Replies

I think I'd probably give it to Norton, in the end.

Same here. Norton's top-level boxing ability combined with his considerable size/strength advantages would be a bit too much to overcome for Norris.

Boxers do quite well in MMA competitions once they learn the fundamentals of wrestling and a few submission holds. It'll be interesting to see if Floyd Mayweather Jr. backs up all the smack he's been talking and steps into the MMA ring.

Not just size and strength. Norton was an eight-event track standout in high school, and even though his style was unorthodox, he was always deceptively fast and very well conditioned.

That was something I forgot to say about MMA, too. Boxers can do well in MMA, and I'm sure you remember the early days of the UFC, when karate and tae kwon do practitioners were regularly trounced. Before they really started to look at grappling, most strikers in those days brushed up on their boxing, since the punching system is so much more practical than what you find in the eastern disciplines.

It's also a good thing to remember that most boxers didn't become boxers because they started working out at the country club. A lot of them have street-fighting backgrounds. Norton always seemed like a good guy, but I'll bet the first time he put on gloves wasn't the first time he punched someone.

OTOH, the same is true for a lot of martial arts fighters. My brother ran a dojo back when Lee, Norris, Alan Steen, and some of the other guys were on the scene. The guy I met that scared me the cr!p out of me was a little Korean guy named Yamashita. Rumor was that he was big in the South Korean mafia as a "problem solver" and solved one of the wrong problems and had to clear out to the US to keep from getting solved himself, if you get my drift. He never made these claims, but it was talked about a lot around him, although not in front of him. I have no idea if it was true or not. I only met him at tournaments, and he was extremely polite and formal. I saw him get mad, once. He did short sword and long sword demos, and could do stuff like toss an orange into the air and cut it in half, then quarter it before the orange separated from the first cut, really amazing stuff. Anyway, a couple of fighters were talking and laughing about something else close to where he was practicing, and he thought they were laughing at him. He turned on them with the sword still in his hands and said, "You laugh at Yamashita? I cut out your guts." He spoke in a low voice, but you had to see his face. He was about 5' 1." I've been around some fairly rough stuff, and this guy scared me to death, and he wasn't even talking to me. The other guys, who were darned tough tournament fighters, apologized in a very panicked way.

There are actors, sportsmen, and the real thing. Stallone is an actor.