Orlin norris (an overlooked)...

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

Norris held the WBA cruiserweight title and fought in several noteworthy boxing matches in the 1980s and 1990s. He is the brother of retired former champion Terry Norris. Both Norris Brothers were extremely talented IMO.

As an amateur, he won the National Golden Gloves title. Norris turned pro in 1986 as a heavyweight and became a highly ranked and much avoided contender. Although only 5'11, and not a big puncher, Norris relied on his fine boxing skills to outbox and pile up points versus his much larger opponents.

Noteable wins:

-Tony tucker (arguably twice)
-Oliver mcall
-Greg page
-Vassily jirov (Draw)
-jesse ferguson
-Renaldo snipes

After the first Tucker performance, Norris struggled to find contenders who would risk fighting him, and was forced to move down a division where he took the WBA CW strap but by 95 the weight draining caught up with Norris!

In 1996 he moved back up to heavyweight and scored a revenge win over an aging Tony Tucker after contoversially losing the first fight. A long legal battle with Don King saw him lose his WBA mandatory #1 challenger status and instead of a challenge to King-promoted champion Evander Holyfield, Norris was forced to fight 6'7 King-managed heavyweight Henry Akinwande in an eliminator. Akinwande stayed at long range and scraped a very close decision over Norris.

In 1999 he travelled to the UK and demolished colourful prospect Pele Reid in one round, Herbie Hide pulled out of a WBO title fight with Norris at the last minute.

Later in 1999 Norris lined up a memorable fight with Mike Tyson in 1999. After the first round ended, Tyson knocked Norris down with a left hook and Norris injured his knee when he went down. Norris said he was unable to continue the fight and the bout was ruled a no contest. Subsequent x-ray scans proved beyond doubt Norris had indeed suffered a serious knee injury.

Norris was then outscored by Andrew Golota and made quick work of by vitali klitschko, however he did redeem himself with a draw against the great Vassiliy Jirov in 05 but it was to be his last hurrah...

Norris finished his career with a very respectable record of 57-10-1. Mike tyson had to cheat to beat him and Tony tubbs needed steroids to do so too...Norris was a fine fighter, he just wasn't a bigmouth (hence he wasn't a big draw) it's a shame most people demote him to the level of 'journeyman' because he was far from one!