Ken Norton V Jess Willard ?

Theres a movie titl3d Willard. Its about a man who could control rats ànd make them do his bidding.

 

I see Willard as a white Lennox Lewis. Or perhaps Lewis is a black Willard???

 

Lewis is levels above Willard.

I see Willard for what he was: a huge, tough, willing fighter with inferior skills who wasn't afraid to take a licking in order to maul his way to a win. If he'd had a top flight trainer and started earlier he might have been something really good. As it was he maximised what he had and imo is rather overrated in a H2H sense.

 

He is on here , his name is McGrain.

 

Tarver started boxing when he was 10. Was also a world-class amateur years before turning pro.

From what I gather, Stevenson was serious about boxing before he went to jail on pimping charges, when he was 21, and probably had plenty of fighting experience as a violent teenage gang member/pimp.

The other two are legit late-starters but still pretty different than Willard, imo.

Smith started boxing at 23 after being a multi-sport college athlete. Got a crash course in boxing by sparring with Marvis Frazier and Michael Spinks, in the cauldron of Joe Frazier's gym, on a regular basis. Not close to being on anyone's ATG lists.

Campbell started boxing at 24 but had grown up in a rough environment and learned how to fight on the streets, fwiw.

 

I like to give a good heavyweight a chance against a good Superheavyweight but Ken never fared too well against big guys. If there was one heavyweight not going to do well against Superheavyweights, it was probably Ken.

At 24-1 Ken laboured with 21-13 Jack Ohalloran, the giant from supermanII.

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Ken_Norton_vs._Jack_O'Halloran


Jack had already been sparked by Ron Lyle and Jack Bodel yet he went the ful 10 with prime Norton. The next 6’6 guy Norton fought was Gerry Cooney. He also went into a split decision with Tex Cobb and went into the 10th against a faded Larry Middleton but neither Middleton or Cobb were are big or as good as Jess Willard.

 

Stevenson’s pimp credentials would have been no help in the ring.

Boxing gave him an opportunity to change things, we should assume since he was able to make something of himself at boxing, that he had to first learn to box.

Nobody ever walked into boxing without having to learn things the hard way.

 

Willard was a local athletic star, and did countless hours of manual labor working on a farm.

But Stevenson was more prepared for boxing because he was a pimp?

Lmao, wtf am I reading?

 

Pimpin ain't easy

 

Maybe I wasn’t clear but you seem to have missed the point: From what I understand, Stevenson was a violent man who had some boxing training and experience beating up men (and girls too, unfortunately) in his teens/early 20s, many years before he began his pro career. The bigger point was that I think it’s kind of dumb to act as if all fighters who start their professional careers late were somehow akin to Jess Willard, a cowboy who apparently never even put on a pair of boxing gloves until he was in his late 20s (and who knows if he’d ever even been in any fights before then).

 

He was the youngest of four brothers, growing up on a farm at the turn of the century, pretty sure he was in his fair share of fights.

It seems weird people acknowledge that modern boxers often learned from street fights, but often negate the connection between bareknuckle and gloved, and talk about them as almost unconnected (not saying you do this, just a comment in general)

 

The gatekeeping has you talking crazy.
You are clearly giving Stevenson all the benefit of the doubt, while giving Willard zero.
No logical reason would drive this, as Willard was proficient in many physical activities, whereas Stevenson had the life of a criminal. It can only be blind, unreasonable bias.

 

Could be. Either that or you just don't know what you're talking about. According to this article, Stevenson started kickboxing and boxing when he was 15, and was immediately seen as having great potential.

https://www.lapresse.ca/sports/spor...s-stevenson-la-vraie-histoire-de-superman.php

He and Jess Willard are not alike. They did not have similar trajectories into the sport. I get why you couldn't resist trying to make some funnies about the pimping reference, but I think it's time for us to move on.

 

Good, some actual facts supporting that he had boxing experience in his youth.
A far cry from using his pimping experience as boxing experience. Something you actually tried to do because of blind bias.