses for, as he is afterall an iconic figure and did have some bizarre twists and turns throughout his long and controversial career. Some of his critics however, really go to great lengths to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find flaws at times though.

 

I agree.

C'mon. Even if Ali was still a great fighter after the lay-off the difference in speed and workrate is easy to see. Chuvalo and Patterson both testifies to this difference. Especially the version that lost to Norton. Look at him and say that it's not a clear difference compared to how he looked during his championship reign.

In the rematch he looked considerably closer to a "prime" version, though. Still, I don't think he would have gassed after five rounds like that 5-6 years before.

By the way, calling Ali's challengers "horrible" is way off the mark. Liston and Patterson are both ATGs, and Terrell, Folley and Mildenberger were decent contenders. Nothing special, but how special were Berbick, Thomas (after rehab), Tubbs, Tucker etc?

He showed his worth against boxers, that's for sure. He was never clearly outboxed over a whole fight, even though he was nearing 35 when he faced off with Young and Holmes. How many outside the top 10 would give Ali, Young and Holmes such good fights?

 

when ali danced for the first half of Norton 2, norton couldn't live with him. when he tired and stopped moving then he got in trouble. peak 67 ali wins atleast 9 rounds outta 15.

 

In the first half of the Norton fight Ali moved well but a lot of his punches were missing. Most of his jabs were missing. Ali gets a lot of credit for beautiful quick stuff but sometimes he's just not landing anything. I'm not saying he didn't win most of the early rounds but it wasn't a shut-out or making Norton look like an amateur. If Ali dances too well for Norton to catch him but he's moving so fast he cant actually land that jab through Norton's guard, it's hard to call it one-sided.

 

Yeah, Norton actually did quite well in these rounds. He lost most of them, but he wasn't getting tagged by anything serious and he knew Ali would gas eventually in that pace. That's why I firmly believe Norton always would have been difficult for Ali.

 

I think CF Gauss made some good points in his post regarding Ali and other fighters or rather champions in regard to thier actual primes. Ali of '73 certainly wasn't in his prime but he wasn't that far removed from it either. Even if Ali never had the foced layoff imposed upon him can we really believe that he would still be as fleet of foot and fast of hand in '73 as he was in '67? He was 6 years older and getting bigger. There's no way he would be as fast. Plus Ali had 4 or 5 fights before fighting Norton and plenty of training as well. Of course fighting Frazier in '71 had to have taken a toll but Ali was still a championship calibre fighter in '73. Some people make it sound as if Norton was fighting an old washed up ex champion. Clearly he wasn't. Ali proved as much in '74 against Foreman and '75 against Frazier. Foreman took 10 years off and came back to win the title in his 40's! And that was after going 12 rounds against a prime ATG in Holyfield and fielding hundreds of clean hard shots in the process. Lets not forget that Louis joined the Army for 4 years as well. That certainly took it's toll to a certain degree on his reflexes and fighting form. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to diminish Ali in any way but I think we have to put things in perspective. The layoff certainly had an effect on Ali but he was still a fantastic fighter after it but Norton would have probably given any version of Ali a tough scrap.

 

Yes, it's a valid point.

Norton is ranked highly mostly because of the Ali win. He had a few other good performances, like the razor close win over Young, and a valiant losing effort against Holmes. But his devastating KO losses to Garcia, Foreman and Shavers are not something to be ignored.

I'm scratching my head to think which top15 heavyweight would've lost to Norton in a similar career stage. To be frank, i think 80% of them would lay Norton out within 5 rounds. I'd pick even a "second-rate" all time great like Patterson or Walcott to beat him, although that is speculation.


Then again, sometimes a lucky decision can a substantial impact on our viewings. Let's be honest: Holmes could just have well lost the decision against Witherspoon (a fighter similar to Norton in ranking), or be stopped against Shavers/Snipes. Louis could've lost the decision to Walcott. Dempsey nearly lost to Firpo. Holyfield was nearly stopped against Cooper. etc etc.

However, in being on the receiving end of a lucky - or downright undeserving - decision win, Ali ranks at the top as well. Norton III and Young should've gone against him, and the Shavers and Norton II fights could easily be scored in the favor of his opponents, too. So, i don't think Ali deserves to get a break here.

Thanks.

 

The bottom of the barrel certainly does get scraped. Mostly about some of Muhammad's controversial decisions near the end of his career. Every champion throughout boxing history has had his share of those.