I was recently rewatching fightbeat's favorite HOFer Terry Norris's loss to Keith Mullings and was astounded by how slow he looked at age 30. He had been slowing down a bit in the last couple of years, but was still pretty smooth and fluid in his combos and movement, and still pretty fast. He just looked like he was in slow-motion against Mullings compared to how he had used to look. I read that Dr. Margaret Goodman said she was shocked by his slurred speech and his reflexes being slower. Norris was said to go all out in sparring, and I've heard other people speculate that his long amateur career played a role in his rather rapid decline. Norris has a reported amateur record of 291-4. In his prime, Norris beat Donald Curry, a terrific fighter in his prime. He was considered a top 2 P4Per at the end of 1985 along with Marvin Hagler. The ferocious fudge packer lost to Lloyd Honeyghan a few months later, and by the time he fought Norris, he was miles from his prime despite still being in his 20s and never taking any horrible beatings in any fight. People have had various opinions on why he fell so quickly: weight issues and then a loss of confidence after the Lloyd Honeyghan loss, substance abuse, lack of desire, too high expectations in the first place, too much partying, etc...I know others have said his long amateur career led to burnout as he reportedly had over 400 amateur fights. Thomas Hauser speculated that GGG may be slipping as he in his mid 30s and reportedly had 350 amateur bouts. I don't know, but as of now I'm just going to give Danny Jacobs credit for fighting a good fight and almost winning on my card (114-113 GGG). For fighters like Donald Curry and Terry Norris, and others as well, what do you think about this? Any other fighters you think were kept in the amateur ranks for too long?
Terry didn't burn out THAT quickly. He had a 5-year prime, from 91-96, which is longer than MANY fighters' primes. But like Roy, when he fell off, he fell off extremely rapidly... only Roy had a longer/better prime. I'm sure his amateur fights, and sparring contributed, plus the fact that he was so fragile. But don't act like the guy burnt out in the blink of an eye. He was an elite fighter throughout the early-to-mid 90s, almost going into the late 90s. An interesting theory I have about Norris, which is rarely mentioned... I'm not sure that Norris STARTED OUT with a weak chin. I think it's possible that Julian Jackson ruined his chin.
