Ex-heavyweight champ Norton dies

FoxSports (AP) ^ | SEP 18, 2013

[South40]

He was the second man to beat Muhammad Ali, breaking Ali's jaw and sending him to the hospital in their 1973 heavyweight fight.

Ken Norton frustrated Ali three times in all, including their final bout at Yankee Stadium where he was sure he had beaten him once again.

Norton, who died Wednesday at the age of 70, lost that fight for the heavyweight title. But he was forever linked to Ali for the 39 rounds they fought over three fights, with very little separating one man from the other in the ring.

[3Fingas]

Sugar Ray Robinson = the best fighter ever.

[OB1kNOb]

RIP Ken, and thanks for the memories.........

[varmintman]

Ray Robinson had problems with guys like Jake Lamotta and Carmen Basilio... He’d have no chance against Duran at equal sizes.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

The first would have to be the first Liston fight, I would guess, right?

[3Fingas]

I don’t know ... Duran was at peak form when he said, “No mas.” Sugar Ray Robinson, in 3 decades of boxing never quit like that.

[RetSignman]

Clay was loudmouth who, in the end, could hardly make a coherent statement...what goes around comes around.

Same with Mike”I will eat your children”Tyson, he WAS pretty good at eating ears though.

Boxing went from a legitimate sport to the same ranking of Wrasslin’.

[varmintman]

Duran had some sort of a major stomach problem that day. Prior to that he was something like 80-1, the one loss in a pickup fight to the second best lightweight of modern times, Dejesus, who he flattened in two following matches. Duran was a natural lightweight - junior-welter but was simply good enough to beat up people in heavier weight divisions for a number of years after he’d scared everybody close to his own size into the woodwork.

[3Fingas]

You make a very persuasive argument. Duran was certainly one of the best.

[varmintman]

Ray Leonard was a much bigger guy than Duran. In that first fight in Montreal, Leonard was really at peak age at about 23 and Duran was just past his 30'th birthday, i.e. David/Goliath with every edge to the giant. Duran beat him up so badly he looked like a train had run over him the next morning and the only thing which really kept the fight from being over in the second round was the size difference.

They'd been carrying Ray Robinson and Ray Leonard look-alikes who were ballpark for Duran's size out in wheelbarrows for eight or ten years prior to that. In 74 Duran had a dozen or so professional fights and DeJesus was the only one who even made it back to the dressing room on his own feet. That included several lightweight title fights and several other fights at 140 or 145.

[fortheDeclaration]

True! Semper Fi.