Ken Norton and Jimmy Young in the 90's

I think Young's boxing ability, ellusive style and durability would take him a bit further than Norton's abilities would.. The 90's were loaded with big punchers and men who liked to fight at close range.. Young did much better against this type than Norton did.

 

young in the 90s? hahaha he would play with holyfield96,tyson 96, mercer,spoon,tua,ruiz, morrison and he would give the hell to lennox lewis and bowe.
norton would be ko by tyson,tua and lewis, he would give a good fight to evander and bowe.
he would beat morrison,spoon ,ruiz,and mercer.

 

A prime Young would have been a trip in this day and age...he's have bamboozled an entire new generation of heavies...oooohhhh the fun he would have had today, lol...

 

Jimmy Young would have been avoided like the plague today...unfortunately the powers that be would be looking to screw him over with the officiating if they could get away with it.

 

Young beats Foreman, Mercer, Tua, and all the punchers of the sort. The only person I see beating him is a prime Holyfield. As we know, Young feasted on punchers and would have gave fits to Morrison, Mercer, and 90's Tyson(at the time he was rusty post-prison and not as sharp as he once was) and beat them. I see him beating Bowe and giving Lewis fits and possibly beating him. Norton can beat Ruiz and maybe Moorer but that's all I can think of. Norton wouldn't be big in the 90's so I think Young has the overall more success assuming he doesn't get screwed over like he did in the 70's/80's.

 

Both would be competitive at the 2nd level. They would certainly get head of the Alex Garcia or even Botha and Schulz level guys. However, the problem in the 90's was depth of devastating punchers, something both would find disconcerting at the least...

 

i forgot moorer, yes norton would beat him.
but i think that young would fight better against prime foreman, old foreman was smart, he was patient, experience and better stamina. and young would give the hell even a prime evander, holyfield could not stop young, no way, jimmy was more smart and he was very durable. jimmy young and larry holmes had the style to beat holyfield

 

Norton would be thrashed by the big boys Tyson, Lewis, Holyfield & Bowe and pick up losses against lesser but harder hitting guys who there were plenty off in the 90's. Any of Briggs, Morrison, Bruno, Mercer, Tua, Cooper and Ruddock would have a good chance of leaving him with a KO loss.

Young would fare much better. His style was perfect against big slow punchers. I'd pick him to beat most if not all of the former second tier 90's heavies. He'd have a decent chance to beat Bowe and Holyfield on their respective off-nights, though I don't think he could beat Lewis or Tyson. We can't ignore the fact that Young had a very brief prime, either. He scored excellent wins between 1973 and 1978, but when he lost a close decision in a big fight for the third in his career, he seems to have lost focus and his career went down south fast. All in all, his prime lasted shorter than Bowe's.

 

I agree. Pretty much no one ko's a prime Young. He got ko'd by Shavers when he was green and stopped on cuts by Cooney. I do think an older Foreman would do better against Young but I just think Young had his number. I think prime Holmes beats prime Holyfield because of how much problems a shot Holmes presented for Holyfield. Prime for prime, Young-Holyfield would've played out by Young giving Holyfield hell and countering his wild swings. I still think prime Holyfield could win in that matchup only because of his combination punching, that's it. I also agree that Young was very durable and that Holyfield wouldn't stop him.

 

Agreed.

Young would go further in the 90s simply because it was loaded with punchers who in all likelihood would give Norton a tough time.

I should add that if we scale back 10 years then Norton would probably do better in the 80s than Young would as it was loaded with stylists.

 

If being a cokehead was a stylist, then sure. But otherwise?

I guess you could count Dokes, Spinks and Tubbs as stylists, but who else? I think the 80's heavyweights lacked a lot - mainly work ethic - but generally they were powerful dudes. Cooney, Page, Thomas Tucker, Smith, Williams, Bruno, Berbick, Coetzee, Weaver, etc.

 

Witherspoon/Norton would have been interesting. I guess it would kinda depend on what Withersppon would show up but he also has enough power to trouble Norton. Interesting fight.

 

Young would still be Young, negativing himself out of big fight's decisions(they'd go to decisions because Young would still be Young). Norton could probably have some terrific fights with the likes of Holyfield and Moorer, and I see no reason why he couldn't trade knockout wins with Lennox...because he was a winner. He understood that you had to punch people enough to win...like boxing winners understand...Unlike Jimmy Young. Anyway, my work is done here. Send your Jimmy Young hate mail to BoxedEars@JimmyYoungisexceptionallyoverratedforasurvival istspoilerwithfeatherfists.com.