Ken Norton

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This article is about the boxer. For his son, the American football player born in 1966, see Ken Norton (American football). For the English cricketer born in 1932, see Ken Norton (cricketer).
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Ken Norton
Statistics
Real name Kenneth Howard Norton
Nickname(s) The Black Hercules[1]
Ken "Jaw Breaker" Norton
Rated at 220 lb (100 kg), Heavyweight
Height 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)[2]
Nationality United States American
Birth date August 9, 1943 (1943-08-09) (age 66)
Birth place Jacksonville, Illinois
Stance Unorthodox
Boxing record
Total fights 50
Wins 42
Wins by KO 33
Losses 7
Draws 1
No contests 1

Kenneth Howard Norton Sr. (born August 9, 1943, Jacksonville, Illinois) is a former multi-time world champion heavyweight boxer.

Contents

[edit] Early years

Norton was an outstanding athlete at Jacksonville High School. His track coach entered him in eight events and Ken placed first in all. As a result, the "Ken Norton Rule" was instituted in Illinois high school sports which limits participation of an athlete to a maximum of three track and field events. After graduating from high school, Norton went to Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University) on a football scholarship.

[edit] Boxing career

Norton started boxing when he was in the United States Marine Corps from 1963-1967, compiling a 24-2 record en route to three All-Marine Heavyweight titles.[3] Following the National AAU finals in 1967, he turned professional.

After he suffered his first boxing defeat at the hands of Jose Luis Garcia in 1970, Norton was given the motivational book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which he states in his autobiography, Going the Distance, changed his life (Norton, et al., 2000, p. 46). Upon reading it he went on a fourteen fight winning streak, including a shocking victory over Muhammad Ali in 1973 to win the North American Boxing Federation Heavyweight Champion title. [4]


[edit] Championship fights

Norton won a split-decision victory over Muhammad Ali in Norton's home town of San Diego to win the NABF Heavyweight Title in 1973. In this bout, Norton broke Ali's jaw, leading to only the second defeat for "The Greatest" in his career. Six months later, Ali avenged the loss when he beat Norton by a split-decision.

In 1974, Norton fought George Foreman for the World Heavyweight Championship, and was stopped in two rounds. In 1975, Norton regained the NABF Heavyweight Title when he defeated Jerry Quarry by TKO in the fifth round. Norton then avenged his above-mentioned 1970 loss to Jose Luis Garcia by knocking-out Garcia in round five.

In 1976 Norton would again fight Ali, who was now the World Heavyweight Champion since regaining the title with an eighth round knockout of George Foreman in 1974. Many observers have felt this was the beginning of Ali's decline as a boxer. In one of the most disputed fights in history, the fight was even on the judges' scorecards going into the final round, which Ali won on both the referee and judges' scorecards to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. The judges scored the bout 8-7 for Ali and the referee scored it 8-6 for Ali. At the time of the third Ali-Norton bout, the last time a heavyweight champion lost the title by decision was Max Baer to Jim Braddock, and thirty-one years later Ali-Norton III was no exception. The January 1998 issue of Boxing Monthly listed Ali-Norton as the fifth most disputed title fight decision in boxing history. The unofficial UPI scorecard was 8-7 for Norton, and the unofficial AP scorecard was 9-6 for Ali.

In 1977, Norton knocked out previously unbeaten Duane Bobick in one round and beat Jimmy Young in a 15-round split-decision in a WBC title-elimination fight.

Following the Leon Spinks upset of Muhammad Ali for the championship on February 15, 1978, Spinks elected to fight a return bout against Ali [5] rather than face the still dangerous Norton, the top contender.[6] The World Boxing Council, which had mandated a Spinks-Norton bout for their championship, withdrew its recognition of Spinks as champion. On March 18, 1978, the WBC named Norton its champion by virtue of his win over Young.[7] The WBC stated that they considered Norton's victory over Jimmy Young, which was sanctioned by the WBC as a title eliminator, a retroactive championship match.

In his first defense of the WBC title on June 9, 1978, Norton and new #1 contender Larry Holmes met in a classic fight. After 15 brutal rounds, Holmes was awarded the title via an extremely close split decision. The March 2001 edition of The Ring magazine listed the final round of the Holmes-Norton bout as the 7th most exciting round in boxing history. Holmes-Norton is ranked as the 10th greatest heavyweight fight of all time by Monte D. Cox, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO). Holmes went on to become the second longest reigning World Heavyweight Champion in the history of boxing, behind Joe Louis.

[edit] Retirement

Norton retired in 1981, after being knocked out in one round by Gerry Cooney. He had a career professional record of 42-7-1.

[edit] Awards and recognitions

Ken Norton is a 1989 inductee of the World Boxing Hall of Fame,[8] a 1992 inductee of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame,[9] a 2004 inductee into the United States Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame,[10] and a 2008 inductee into the WBC Hall of Fame. The 1998 holiday issue of The Ring ranked Norton #22 in "The 50 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time." Norton received the Boxing Writers Association of America J. Niel Trophy for "Fighter of the Year" in 1977.

Norton, a proponent of motivational author Napoleon Hill's writings (e.g. Think and Grow Rich [11]as noted above and Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude [12] by Hill and W. Clement Stone) also received the "Napoleon Hill Award" for positive thinking in 1973 (Norton, et al., 2000, p. 46).

In 2001, Norton was also inducted by the San Diego Hall of Champions into the Breitbard Hall of Fame honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.[1]

[edit] Style

Norton was a forward, pressing fighter who was distinguishable for a unique blocking/coverup style characterised by elbows out to the sides, and one hand above the other (referred to as a cross-armed defense) where most other boxers (for the same given situation) would have elbows in and hands alongside one another.

[edit] TV and film career

Norton has appeared in approximately twenty motion pictures. The character of "Apollo Creed" in Rocky was initially going to be played by Norton. However, when he pulled out, Carl Weathers was selected. Norton additionally worked as a television and radio sports commentator and appeared in popular TV series, such as jailbird "Jackhammer" Jackson in "Pros and Cons", an early first-season episode of The A-Team (filmed 1982, broadcast 1983), and as boxer Bo Keeler in the fourth season Knight Rider episode "Redemption of a Champion" (1986). Norton also appeared on the Superstars sports competition on ABC TV (1976). He continued making such appearances until suffering injuries in an auto accident which resulted in temporary brain and permanent physical damage.

[edit] Family

Ken Norton was twice voted "Father of the Year" by the Los Angeles Sentinel and the Los Angeles Times. His son, Ken Norton Jr, played American football for UCLA and the NFL. In tribute to his father's boxing career, Ken Jr. would strike a boxing stance in the end zone each time he scored a defensive touchdown and throw a punching combination at the goalpost pad.

Ken Norton also fathered a daughter, Kenisha Norton, and two other sons, KeneJon Norton and Keith Norton,Following his father's footsteps, Keith served in the United States Marine Corps.[13]

Ken Norton now[when?] resides in California. His autobiography is titled Going The Distance: The Ken Norton Story.

Preceded by
Leon Spinks
Stripped		 WBC Heavyweight Champion
1978		 Succeeded by
Larry Holmes

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ TalkingBoxing.com - for boxing news and discussion
  2. ^ About Ken Norton, Homepage
  3. ^ http://www.usmc-mccs.org/sports/hof/2004-norton.cfm
  4. ^ The Jim Murray Column, 1973 Los Angeles Times
  5. ^ Spinks Snub Miffs Norton, 1978 AP
  6. ^ No. 1 Contender - Norton only boxer behaving like a champion, 1978 N.Y. Times News Service
  7. ^ Marine Corps Community Services: Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame's article about Ken Norton
  8. ^ http://www.wbhf.org/Copy%20of%20wbhf-pastinductees.html
  9. ^ http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/modern/norton.html
  10. ^ http://www.usmc-mccs.org/sports/hof/2004-norton.cfm
  11. ^ The Jim Murray Column, 1973 Los Angeles Times
  12. ^ No. 1 Contender - Norton only boxer behaving like a champion, 1978 N.Y. Times News Service
  13. ^ http://www.click2houston.com/sports/10851855/detail.html

[edit] References

Norton, Ken et al. (2000), Going the Distance: The Ken Norton Story, Sports Publishing Inc.

"BELIEVE" Journey From Jacksonville. By Ken Norton, Donald Hennessey Jr., and John Amodeo. 1st World Publishing.

Release Date: October 27, 2007........Amazon

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Norton"