In the summer of 1978, the heavyweight division was in turmoil. The champion was a 7-0-1 novice. The vanquished champ was a shell of his former self. The universally recognized number one contender was avoided like plague. This was not the shining hour of the “Golden Age” of heavyweight boxing. http://fightbeat.com/article_detail.php?AT=395
Norton Great fight, bad decision. Ken won the fight. Larry was in such bad shape his team had to carry him to the Caesar's Palace swimming pool and put him in for a half hour as he was suffering from heat prostration.
Anone who thinks Norton won doesn't respect the jab.... Nevertheless, the fight was great and marked the start of Larry Holmes amazing title run. It also ushered in an era of heavyweight mediocrity..
First of all, that is simply not true in regards to the jab. Larry is one of muy all time favorites. I agree with your second sentence, though. Kenny won that fight, and the two judges that scored the 15th for Holmes which turned out to be the deciding votes didn't know shit about scoring a fight, or corruption was involved IMO.
i had Holmes sweeping the hell out of all the early rounds.........can't recall how many, but alot of them probably up to the 10th can't believe the judges almost robbed Holmes ________ BUY BUBBLERS
how so? alot of people had Holmes winning the first 7 or 8 rounds.......Arthur Mecantel had the fight 8-2 after 10 rounds the only revisionism is old timers at the time with their bias toward Norton why don't you post your round by round scorecard, then i'll watch the fight again and post mine ________ MOTORCYCLE TIRES
in fairness to Karl, had the 15th round been scored properly, Norton would have won. great fight though
That's true. There's no way Holmes should have won that round on anyone's card. And I've always thought Norton won. Holmes took an early lead, but I thought Norton caught up on the cards down the stretch. I guess the decision could have gone either way...but there's no way Round 15 should have been scored for Holmes. Plus that fight deserved an immediate rematch...but Holmes didn't want anything to do with Norton again. Holmes was never all that big on facing the best available opponent.
Interesting to read some of these posts. I was always under the impression that everyone was pretty unanimous that Holmes won. I haven't watched the fight in a couple of years, but I remember scoring it for Holmes.
I scored the 15th round for Norton too, BUT I can see why someone would give it to Holmes. He came back strong in the last minute and noticeably rocked Norton with an uppercut. I guess it's similar logic to why many people scored Morales-Barrera 1 round 5 to Barrera, although Morales controlled over two-thirds of that round...or Tito-Mayorga round 1 when Mayorga did the same. Think about it.
The scoring of 1 round is irrelevant to me. I thought Holmes won clearly no matter how you score round 15. Just meant the judges gave Norton some rounds that they shouldn't have.
I love this fight but I always felt it ridiculous that the scoring was that close (just watched it again the other day actually); I had Holmes winning nine rounds and arguably the 13th was 10-8 for Holmes. Norton won the 15th but he lost too many early.
That said, I should add that Norton could easily have gotten a rematch had he been able to stay away from Shavers (and we all got Holmes-Shavers II, an underated great fight)
