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EPISODE: Episode 6
Watch The Scoop with Champ Bola Ray, who discusses the classic Ali-Norton fight at Yankee Stadium in 1976, on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live weeknight’s at 8pm EST
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Transcribed:
And the talk and fight i’ve got champolare with me and he’s got the scoop.
What do you got for us tonight how you doing folks uh once again, my name is bola raymond wally and uh.
I’D like to take this thank opportunity for giving me the opportunity to give my perspective on the sport of boxing today and yesteryear.
This episode is going to be one in the series of robberies in professional ranks, but this one’s with a twist because i didn’t see it as a robbery but it’ll all make sense.
As i go on september, 28, 1976 um yankee stadium saw two juggernauts stepping in to at the time the most highest paid professional boxing fight ever where muhammad ali made six million dollars, and he was going up for the third time against kenny norton um.
This was a rubber match, the each one of them had one one, decisive fight, um, and it did not disappoint.
To say the least.
The fight starts off with round one where muhammad ali, actually the fight hadn’t, even started yet and he’s already being the showman that he is um up the crowd.
What have you the bell rings? Muhammad ali gets on his bike.
He is dancing he’s moving.
He’S thinking.
He’S he’s muhammad ali ken norton is in his traditional shell, stat uh stance and constant pressure, big huge cooks missing, but he’s there brown want to give to muhammad ali.
Now.
This all changes in round two when muhammad ali decides that he’s going to stand his ground not so much throwing any punches, really launching anything called an offense um from what i took from it was that he was attempting to conserve his energy earlier on his fight.
So as he could explode, i don’t know i obviously was head, but that’s what it looked like to me.
Um his his punch output.
Wasn’T all that great.
Meanwhile, this round can’t they went to work because mona li was allowed him to he didn’t move.
He wasn’t fighting going backwards, he wasn’t maintaining a range or anything and kenny threw some merciless merciless hooks and that’s i don’t know if he threw a jab all he threw mad hooks straight right.
I i don’t think he threw in straight punches just mad hooks.
This pretty much um was the scenario right up to like round five.
He kenny won and my in my books, all those rounds, um and in doing so kenny was catching uh ali who, for whatever reason, did not have an answer for there’s a technique called the under over where you, if you are fighting from an orthodox stance and Orthodox stance, being your right hand, is your power hand, is the hand further back and your left hand is further from out front if you’re fighting, if you’re, orthodox and you’re fighting an orthodox fighter, you wait for that punch and when he throws his jab at you, You slip counter attack at the exact same time with the jab to the body only to come upstairs with the crushing right.
By touching with the jab to the body, they drop their guard down to protect themselves and end up getting caught ken norton.
Did this whole fight mind you, he didn’t, he didn’t throw a jab, he threw he he left with a hook, but he was clubbing him.
It was just a club, i don’t know how he didn’t break his jaw.
A second time always making the mark in the fifth round muhammad ali tried to put on a flurry of combinations, but nowhere remotely close to enough to actually sway me to give him that round, because they’re so late in the round.
And what have you uh round? Six was much more of the same uh ken norton took it to him and in doing so well, lolly started the round off with putting his left arm out and just measuring him.
It’S called measuring because he’s not you’re measuring him um measuring kenny, but he wasn’t doing anything with his right hand.
He just left it out there a whole lot of valuable um seconds in the in that second round in that sixth round.
Who was eating up doing that kenny eventually was able to get around that offense, and then he launched this vicious body attack hook up stairs hook upstairs he caught muhammad ali with the left hook just before the belt went um just before the bell went with a Hook to the body this left hook is the first time that i can and actually the only time i can ever remember muhammad ali being visibly hurt with a body shot.
I can’t remember another fight where he winced or buckled from a body shot this one.
He did bell goes round.
Second, around seven muhammad ali gets to work now he’s up on his toes and he’s jabbing.
He is dancing he’s constant movement.
Um ken norton didn’t have an answer for it.
He was throwing big hooks and nothing was really happening.
Um.
He big big punch combinations throughout the seventh round.
I gave the round to uh to um muhammad ali um eighth round went back to ken norton, but then the ninth and tenth round ollie ollie, was all in.
He was on his toes dancing.
Stinging stinging dancing, stinging, stinging, dancing, stinging, predominantly just jabs, but still he wasn’t getting caught.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t getting caught, therefore, he’s winning these rounds a couple combinations in between, but for the most part he he he was all the action ken threw some um huge lead hooks and they hit nothing but air.
The uh the same held true in the 10th round.
Until very late in the round, when i guess ollie was getting tired or what have you and kenny was able to actually catch him.
Um eleventh round was a close battle, but i felt olly outboxed um kenny still and for the next two rounds um.
They also were actually incredibly close and i didn’t they could have gone either way.
So 11th round was really close, 12th and 13th.
I didn’t have i i draw this will make sense later on.
When i explained the uh, the scoring system 14th round came out and kenny took it to him big punch combinations.
He he dominated the round.
I gave him the 14th round 15th round final championship round and an integral round integral round 15th round muhammad gets on his bike and dances, dances, dances, dances, dances, dances, stinging, stinging sting showed a great deal of promise like at the end of the day.
He won that round like he that was his round.
Okay seems pretty straightforward.
Doesn’T it okay? Now things got super interesting when it got to the end of this round.
For the record i had ali winning this fight.
This fight eight rounds five rounds to ken norton.
Two rounds a draw uh, as i said, uh, 12 and 13.
.
This was in the day before the 10 point must system.
So at the end of the day, um it just pretty much went by round who won, which round um.
There was a celebrity panel of judges that i shouldn’t even call him celebrity as much as well.
There were notable uh, i guess boxing aficionados from different uh media outlets.
In the day, three of them were on on standby, scoring the fight from their vantage point now, um, outside of the actual sanctioned officials, red smith from the new york times, scored the fight eight rounds to six for norton stan hackman from philadelphia.
Daily news scored the fight six rounds for ali six rounds for norton three rounds.
Draw mike mcgee from the london daily mirror, scored the fight nine rounds for for norton six rounds for ali.
The only thing is the officials that counted you had, robert smith, scoring the fight eight rounds to seven.
You had howard lederman scoring the fight eight rounds to seven both for ali and arthur mccanty, scoring the fight eight rounds for ali six rounds for norton.
One round draw unanimous decision from muhammad ali.
How can two sets of judges saw two completely different fights the 15th round.
A couple of things happened, notable things that happened, one being kenny’s corner, actually willed him.
You are way ahead.
Take it easy, don’t get caught, pretty much told him to take his foot off the brakes.
I mean off the gas and just place a defensive round, because he they felt that he had already won the fight and it was a sure thing.
Ali fought to the end the last bell: they all all three judges at ringside gave ali eight rounds.
He won the 15th round.
If he hadn’t won the 15th round.
Ken norton would have won that fight interesting, the fight’s not over until it’s over the punch that had ali throwing 507, which is 52, where, while norton threw 15 punches less at 502, but landed at a far greater rate at 233, punches landed over the course of The fight now keeping that keeping in mind that, just because the numbers are skewed, that way doesn’t mean that all the punches evenly were cascaded across the whole 15 rounds.
It could have been.
I i feel it was more ken really took it to him in the early rounds, when aldi was standing there being more of a punching bag more stationary as soon as he started moving, he didn’t his point numbers at least his connect numbers were went down astronomically.
So there you have it um another notable stat were the power punches ali threw 272 um and landed 96 wild norton through 277 power punches but landed 158.
I felt that the fight was well worth mentioning because the fight was close and hard to judge, but i included this in the great greatest robbery series because of a later interview that muhammad ali gave talking about this fight.
More importantly, ken norton, where he says his norton style, is difficult one for me.
I can’t beat him and i’m sure i don’t want to fight him again.
I thought he won in yankee stadium.
The judges gave me – and i gave it to me and i’m i’m exceptionally grateful that statement puzzled me simply because when ali was up on his toes, he found a great deal of success.
Ken norton didn’t have the footwork to keep up with them.
So for him to say that he didn’t he couldn’t beat him, i don’t understand.
Maybe he just didn’t want to exert that much energy for 15 rounds, which is completely understandable.
Let me know what you think: do you think that ken norton was robbed even ali says that ken norton was robbed, i slaughtered the judges at ringside saw a different fight.
Let me know down in the comments if you like this episode, smash the like button and please subscribe with that.
It’S your boy, bola and that’s a scoop.
Thanks very much appreciate that that’s uh, truly a classic uh fight and uh man.
They had they had their battles, didn’t they well actually, who didn’t have their battle with ali? Quite frankly, 70s were great.
They said they said that uh, the fight thriller in with joe frazier ruined the man that that fight ruined the man that that was the iconic fight that the turning point.
He was never the same again and everything after that was a shell of the the great the great man that he was just being another one.
So fantastic stuff cheers all right.
I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.
Night will do thanks very much for uh joining us.
This evening and another great episode on great robberies in boxing history,
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