Muhammad Ali vs. Ken Norton - the true scoreline?

Considering he was in the initial throes of a degenerative neurological disease that affects gait, balance, reflexes, and motor function he did well:

In the new viewpoint piece, they write: “Here, we add this missing information to the archives of history. The main point of our report is that Muhammad Ali indeed had young-onset levodopa-responsive Parkinson disease with an emergence during the mid-phase of his boxing career.”

New Evidence Sheds Light on Muhammad Ali's Parkinson's Disease | MedPage Today

 

I agree. I had it coming down to the 15th which Norton gave away by his own admission, and only gave himself a draw in.

 

Ed Schuyler scored the second fight for Norton and the third fight for Ali:

Ali-Norton III Remembered Through Schuyler's Eyes - Boxing News (*******.com)

Go figure...

 

That’s an odd one.

 

Yeah. That's a great article. I think it mentions Sugar Ray Leonard was at the fight. It's hard to watch the YouTube because the announcers are so biased. Back to the second fight. At BoxRec AP (Ed Schuyler) had the fight 6-5 Norton . UPI had it 9-2 Ali. Don't forget Harold Lederman was one of the judges for the 3rd fight.

 

Ali 0 - 2 - 1

 

. I watched that second fight many times and Ali did very little ... Norton with his reach, strength, his own underrated speed and jab and power plus Ali's ordinary power simply had Ali's number ...

 

Sure is.

 

I've seen it the other way around plenty a time but have never heard anyone giving the second fight to Norton, and the third to Ali.

 

For me, Norton def. won fights 1 and 3.

Norton might’ve said otherwise at different times, but he def. said at one time that he won 1 and 3 AND that fight 2 could’ve gone either way.

As to fight 2, I’d have to rewatch and actually scoring it might be a good idea.

I’ll just say that, at times, the commentary team were getting excited over Ali’s performance when he literally wasn’t actually doing anything of a practical nature - eg - “Ooh, Ali’s is now up on his toes, he looks good!”.

Also, at one point, they truly exaggerated Norton being notably hurt when, at least in my eyes, he was barely hurt, if at all.

To me, it seemed like Norton was never really hurt, treating at the least, the 2nd match, like a chess match.

Norton only appeared a bit frustrated at times when Ali landed on him - more worried about points being scored against him rather than him literally being hit. Sometimes Norton would stop to refocus himself after a few consecutive Ali connections.

Doesn’t mean Ali didn’t win fight 2 - but I’ve wondered if judges and fans alike weren’t somewhat conditioned to Ali’s method and style - tailoring themselves to appreciate and give credit to Ali’s own objectives - even if Ali wasn’t scoring in an absolute and conventional sense.

For one thing, when Ali danced and kept the distance, of course he looked good aesthetically. His fluidity, even during his second career, was a thing of beauty.

However, at least in fight 2, he kept the distance to such an extent at times that his jab was really only connecting barely if at all, basically falling short - but the announcers were calling it as if each and every jab that Ali threw was connecting well and worthy of being scored in his favour.

No slight on Ali, Norton was a very, very good fighter in his own right - and, atop that, he was perhaps somewhat of a stylistic bogeyman for second career Ali.

 

2-1 Norton, while the 3rd win was pretty good, I don't rate it as good as the first.