Was it just he had a bad chin? Even with that argument he took some hard shots from Quarry, Ali, and Holmes who all have knocked out dudes with iron chins. It just seemed like all you needed to do was push Norton up against the ropes and land that big left/right hook and it’s over, was his style just plain wrong for punchers?
I guess he was a rare case of someone where looping punches caught him off guard more than straight ones did.
Ali and Holmes were not hard punchers. -Quarry was never known as fighter who had a tysonesque, Formanesque, Listonesque power. -Jerry's power might have been similar to Holyfield's, good but not great punching power. -Oh and finally, he was a drug addict and completely shot when he met Kenny. Norton's always had that suspect chin, a weakness that was exposed only by the big punchers he stepped in the ring with. Even luis garcia who stopped a baby green Kenny was a huge banner. Eddie Futch made his fighter use the cross armed defense to protect his chin.
At the top level, Norton was always vulnerable to big punchers. It was well known at the time. He was older and at the end of his career but putting him in against Cooney, for example, was never going to end well.
His chin LOL what else ? Ali never KO'd anybody with an iron chin besides Foreman but thats not a good example because Foreman got KO'd because he was gassed. Even cotton fisted Jimmy Young dropped Foreman when he gassed. And Liston threw the second fight. Holmes and Quarry don't go on record KOing or even dropping anybody with an solid chin. Not saying they're pillowfisted but they're not big punchers. Ken Norton was chinny, thats all there is to it
When he got backed to the ropes he'd try to bob and weave and fight his way out of it. Since his cross-armed guard was quite porous and he was throwing shots himself sooner or later he tended to get clipped, and when that happened he had poor survival instincts which led to him getting badly hurt and unable to get himself back into the contest. So combination of poor tactics, weakish defence and poor reaction to getting hurt.
You could see him visibly freeze up at times, and I believe this made him prone to being knocked out.
His punch resistance wasn’t great and he tended to freeze when he got caught with a big punch. Also his cross arm defence left him very open to uppercuts which was brutally exploited by Foreman and Shavers.
if you look at the footages against Shavers, Foreman and Cooney they were all "photocopy KOs". He couldnt take well uppercuts from punchers. His main issue was the chin.
Chin couldn't hold up to the punchers. Also the peek-a-boo style and dragging the back foot meant he absorbed punches full force.
There are KO's and KO's. Ali's KD stoppage over Foreman was almost entirely due to Foreman gassing; it wasn't like Ali knocked Foreman unconscious. Holmes and especially Ali had poor KO ratios vs minimum-sized heavyweights (200+ lbs) and even poorer ratios against the smallest modern heavyweights (215+ lbs) and big heavyweights were absolute carthorses in those days. Every time Norton fought a big puncher (relative to his time) he got KO'd very early, which suggests he had serious chin problems as well as defensive frailties. Norton also got KO'd in 8 by a rehydrated light heavyweight-equivalent journeyman non-puncher earlier in his career.
