Is Norton Overated or Underrated?

Exactly.Ken came mighty close to going 3-0 against the GOAT,and came within a whisker of beating Holmes.
Ali and Holmes are by consensus the no 1 and no 3 ATGS of heavyweight history.
There is a tendency to downgrade Norton because of his defeats to Foreman and Shavers but these
two guys were probably the two hardest punchers in heavyweight history.As for the Cooney defeat Norton
was way past his prime,and besides Cooney had possibly the hardest left hook in history.
Norton is generally rated just fine.He's not quite up there with Ali,Frazier and Foreman but he was still
a superb fighter.

 

Overrated off of giving Ali and Holmes tough fights but take away those performances and his resume is pretty sparse not to mention his difficulties with hard punchers.

 

Underrated, prime for prime he beats Holmes, felt he could’ve got the decision in their actual fight.

 

ATG level fighter let down by a non-ATG level chin. So overall he’s fairly rated I guess.

think about it. How often in these fantasy fights do you see that people think he wasn’t capable of outboxing an opponent? Not often. What you see are people writing him off against big punchers. His weakness was never his skills.

 

Wasn’t incompetence it was corruption.

 

I voted overrated but I wish there had been an in-between for "somewhat overrated." I can see him in the top 30 or so all-time heavyweights so he wasn't a jabroni. But I think people get ahead of their skis with him just a wee bit.

 

Norton was washed up vs Cooney, but fair is fair - Ali wasn’t anywhere near his peak when he fought Norton, & he was a leg-damaged shell for the third fight.

 

Let me see:

Beat a 31 year old Ali, who went on to beat Frazier and prime Foreman.

Beat a red hot Jimmy Young for the title.

Gave prime Larry Holmes the fight of his career, showing astounding Championship Heart and Will.

Yeah, he lost to three of the hardest punchers whom ever lived, Shavers and Foreman probably #1 and 2 respectively. I'm not sure there's too much shame in that.

I have him #20 ATG, but that's just my take.

 

Far underrated. Far....

 

And Holmes on fire after impressively shutting out a still-extremely-dangerous Shavers.

 

Nowhere near it. He was 33.

 

For some inexplicable, unfathomable, beyond comprehension reason, Kenny Norton was kryptonite for IMO the greatest heavyweight boxer ever born of a woman.

Does that in and of itself make him a Top 20 ATG?

 

Given the stages of his career Ali was at, no.

 

Fair point re the 3rd fight.However although Ali was indeed somewhat removed from
his peak for the first 2 Norton fights he was still an ATG.To beat even that version of
Muhammad Ali was still a great achievement.

 

I certainly agree. Just, if we’re going to point out where Norton was past it, Ali was past it too. For all their fights.