Ken Norton's losses to Earnie and Gerry

There is something to that, but it is not the first time he got stopped, either. For whatever reason, he was not iron-chinned.

 

Jose Luis Garcia as well.

 

He was way past it for Cooney, but I'm not sure we can underestimate Shavers' demolition. Norton had not far in the past given a top 5 ATG heavyweight the fight of his life.

 

No it’s a clear indicator he couldn’t handle big punchers that forced him on back foot. It’s not that he got Ko’d but he got blown out every time. He didn’t last 4 complete rounds in total against Foreman, Shavers and Cooney.

 

I like Ken.

If he’d never suffered the Garcia and Foreman KO losses as he did, then the later KO losses to Shavers and Cooney could perhaps be totally dismissed due to age.

That’s not to say that age couldn’t still be heavily factored into the later KOs but people will naturally point to the earlier KO losses to suggest that Shavers and Cooney KO any version of Norton. Maybe.

The Garcia loss was early in Norton’s career and he did avenge that loss.

The Foreman loss perhaps hinted that Ken might unravel against any fighters carrying comparable power to Foreman - but, to be fair, that type of power is sublime and ultimately, Ken faced fighters who were arguably the top 3 punchers and those punchers did to Norton what they had done to a lot of other fighters.

It seems that having to absorb power a bit below the power Foreman and co had, Norton upheld a pretty good chin, (eg - vs Ali, Holmes etc.) - but having take a punch a notch above his tolerance threshold, rather than just be incrementally hurt in due proportion, he did, instead, seem to fall apart.

 

Norton froze when he got hurt I don't think he had bad chin per se but he had poor recuperative powers so when he got badly hurt he stayed hurt.

 

I think Norton was just bad at fighting anyone who forced him on the back foot which is why I don't rate him highly H2H he seems to only really be good against outboxers with jabs he can take away.

 

I don't think it was Norton's chin it was his style, he took clean shots from plenty of fighters. It was his style that was was a bad matchup for top tier punchers who came forward like Foreman, Shavers and Cooney. TBH these are 3 of the hardest punchers in history yes Cooney was and to make that fight worse for him is that Cooney came after every like a barracuda and was skilled and fast for a 6'6" 225lb fighter. Besides being stable mates this is also a reason why Norton would have been stopped by Smokin' Joe Frazier

 

His chin is hugely underrated imo.

Garcia knocked him out but couldn't repeat the trick.

Foreman did, but well that's Foreman.

He decided to trade hooks with Shavers and was long gone for Cooney.

But someone with a weak chin doesn't do what he did with Ali and Holmes.

 

Foreman, Cooney and Shavers were all elite punchers and two of them fought Norton when he was past it. To be clear I never thought that Ken Norton was particularly durable but there are a lot of levels BETWEEN being Iron Chinned and glass chinned. I think Ken was probably somewhere in the middle

 

I think that his loss to Shavers, means a lot more than his loss to Cooney.

The former fight had a bearing on who was who in teh division.

He went 0-3 against the biggest punchers that he faced, and this doesn't help him in fantasy fights against punchers.

If we ask how he would do against say Max Baer, or Lamon Brewster, we probably have to give the puncher the benefit of the doubt.

Having said that, it is possible that we are underselling him vs punchers.

Absence of evidence, isn't always evidence of absence.

 

I agree. His chin certainly wasn't granite, but the main problem was poor recovery and the fact he couldn't fight backing up due to stylistic limitations. Also for some bizarre reason I don't think he really made a serious effort to clinch or back off when he was staggered in any of his KO losses.

Norton's chin was maybe a 6-7. Not great, but not terrible.

Recovery however was a 4/10. I think against guys like Ali, Holmes, Young, etc, they never cracked him with a shot that required him to need to recover in the first place. You had to have well above average punching power to stagger Norton, I suspect.

 

He pressured with a passive defence, he was an ATG at closing off the ring and take the jab away from guys, even if it was against other ATGs, and once he’d closed the ring or distance, all he had to be was better than them on the inside, he might take a punch or 2 to get several of his own off on the way in, whereas against the likes of Cooney and Shavers, there was no closing the ring off because they didn’t have to move in the first place because they can fight on the inside, and since Norton often takes a punch to give several, that spells disaster against the likes of Cooney and Shavers.