How did Norton get stopped by 188 pound Garcia?

While you're not necessarily wrong to like those fighters' odds vs. Norton, I don't think the Garcia fight it itself makes much of a case either way. Look at the losses that Dempsey & Walcott suffered w/ far more than just 16 fights under their belts & to fighters that were no less "small" than Garcia.

 

Great book.

 

I did some research into how Ken Norton got stopped by Garcia and uncovered that he did it by getting hit upside the head, which seems to be the No. 1 cause of boxers being stopped by other boxers.

Ken, being a crafty son of a gun, learned from that meeting and turned the tables on Garcia in the rematch — he used the same strategy that did him in … but with a twist … hitting Garcia to the body to beat him up and stop him.

So consider the mystery solved.

 

I like this thread less than Iran Barkley's jab.

 

And you know this how....?

You again attempt to sneak Ernie in there.
The dude was a hard hitter, but there is no way whatsoever to prove that he hit any harder than Godfrey, Firpo, Baer, B. Baer, Elmer Ray, Satterfield, Williams, Wilder, Zhang, Vlad or even Joshua.
Testimonies are cool but did Ali, Tillis or Holmes get hit by the other guys I mentioned? (Ok, Ali fought Williams but aside from him).

Completely unimpressive victories. What even is the point? He went up against punchers who had a pulse and he got crushed.
Evidently beating a Quarry who has already been ground down to potato puree by the likes of Ali and Frazier multiple times over did not prepare Norton for guys who could hit.

I was wrong about that one. I'll take your word for his rankings. I had checked Ring rankings in the 70s and only saw Garcia there in 1970 at 10, and assumed he only got there by his Norton victory. I also checked his record and didn't see anyone notable, Norton aside.
Can't think of Garcia as anything other than a borderline contender though. He doesn't stand in for the likes of Foreman, Cooney or Shavers.
So I'll ask you this, given Norton's performances against Garcia, Quarry and Bobick (lol), do you think he'd hold his own against George Godfrey, Buddy Baer and Cleveland Williams?

 

Wait a minute. We are slagging off Norton as an overrated guy here? I'm a little lost. This forum hypes Larry "Path of Least Resistance" Holmes as a Top 3 Heavyweight of all time and admits that his in-his-prime fight with an old Norton was nip and tuck and could have gone either way and that performance doesn't add to Norton's resume? Strange logic indeed.....

Garcia could fight and like a lot of middling ranked guys could pull off a really good night now and then. Norton had had some close calls coming up the ranks and as was mentioned had not perfected that really smart and effective cross armed guard that served him so well in years to come. I thought the story was that Norton was edging the rounds until he got caught and he got finished. Which looked similar to the rematch in that Garcia was dangerous while losing exchanges and rounds until an improved Norton finished him off.

I would agree with some of the above posts that Norton's rep does and should get some penalty points for his early round KO losses. Especially the one to an old Shavers that prevented Holmes from having to rematch him like he should have to begin with...

 

Holmes is quite over-rated, is the answer to this.

 

I think his lofty ranking had a lot to do with him being Venezuelan (the WBA at the time was roundly criticised for the high rankings of many South/Central American fighters). Not sure he was as high as #2 mate but happy to be wrong about this. A #2 ranking at the time would mean he's rated above one of Joe, George or Muhammad, and I don't see how this was possible- even with the WBA in the 1970s!

I know he was rated #4 but possibly could have been #3, as many at the time filled that spot after 'the Big Three' (e.g. Ellis, Patterson, Quarry, Bonavena) in 1972, early 73. His highest placing would have been 1972 when Joe was champ.

In fairness, it's debatable whether he ever even deserved a top 10 ranking, his 'w' record vs decent fighters is thin to say the least. A great win vs Kenny and a phoney 'rematch' to make it 1-1 when Garcia was so obviously badly faded and had even been mashed by Joe Bugner- and if Joe Bugner had the confidence to steamroll a fighter from the off, tells you all you need to know about how good they were at the time.

 

He implemented as soon as he started training - off his own bat.

 

That gets bandied about a bit but it's not quite right. He was 22 1/2 when his first amateur fight appears on boxrec and he had won three all marine titles prior to that over, i think, about 26 fights. So he'd been around the traps well before 23. I'd guess 20-21.

 

At any rate Norton was still learning and had, like Joe Louis (but at a far less proven stage than Joe), got cocky and arrogant and took Garcia for granted. There was also no film available of Garcia (Ken fancied himself as a student of the game) but that's a small point.

Futch didn't miss him, taping that picture of Norton all over the floor to the inside of his locker door so he would see it as soon as he returned to the gym.