Jersey Joe Walcott And Ken Norton?

Interestingly, Norton could take say a 7-8/10 power punch very well.

Well enough to extrapolate that anything more powerful, while obviously hurting him more, wouldn’t necessarily see him fall apart as he did.

So for Ken, despite taking a decent shot, it seems all bets were off when a punch landed on him registered anything above 8/10 on the power Richter scale. Like he suddenly fell off a cliff.

Then again, aside from Garcia who exacted an early career KO loss, the likes of Foreman, Shavers and Cooney were all time monster punchers and at least Ken ultimately crossed paths with that scary lot - though obviously past prime when he engaged Earnie and Gerry.

 

I'd like to say Norton is more overrated but he's still better than Walcott, who has a much weaker resume

 

Norton is overrated, not to say he wasn't a good enough fighter, but his name was built on the Ali trilogy. He was a late-comer to boxing with very basic skills. He was great athlete and very strong, had great stamina as well. When we talk about the greatness of Ali, feel he too was a little overrated. A great and important fighter but certainly not "the greatest".

I don't think Walcott was overrated. He isn't really discussed all that much in the context of ATG fighters and much of his glory was based on being the oldest HW to become champion at 37 until Foreman broke the record four decades later. When you consider he fought competitively well into his late thirties and was somewhat small for a HW, his controversial loss to Louis and wins over Charles I'd say he's right where he should be. He also lost years of his prime during WWII while inactive and lacking any sort of management.

 

Agree on whereabout Ken’s breaking point was with taking power shots, but a big thing was he generally had slow/poor recuperative powers.

Larry Holmes got hit probably harder by Shavers than Norton did but recovered. (Of course Holmes had remarkable recuperative powers.) If you hurt Norton and seized the moment, you had a good chance of compounding it and getting him out of there. Hell, Scott LeDoux nearly did it.

 

No argument there. Larry had ATG recuperative powers and also kept his head while fighting hurt to max. his recovery time.

Once Ken got badly hurt he was also somewhat all at sea psychologically, inviting his opponent to land further destructive follow up shots.

As I recall the fight, Ken was dominating LeDoux until he copped a thumb in the eye. Ken was also getting well on in age and his tank certainly wasn’t what it used to be.

 

For sure Norton was past it vs LeDoux, but when Scott got an advantage in the last round he was able to completely unload as Norton was unable to clear his head or do anything to buy time. To me it just underscores when Ken got hit … he stayed hit, so to speak.