How Good is Ken Norton's Cross Arm Guard

You stated it well. At the beginning of his bout with Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton was using his cross-armed defense with his back on the ropes, probably in an effort to get Shavers to tire himself out. But it backfired very quickly when Shavers landed a left hook to Norton's right temple, resulting in Norton being badly hurt and getting stopped in the first round. Norton simply couldn't cope with the hard punchers in the heavyweight division.

- Chuck Johnston

 

In my opinion it is a great pure defensive posture. A shorter man who can mix up these types of techniques intelligently will always bother taller, longer boxers who try to box to said attributes. Since it is originally a bare knuckle guard used to defend against straight leads, it's not surprising jab heavy head-hunters like Ali and Holmes struggled so much against it.