In Defense of Earnie Shavers

I think that you are overstating the case against his contenders to be honest.

Ellis's only losses in the last seven years, were to Ali and Frazier.

Norton had recently had a very competitive fight against Holmes.

It is dangerous to infer that a fighter is shot based on subsequent events, for obvious reasons.

It is not like these guys were competitive in loosing efforts either.

A loss like that might well push a guy over the cliff.

Either way, a fighter who is legitimately beating people ranked in the top ten, is not a manufactured fighter.

 

He has exactly two marquee wins and those two wins were against faded fighters who had plenty of weaknesses to begin with.

Do we really want to belabor the point that at 36 Norton was in his prime? Really? I'll say again: Who had Ellis fought since losing to Ali two years earlier in one sided fashion? Answer: Nobody. Dont sit there and pretend the guy was in his prime (which wasnt exactly an unbeatable prime at that). In beating his only two marquee names Shavers beat two of the weakest HW "champions" (and I use that term lightly to describe both) ever and both were well removed from their prime when Shavers got to them. Its a silly point to even try to contend. Outside of those two names where are all of these contenders that Shavers beat? After that its a sad fact that Shavers resume drops dramatically with his next two best names being sparring partner level opponents such as Williams and Clark. Neither of whom it took a legend to beat.

Is anything Ive said above deniable? Do the opponents Shavers actually managed to beat not have a laughably ridiculous losing win/loss ratio? Does that ratio not completely flip flop with the fighters that beat Shavers? If thats not a padded record I dont know what is. Do you really want to argue that Ellis and Norton hadnt passed their best days at 33 and 36? You want to argue that Shavers was the deciding factor in their lack of success afterwards? LOL please.

 

Your points are valid but there is no denying Shaver's power .. he would have crushed any Norton because of Norton's flaw of freeing against big punchers .. he badly hurt Ali in round 2. Holmes said he was the hardest puncher he ever faced by far. In losing to Lyle he hurt Lyle badly in the 3rd (?) round .. Tex Cobb , they all said his power was legit, not hyped . that being said, his technique was pretty decent but the man did tire out ( although he looked decent going 15 w Ali ) and limited .. he was a match up fighter ..

 

I am not saying that Ellis and Norton were in their primes, but they were clearly world class, and they were placeholders in the division.

The losses that they suffered at his hands, are exactly the kind that might push an ageing fighter still at the top level, into rapid decline.

Yes, he might well have precipitated their decline.

What exactly are we debating here?

Shavers was what he was.

He was not a great fighter, or even one of the best never to hold the title, but he was surely something!

Don't even debate his power!

 

Of course he was good enough to be champion. While I don't think it was wrong to give Ali the win over him, the fight was close enough that Shavers could have won it without any great controversy.

And if Norton go the nod over Ali one year earlier, it's far from inconceivable that Shavers would have gotten a shot at his title and KO'd him (like he also did in reality).

He wouldn't hold the title for very long probably, but he sure could have been champ for at least a while.

 

I think the declining Ali was a poor champion and as poor as he was (he had reached a point where he could no longer convincingly beat a world class fighter) Nobody was "convincingly" beating him. And they should have because Ali after Manila was ripe for any decent contender by then. This includes Norton and SHavers they both showed too much respect and gave away close rounds with Ali who was basically going through the motions on auto pilot. They should have punished Ali but they were quite old themselves by then. Perhaps the 15 round limit intimidated them?

Holmes won a good fight on the Ali v Foreman card but was left treading water for three years unable to land meaningful fights. He should have been stepped up about then really.

 

Dean Chance was all about hype. He used his fame as a MLB player to jump into boxing and manage/promote fighters. His modus operandi was exactly what happened with Shavers. Match his fighters soft, get them a nice KO ratio, and then try to leverage that into fights. His fighters rarely worked their way into contention and almost always flamed out when they started fighting quality fighters. The guy was a carnival barker for gods sakes and it was this approach that he took with boxing.

How do you figure Shavers came up the hard way? Having a massively padded record and never really beating a top 5 HW to get a ranking or title shot is not what I would call coming up the hard way.

 

Has there ever been a boxing/manager promoter than isn't "all about hype" ?

I think for a fighter to be considered a "hype job" the hype needs to have spread and been taken up way beyond the ambitions of his manager, with the boxing media at large putting themselves into it.
And way beyond proportion to the fighter's accomplishments.

Like, say, Gerry C00ney.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how Ken Norton was "shot" when Shavers fought him.

Norton was arguably the second-best heavyweight in the world (behind only Holmes - who barely edged him) when he stepped into the ring with Shavers.

Norton was also the #1 contender.

There was absolutely nothing "shot" about him entering that fight.

 

Or Jose Urtain.

 

Norton just got his butt kicked by a big puncher. There was nothing in any fight in Norton's career entering the Shavers fight to lead to the conclusion at all that Ken Norton was "shot."

Norton just got ambushed.

It was similar to what happened when Sean O'Grady fought Andy Ganigan. O'Grady was considered one of if not the best lightweight in the world entering the Ganigan fight. And he just got destroyed.

It happens. But, going in, nothing pointed that it was about to happen. Big punchers are dangerous that way.

 

Norton might have been slightly past it for Holmes and Shavers but there's really no clear evidence.
He was certainly worthy of being rated the second-best in the world going in against Shavers, and just a shade below a prime Holmes. Which means he was pretty good.
He didn't look too bad, nor brilliant, against Randy Stephens in the fight before Shavers, but it was a nothing fight.

AFTER he faced Shavers it became clear he was over-the-hill, and perhaps Shavers contributed to that. He struggled badly with Scott LeDoux in his very next fight.

 

Wait, so ****ey was an overrated hypejob but Shavers wasnt? So ****ey gets a string of KOs over faded fighters and nobodies and gets a title shot based off of little else and loses a competetive fight... how exactly is that different from Shavers?

Norton got dominated by Holmes (an injured one armed Holmes BTW) outside of a few competetive rounds. Ive never understood the hype around Holmes-Norton and Ive said so on here numerous times. Norton got outboxed something like 10-5 (at best). And lets not pretend that Norton was all that to begin with. The guy was a glass jawed, stiff legged, protected fighter whose name came from the fact that he posed stylistic problems to Ali. He has a pretty damn shallow resume himself so even if you want hinge Shavers rep on his victory over 36 year old Norton its a pretty weak argument for Shavers being anything special. The fact is that Shavers beat exactly two, thats right TWO rated fighters: #4 Jimmy Ellis (who was 33 and had sat on his rating for 2 years doing nothing of note and would never do anything of note again) and #1 or #2 rated Norton (depending on which rankings you look at, and Norton was 36 and I dont care what anyone says to prop shavers up Norton was past it and was never that great to begin with).

Ill ask again, who are all of these top rated guys Shavers beat? Its a very very very short list. If you give Shavers white skin hes no better than ****ey or any of the other white hope hype jobs with padded records. But like I said, some people have a thing for bald black sluggers and buy into hype.