why did holmes and norton never have a rematch?

I feel the Norton fight was extremely close .... far worse decisions have been made than if Norton won that fight ... no rematch for a political reason ... Norton was forced into a stupid match up eliminator v.s. Shavers , a stylistic nightmare and was iced out of contention ... why he did not get an immediate rematch is his management team was out managed.

 

As they say, "there's the rub"

 

Keep in mind also that the WBC also had a selectively enforced rule which forbade immediate title rematches [which they later conveniently overlooked for SRL-Duran II].

I don't think Norton minded the build up of anticipation towards a more lucrative title rematch with Holmes, as his bouts with Stephens and Shavers were televised on the cards with Larry's first two title defenses. He was well familiar with the promotional virtues of such preparatory ground work.

Earnie didn't look that dangerous in his first loss to Holmes, and Ken, while aware of the Shavers power, had supplied ringside commentary for Earnie's earlier longer fights with Tiger Williams and Ali, and figured he could last long enough to wear the smaller man down. He wasn't afraid of Shavers until discovering too late that Earnie could still hurt him. [Cooney-Norton is more incomprehensible to me. That really was a dumb one for Kenny to take.]

 

In my opinion, matching Ken Norton with any of the big punchers of the 1970s was a dumb
idea. Norton simply couldn't cope with them.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Holmes didn't want to go thru that hell again, can't say i blame him:yep, a draw would have been a good call in the first fight, that would have guaranteed a rematch!!

 

You are so right. It's a tragedy that Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton had n't stayed healthy. They would have both added glamour to big fights by simply turning up and commenting at ringside

 

I find anything strictly enforced by any alphabet org, especially back then, to be purely based on back deals. Norton was 34 and getting older. He deserved the rematch. There is no way he could have looked forward to fighting Shavers considering his record against huge punchers. Still, the way Ken froze against Shavers was really something ..