How good is Ken Norton's Jab ?

If it snaps Ali's head back, then it's a good jab.

 

It's one of my favorite jabs actually. Maybe not the greatest in the world, but few fighters have a solid, powerful jab. Norton had one.

 

If you can jab quite competitively with Holmes and Ali though, you have a helluva jab.

 

Excellent underrated jab

 

He out jabbed Ali for the most part. Kenny was able to parry most of Ali's jabs while All blocked Norton's with his face.

 

Norton's jab was excellent and often over looked .. he had a huge reach ( close to 80") , speed, excellent timing and some power there too ..

 

If it was capable of bothering all time greats Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes then it's got to be excellent.

 

Its a good jab but the idea your jab is good because it landed on Ali is silly, What Norton did was wait for Ali to punch at the same time and then deployed his jab since ali was not defensively responsible with the rear hand (to pick off jabs and hooks) he ate the jabs from Norton while Norton parried his shots , Ali was a flawed boxer.

 

It was an excellent jab that he was trained by Futch to use to effectively against Ali ..

 

One of the better jabs. I also like how when he throws it he doesn’t lower his guard. Norton was a good tactical fighter in a lot of respects

 

Kenny Norton was one of the few that could do it. Ali was flawed true but not many heavyweights were quick enough or smart enough to capitalize.
He showed his ability to jab in his other fights. Quarry, Young, Holmes.

 

It was a lost art by the time Ali began his era hence why I do not think the 70s era was all that technical!

 

When I first started boxing I bought two books, one was by Ken Norton about technique and one was a biography of Jimmy Young (of all people). Norton's book is where I first learned to step in with the jab, in fact he said there that "you can't always step in with it during a fight, but try to do so more often than not". Wish I still had those books.