Ok, I'm ready for the onrush of haters lol. It had been awhile since I watched this fight, and a couple of things that stood out for me: 1) Quarry actually looks fine, not as sharp as in the first Ali fight but still very much in the ball game. I think talk of his being ridiculously past it are completely unfounded. 2) This is one of the best showcases for Norton's jab available on video. He really did have a major league left, it's too bad he neglected to use it as much as he should have. I think he would have won significantly more fights had he conscientiously increased deployment of that punch. This content is protected
Quarry took this fight on short notice, had been partying in Hawaii including doing cocaine, and keep in mind that in his last three fights he was dropped against Alexander pretty hard, looked so bad against Frazier they (including the announcing team) were screaming for the ref (Joe Louis) to stop it, literally, and he struggled with Scrap Iron Johnson who he had twice beaten before. Quarry himself thought he was passed it enough that he retired following the fight. He was about ten pounds over his best weight, looked puffy, and sluggish and despite rocking Norton he had no stamina in this fight.
1) Tire Iron Jones could've out-pointed both men at the same time had he been there in the ring. 2) Tire Iron Jones had that dog in him.
Go to about 13:55 and watch Norton use his jab on Ron Lyle while sparring. Short clip but you can see that Norton had a nice, quick jab. If I remember, Quarry wasn't old in the Norton fight, but as Klompton pointed out, JQ just didn't take care of himself. I think he weighed about 207 for Norton but he looked pudgy. IMO, the best JQ I've seen on video was when he was early 20s (Miteff fight), in good shape, and training hard. He weighed low 190s at the time but probably carried more muscle weight than he did against Norton when he weighed 10-15 pounds more. This content is protected
As much as I like Jerry Quary and DO feel he was sliding at the time, I don’t think he would have beaten Norton at any point in his career.
Me neither. He lucked out with Shavers. I don't want that to be a knock against Jerry, who was actually a fine contender imo. He beat Ron Lyle, which was not exactly a simple task at the time.
The way I’ve always kind of seen it is that in order to beat a prime Ken Norton you either had to be a world class puncher like Foreman or shavers or a world class boxer like Ali or Holmes. And even THEN victory wasn’t always guaranteed. Quarry was neither of these things. He was an excellent counter puncher who could both box and punch a little bit didn’t have the tools or style necessary to beat Ken.
Quarry had a hell of a left hook and considering he knocked Norton out cold at the Main Street gym in sparring Id say whether you think he hit as hard as Foreman or not he could indeed stop Norton. It didnt take world class power to hurt Norton to begin with and Quarry, out of shape and taking the fight on short notice buzzed him and had him covering up when they actually fought. That combined with the fact that Norton turned down repeated offers by Aileen Eaton to fight Quarry when he was closer to his prime tells me he didnt think it was an easy task.
Quarry was at the end of his competitive days and clearly not in shape. Not sure ultimately it would have made a difference as Norton was much faster and fluid than the big lugs Quarry excelled against. Still a prime Quarry would have been a very dangerous guy for Norton. The version from this bout was not the same.
He didn't luck out against Shavers. Shavers was just a one-tooled fighter who got outclassed. Quarry beats Shavers 10 out of 10 times.
Holmes barely pulled it off, and I'd bet that if Norton and Holmes had a trilogy, Norton would have taken at least one of them. In the end, what really separated a Norton from a Holmes though? The biggest factors I see are durability, the ability to recover from being hurt, and the ability to defend while hurt. Norton was a world class fighter who unfortunately lacked in that area.
