Quote Originally Posted by JazMerkin View Post
I think Ken Norton gets very underrated due to being in the greatest HW era there has been. He just met a beast against Foreman and in his prime only really lost debatable decisions to Ali and Holmes, as well as beating Ali once. However, I feel that due to his less than aesthetically pleasing style and being overshadowed by the magneticism of Ali and Frazier and the raw power and fear generated by Foreman that he gets overlooked. He also was coming out of his prime by the time he fought Holmes so didn't really have a chance to dominate a weaker division, but was more the 4th guy when the division was great.
I think Ken Norton would always fail, in any era. You keep mentioning the Larry Holmes fight, but i don't know how you had Ken Norton winning that personally. He lost atleast 7 rounds in a row, and despite a great comeback late on.

He didn't have a clean sweep all the way to the 15th round, he clearly lost the 13th round and one other of those later rounds was debatable aswell.

But forgetting that for a second, the reason he done well vs Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes. Is because he could take away there best weapon, which is there left jab. And also because there only mediocre punchers.

Everytime he was put in with a puncher he was KO'ed, the fact is Ken Norton didn't have a great chin. And he was also lucky he even won a version of a Heavyweight title. Because many people thought he lost to Jimmy Young.

Ken Norton's a good solid fighter, but put him in the 1980's he would of lost to Mike Tyson, Tim Witherspoon, and other punches like Frank Bruno, Razor Ruddock, ETC.

Put him in the 90's he would of lost to a handful of fighters, put him in 00's and he would lose to the Klitschko brothers.

I just can't see him dominating any era really, only if he was put in the older era. Where he had all the physical advantages.