Average, above average, bellow average, phenomenal, Paulie malinaggi? Do you think he could bang as hard as joe Louis, Frazier, or marciano, do you think he had more power than ali? Was his chin bad or was he just way too past it when he got knocked out by shavers and Cooney?
I would rate Norton's power as above average. He could hurt you with either hand. I always thought his left hook was his best punch. He's nowhere near Joe Louis as a puncher. Not in the same zipcode. He around Larry Holmes level maybe. His chin is closer to average than many people realize but Kenny had a bit of s glassmind.
Look at it this way, Ali, Holmes, and Quarry collectively Ko'd many men, some of whom were durable. They could not hurt Norton. Ali hit him plenty and Norton were hurt zero times, but Ali could hurt Frazier. So Norton's chin is clearly above average, at least even with Frazier. When you match Norton with Foreman or Shavers ( past his prime ), however, he's in some serious trouble. It didn't help that Kenny tended to freeze a bit vs. punchers and catch Foreman on perhaps his best-filmed appearance. Chin 6.5 out of 10 meaning it would take say level 8 or higher punchers to spark him without an attrition level beating. Power wise I say he hit just about as hard as Ali or Holmes did, maybe a shade harder. 6.5 to 7 You could call Norton a solid puncher and be okay. People had to respect his power. Underrated body puncher!
The problem with that comparison is that Ali didn't land anywhere near as many clean punches on Norton as he did against Frazier. Not even close. He never peppered Norton, he peppered Foreman, he peppered Liston, he peppered Frazier. He couldn' t with Norton because of his defense and awkward style. Kenny hid his chin pretty well
Well he fought Ali three times. We can see the punch stats, Ali landed 400+ on Norton I'd guess. He wasn't stunned, hurt, or down. Holmes landed a good amount too in an action packed fight. So Norton's chin was not a problem vs better than average hitters. I think this is a fair point. He's labeled glass jawed by fighting to A+ Punchers ( Foreman and Shavers ) , three if you include his last fight vs Cooney. Ali could not pepper Norton because he had speed and a jab, Frazier never had a good jab, and Foreman was slow enough for Ali to beat him to the punch, even with lead rights.
I think he lost to punchers because he was a come forward fighter and it took more than just shuffling backwards to avoid Foreman`s punches, Norton couldn`t box like Young or Ali he needed to be on the front foot.
Ali was actually throwing his rear hand as a jab putting nothing into it just pushing from a short range like a jab I saw this in a film study it`s very hard to block.
Ali was a lot quicker against Liston and his legs got tire towards the end of the second Norton fight.
Power: 7. Not Foreman, Tyson or Lewis type. More like Evander Holyfield. Chin: 6. Better than many people think. He went 39 rounds vs Ali and 15 vs Holmes, that's 54 rounds against A+ skilled HWs who had like 6 of 10 punching power. Never went down. Holmes landed everything on him. His chin wasn't good enough to take real punchers' power though.
