Joseph Parker vs prime Ken Norton

If Usyk is a Cruiserweight then so is the majority of your golden age "HW" fighters. Pick a lane and stick to it.

 

Usyk is a heavyweight by past and today's standards because he meets the weight requirement, and I imagine Holyfield is the same. Hunter has been largely unsuccessful at heavyweight so not sure why you'd bring him up at all, same with Haye.

Opetaia and Fury's sparring session holds no relevance here, because sparring isn't fighting.

Think I'm going to leave this alone now because some people will never accept flaws from the "golden era". My opinion remains that both era's would be fairly competitive for a multitude of reasons.

Have fun guys.

 

Cherry pick ? Fury is the Lineal Heavyweight champion is he not ? how in the world is that cherry picking ? Wilder is a string bean with legs the size of twigs, so where are the superior conditioned Heavyweights i'm missing out on ?

Joshua ? who got beat by Usyk who's the size of a Heavyweight in the 70s/80s ? or the Joshua who got beat up by an obese Ruiz who only stands at 6'0 ? who also would really be a "Cruiserweight" if he couldn't stop eating as you and other posters like to brand Norton as "Cruiserweight"

Which of the top 10 Heavyweights in the 70s were fat name them ? Ali ? Norton ? Holmes ? Foreman ? Quarry ? Young ? Shavers ? Lyle ? Frazier ? Bonavena ? i'm not seeing any fat boxers amongst those names.

 

That's not true at all i've already stated numerous times, that i think Norton would lose to quite a few of the big punchers of this era. Just because i favour Norton over Parker i've been called "nostalgic" and "biased"

If anything the people claiming modern Heavyweights are superior in this thread have been the more biased ones. Because those same people are not looking at how certain fighters match up stylistically, and just focus on "size" or "everything is better in modern era".

I'm not saying size doesn't have a factor in some of these match ups, fighters like Marciano and fighters from that type of era are obviously going to be way out of their depth vs Super Heavyweights. But i don't think Heavyweights of around 210 pounds and above are out of their depth at all, as i said just look at Cunningham at 210 pounds vs Fury as a good example.

 

Also worth pointing out that Haye was only 210 pounds compared to Chisora who weighed 247 pounds.

And who's the only fighter to have finished Chisora in the 1st half of a fight ? "A smaller Heavyweight"

Parker couldn't stop Chisora in 24 rounds, Vitali couldn't do it over 12 rounds, it took Whyte 23 rounds to finally stop Chisora, even Fury only stopped Chisora late on in the fight and one of them was a corner stoppage he never floored Chisora in any of their 3 fights.

So what does all that prove ? that a smaller Heavyweight can punch just as hard as bigger Heavyweight in some cases.

Hence that throws alot of these "theories" out the window.

 

Your points on sparring and the golden era are bang on. I do think people underestimate some of the guys from today’s era who I reckon would be competitive in even the golden eras like the 70s and 90s. Still I would personally back a lot of those guys, like Ali, Tyson, Holmes, to be able to beat a lot of today’s heavyweight even with the advances.

I think Parker vs Norton would be competitive, I just think Norton would edge it as I don’t think his style is the best for Parker.

 

Parker would say "bring it on" - as we all know

And then beat the living snot out of him

 

I give up, my friend, you fail to interpret what I am writing... Example: I NEVER said Norton was a lightheavyweight, I compared the weightgap between Norton and Parker, stating the difference in weight.

 

I think in threads like this it's always good to have a balance and be realistic and that's what I try to do.

Could fighters like Marciano compete against the Heavyweights now ? Realistically no because the size difference is just too much, and I think it's fair to use the size argument in this case.

But on the flip side I don't agree that fighters of 215-220 pounds starting from the 70s up to the 90s couldn't compete, and I don't believe Heavyweights today are necessarily superior either.

I haven't seen any Heavyweight fight in this era that is technically as brilliant as Norton/Holmes, nor have I seen inside fighting as good as Bowe/Holyfield.

Again do I think Heavyweights of the past would clean up today ? No. Theres more Southpaws now and obviously size does come into play in certain match ups. But I do think any elite Heavyweight starting from 70s could definitely be in top 10 and compete now. I'm not being funny Whyte made it as high as top 5 is he better than the likes of Holmes, Foreman, Ali, definitely not.

I also think fighters like Parker could be top 10 ranked contender in 70s aswell.

I don't think anything I've said above is nostalgic and is completely fair and down the line.

 

You make it sound like 220 pounds vs 240 pounds is mismatch it really isn't.

Holyfield beat Bowe who was 240+ pounds and Foreman who was at 250+ whilst giving away 30 or 40 pounds.

Byrd at 211 beat Vitali who had 30 pound weight advantage.

Haye at 210 beat Chisora who had almost 40 pound weight advantage.

And you also had no rebuttal to my comment when I gave you countless examples of great fighters across all the weightclasses from the past, which contradicts your comment of "modern fighters mostly being superior now" which is backed up with no evidence or facts.

 

One of the most fair and balanced posts I’ve seen in some time, couldn’t agree more.

 

Its worth noting Marcianos era being small wasn't linked to the time period. That was just a coincidence. Previous generations were larger and later generations were larger. That era for some reason was dominated by LHWs. I think larger earlier HWs could do better against todays gang maybe not as good as the 70s but good.

I think once you get to the 20s and 30s the evolution of boxing is overrated. And the idea anyone from today would beat the old timers because they are technically superior is overblown though there is still a difference.


I do not think Parker would be top 10 in the 70s just because of the depth. This eras big problem is depth. Most other eras had a lot more of it regardless what you thought of the top guys.