How does heavyweight history remember Ken Norton?
Certainly, as one of the “Champions Forever” band of heavyweights of the 1970s, along with Ali, Frazier and Foreman. He was part of that golden era that was probably the deepest talent pool in the history of the division. He engaged in an epic trilogy with Ali, coming out 2-1 down, but with many feeling he should have got the verdict in their third fight. He was blown away in two rounds by Foreman, in a result that played into the legacy of both fighters. Foreman was the huge puncher, the “Club Man in Caracas” as Hugh McIlvanney tagged him in his report of that destruction in Venezuela. That fight, along with quick defeats to Shavers and Cooney later in his career, landed Norton with the reputation as being vulnerable to big punchers. It’s an unforgiving sport.
Norton is also the heavyweight champion who never won a title fight; a label that at best is a mixed blessing. Gifted the WBC world heavyweight title when Leon Spinks opted to rematch with Muhammad Ali, Norton lost it in his first defence against Larry Holmes in one of the truly great heavyweight fights. It was the last great heavyweight title fight of the 1970s and hasn’t been surpassed in the decades since. But still, Norton came out on the wrong side of a close fifteen round decision.
Boxing is full of sliding doors moments. Fighters’ lives can change in an instant; with one fight, one round, or even one punch. Ken Norton’s career epitomises this as much as anyone’s. So, let’s delve back into heavyweight history, the make-believe world of “What if?” and boxing’s version of the multiverse.
In the famous speech in On The Waterfront, Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy painfully reflects on how he “coulda’ been a contender…” if only things had worked out differently for him. In Ken Norton’s case, he could look back on six minutes in particular, one round in two different fights, that could have changed his life, his legacy and heavyweight history.
On 28 September 1976, on a chaotic night in Yankee Stadium, Norton sat on his stool at the end of the fourteenth round, staring across at Muhammad Ali in the opposite corner. Norton felt he was three minutes away from being crowned world heavyweight champion and his corner was giving him the same message. The fifteenth and final round was not going to be decisive in their view.
At the final bell, the immediate response of the opposing corner teams was revealing. Norton’s team were the picture of joyful exuberance, prematurely celebrating the greatest victory of Ken’s career. Ali’s corner was one of resignation, the acceptance of defeat.
Each man awaited the verdict of the scoring officials.
By now, Ali and Norton had now fought a total of 39 rounds with no one having decisively proved their superiority. Ken Norton had announced himself to the world back in 1973 with his upset win over Ali in their first meeting. Norton took the 12-round decision, breaking Ali’s jaw in the process. The rematch saw Ali get his revenge, again on points, in another very close fight.
Despite losing the second meeting, it was Norton who went on to get the first shot at reigning champion, George Foreman, which as noted previously, ended badly for the former Marine. Ali, of course, then got his shot at Foreman and shocked the world for the second time in his boxing life.
By 1976, Ken Norton was back as the number one contender and Ali was still champion but refusing to leave the stage. His final fight with Frazier in October 1975 would have been the perfect time to walk away, but there was money to be made and adulation to be soaked up. Post-Thrilla in Manila, the champion was more like an Ali tribute act than the real thing, but he was still great enough to turn back the challenges of good heavyweights, even if sometimes the judges were kind to him.
And in Ali-Norton 3, they were kind to him again.
Referee Arthur Mercante had it 8-6-1 for Ali. Both judges, Harold Lederman and Barney Smith, gave it to Ali 8-7. The final round, those last three minutes, had proved the difference.
A tearful Norton felt he had won comfortably, that he had won nine or ten rounds.
“I thought that I was far enough ahead that it was obvious I had won the decision. I wasn’t even breathing hard. All I know is that when you fight Ali, you’re behind from the start. You have to knock him out to win.”
The majority of ringsiders had Norton winning. Ali, in the immediate aftermath of the fight, disagreed and claimed his strong finish had been enough to secure him the victory.
Whether you feel the decision was right or wrong, could Norton have worked harder in those last three minutes if he had known that the scorecards were so close? He definitely shoulda, but could he coulda? And how would his career and the heavyweight division have been different if he had persuaded the two ringside judges to award him the final round and thus been crowned world heavyweight champion?
In expectation of an Ali win, talk at the time was about a possible second Ali-Foreman fight. George Foreman was on the comeback trail after losing the title to Ali in 1974. Since then, he had beaten Joe Frazier, Ron Lyle and Scott LeDoux. He had not yet been derailed by Jimmy Young, that defeat coming in March 1977.
The Ali-Foreman rematch never came to pass. Did Foreman really want more of Ali? If Norton had become heavyweight champion by beating Ali, surely Foreman would have fancied a title shot against a man who he had previously wiped out in two rounds. It would be hard not to see George repeating the win over Norton if Ken defended his title against him. Where does that path lead? George Foreman, heavyweight champion of the world for the second time in 1977? That’s a scenario which would have had repercussions for the division all the way through to the 1990s.
But with Ken Norton as world heavyweight champion, would a more likely option for a defence be Ali-Norton 4? That would surely have been more appealing to Norton, and it is hard to imagine Ali turning the fight down. A fourth meeting between the pair would not have taken place until 1977. With Ali showing such evident signs of decline, Norton would have clearly had the edge over fifteen rounds at this stage of their respective careers.
There is also the chance, however, that losing to Norton would have brought the curtain down once and for all on the career of Muhammad Ali. Even in victory, he acknowledged that he considered it. After scraping past Norton at Yankee Stadium, Ali engaged in 80 more rounds of boxing before finally calling it a day. That’s an awful lot of punches to the head late in a career. Maybe losing to Norton in 1976, followed by retirement would have allowed Ali a better quality of life in his later years.
Let’s pause there for a moment. If Ali had dropped the decision at Yankee Stadium in September 1976, it is fair to assume that it could well have been the end for him in terms of significant career wins. How would history have judged him? We would still have the victories over Liston, his dazzling performances in the mid-60’s, the famous rivalry with Frazier and the never to be forgotten win in the Rumble In The Jungle. He would still have been a unique figure in sporting history and of huge cultural importance. But there would never have been the loss and then win against the novice Leon Spinks that gave him the record of being the first three-time world heavyweight champion. And clearly, his losing trilogy with Norton would have left a stain on the record. Still the Greatest, but maybe with an asterisk.
All these imponderables, and just because Ken’s cornermen didn’t say to him before the final round in New York, “You need to go out there and win this last three minutes. Don’t leave room for doubt!”
Back in the real world, Ali struggled on as champion, with his next defence being another points win over the lightly regarded Alfredo Evangelista. The writing was very much on the wall. Ken Norton, meanwhile, fought his way back into contention with three wins, including a first-round stoppage over Duane Bobick and a tough fifteen rounder with Jimmy Young.
It was in the aftermath of the Young win that the WBC saw fit to declare Norton as champion. Norton was number one contender to their title holder, Leon Spinks. Spinks opted for the Ali rematch, so Leon was stripped, and Ken was elevated to champion. For those that care about such things as unified world titles, the heavyweight title would now be splintered for close to ten years before Tyson mopped up the (now three) belts.
This then brings us to the fight with the other three-minute sliding doors moment up for discussion. Against Larry Holmes at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion, Las Vegas, on 9 June 1978, Norton found himself again at the end of the fourteenth round with the fight and the heavyweight championship of the world in the balance. There were two differences this time around. One was that both fighters had to know that the fight was too close to call and the last round could be decisive. The other was that Norton was the champion this time and had the title to lose.
Holmes-Norton is famously one of the greatest heavyweight fights of all time and the final round was a fitting finale to the contest. Referee Mills Lane claimed it was the greatest round that he had seen or been in the ring with. In front of a frenzied crowd, it was a “you hit me, I’ll hit you” type of round that one could watch a million times and still be undecided as to who got the best of it.
Sadly, for Ken, for the second time in his career, the judges scored the pivotal round for his opponent. In a split decision, each of the three judges scored the fight 143-142. Two of the judges, Joe Swessel and Harold Buck, scored the final round for Holmes, while Lou Tabat gave it to the defending champion. Ken Norton had fought the fight and the round of his life and still come out the loser.
The three judges were split as to who they thought won the fight and that was the general consensus amongst the viewing public. The fight could have gone either way. As a result, the loss was still hard to take for Norton, but it was not such a bitter feeling as the third fight with Ali.
Norton-Holmes proved to be Ken’s last hurrah. He fought five more times before retiring in 1981. Those five fights included first round stoppage losses to Ernie Shavers and Gerry Cooney and a draw with Scott LeDoux. It was time to call it a day.
Larry Holmes celebrated winning the Norton fight by immediately jumping into the Caesars Palace swimming pool with the WBC belt around his waist. He was now a world heavyweight title holder at 28 years old and with an unbeaten record of 28-0. Norton had been a champion for just seven months, but Holmes would go onto dominate the division for seven years. He would struggle to escape the shadow of Ali during the early years of his championship reign, but in time he would come to be recognised as one of the greats. Not always loved, but respected.
Now, once again, let’s pop over into the land of make believe and imagine what might have happened if either Joe Swessel or Harold Buck had scored that final round of Norton-Holmes in Ken’s favour.
Ken Norton would then still be the WBC champion while awaiting the outcome of the Ali-Spinks rematch in September. Retirement would not be in Norton’s plans, that part is certain. He would have two big fight options, depending on potential contractual requirements. A rematch with Holmes or a unification fight with the Ali-Spinks winner.
Ali set the record straight in his rematch against Leon Spinks to regain the WBA title over fifteen rounds. Ali was able to retire as the first man to win the world heavyweight title three times and with nothing else to prove. That was, of course, only until he felt he did have more to prove when he made an ill-advised comeback in 1980.
In reality, back in 1978, Ali was not interested in a unification fight with WBC champion Larry Holmes. It is unlikely that it would have been any different if Norton had been the other title holder, so it is probable that Ali would have still retired, even if only temporarily.
That would have left Norton facing a Holmes rematch. Ken was now in the twilight of his career, while Holmes was the younger, fresher man and would have been favoured to win an immediate rematch. It would have almost certainly been another close and punishing contest.
How would Ken Norton be remembered if he had won the first Holmes fight, but lost an immediate rematch? Clearly it would only enhance his already admirable reputation, especially in the light of how great a fighter Holmes would go on to prove himself to be.
And what about Holmes? How does history remember him in an alternate universe where he loses his first title shot against Norton, but succeeds in a rematch? I don’t think it would hurt his reputation one iota. But it may well have altered his later career, more so than his early years as WBC champion. As the mid-1980s approached and Holmes crept closer to Rocky Marciano’s record of 49-0, Larry initially maintained that he had no interest in trying to beat the mark set by the Brockton Blockbuster.
In 1984 and 1985, Holmes was thought to be choosing challengers who might present less of a tough assignment, even if on occasion they ultimately gave him a stern test. He finally acknowledged his desire to beat Marciano’s record, before falling short when losing a controversial decision to Michael Spinks.
If Holmes had entered a Norton rematch back in 1978/79 with a ledger of 27-1, he would never have had the opportunity to consider Rocky’s unbeaten record. Would this have made him consider his career differently at the point when he felt his powers fading?
With no chase to beat Rocky, there may have been no Spinks fight. With no Spinks fight, there would have been no infamous, “Rocky couldn’t carry my jockstrap” comment. With no disrespectful comment to Marciano, how different would the public perception of Holmes have been? Around the time of his two losses to Spinks, Holmes, who had always been spiky at times, was seen more and more often as bitter and resentful. It was not a happy time for him. The difference between 48-1 and 49-0 is more than us mere mortals can imagine.
If we take this a step further, if Holmes hadn’t chased Rocky’s record with what he considered to be an easy defence against a blown-up light-heavyweight champion, would Michael Spinks ever have won a version of the world heavyweight title? Spinks’ manager, Butch Lewis, saw that Holmes was slowing down and that the timing was right for his fighter to take advantage and make history as the first reigning light-heavyweight champion to step up to win the heavyweight crown. I don’t see Lewis being so cavalier with the likes of other heavyweight title holders of the time, such as Pinklon Thomas. Spinks’ decision to vacate the IBF title rather than face Tony Tucker, demonstrates their hesitancy to face a big heavyweight in his prime.
As it was, Spinks’ and Lewis’ deft manoeuvring through the heavyweight division, led them to the financial jackpot with the “Once And For All” showdown with Mike Tyson in June 1988. So, Holmes falling at the final hurdle for sporting immortality, served to create an opportunity for Spinks to make his own history and fortune.
By the way, in every version of the multiverse, Mike Tyson ends up as undisputed heavyweight champion before the end of the 1980s.
Every fighter will have their own “what if?” moments in their careers that they will wrestle with and maybe even lose sleep over. It just seems to me that Ken Norton had TWO hugely significant moments in his career at the very peak of his fistic prowess. The fifteenth round in two fights that would change the course of his life.
Those two moments went against him in reality. But in the fantasy world that I have been imagining where the outcome went the other way, there could have been major repercussions for his life and legacy, as well as for other giants of the sport.
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