His resume has some fantastic wins, and he's remarkably consistent from the get-go of his career which was somewhat rare in that era. He dominated a series of fights against Billy Miske, and scored a couple of wins against Harry Greb, aswell as defeating Battling Levinsky, George Chip, and virtually everyone thrown at him before his eventual first loss to Harry Greb in a 10round newspaper decision. He lost a world title fight to the ferocious Jack Dempsey, although he did it in a way which would've bolstered his reputation and all-time standing, surviving the distance and making Dempsey look less than the mankiller he had been labelled as - And, depending on who you ask, he did it without pocketing a cent, or at the most , very very little. He went on to beat another top hevyweight contender in Carpentier, among other less noteworthy fighters, before retiring after the only stoppage loss of his career against Gene Tunney. So where does he rank? I tend to think that his resume doesn't have the "density" of some other great fighters, which would probably keep him out of the top ten, but I'm open to an argument which includes him. Where does he rank all-time?
Yeh, not sure how much Norfolk had left in the tank at that stage of his career though, seemed to plummet at that point losing most of his remaining fights? Conceivable it was the Gibbons fight that did it to him, though. Don't know enough about Norfolk to say, perhaps someone can enlighten the subject.
Ever since I read up on him a bit a few months ago I felt like he was a little underrated. I mean, he has some excellent wins. He must have been very good on defense, and had an iron chin and decent power to TKO Willie Meehan in one round, something even Jack Dempsey could never do (granted, this was near the end of Meehan's career)
