By Matteo Alderson
You might say it’s preposterous to compare Ken Norton and Andrew Golota, but the two boxers shared a similar trait; they both broke down against punchers. Even though Golota’s propensity to break down was much more exasperated than Norton, they both met similar fates when they were confronted by punchers. In an interview a few years before his death, the legendary Trainer Eddie Futch commented, “I found out something about Norton, he tightened up in front of punchers. I had him in with one puncher who showed that to me, Jose Luis Garcia.” Futch also noted, “When he was with me, I never let him fight a Shavers. I never let him fight any guy who was a good puncher. The first fight after Norton and I split was the one against Foreman.”
This insider analysis was right on and was exemplified by Norton’s performances in the squared circle because he gave two of the greatest boxers in heavyweight history, Larry Holmes and Muhammad Ali, major problems. All four of those fights were close and Norton probably deserved the decision in the third fight with Ali in 76, but early knockout losses to Foreman, Shavers, and Cooney proved Futch’s point that Norton would freeze up against big punchers.
Even with the inability to cope with a big puncher you still have to consider Norton to be one of the greatest fifty heavyweights of all time based on his performances against Ali, Holmes, and Quarry. Eddie Futch summed it up best, “Norton developed into a good fighter as witnessed in his fight with Larry Holmes, but Norton was one of those fellas who had to avoid facing certain styles.” Even though Andrew Golota is not even close to being in the same league as the esteemed Ken Norton, the Polish man also has a similar deficiency, where he has some type of physical or mental breakdown when he gets hurts. Look at his track record, he recently drew and lost extremely close fights to top heavyweights Byrd and Ruiz, two boxers that don’t punch very hard, then gets knocked out by the very ordinary Lamon Brewster. It has happened time and time again; every time Golota gets hurt he finds a way to lose. I guess we can call him the Polish Ken Norton.
After JC Superstar’s win against Ivan Robinson, all the Internet scribes were talking about what a great fighter Chavez was and how it was an honor to watch him in action and I completely agree. One of the unfortunate things about Julio’s career was that he never won the welterweight title. He failed in his two tries against Pernell Whitaker in 93 and De La Hoya in 98, but he had slipped by the time of both of those fights and even then, a win against a prime Sweet Pea doesn’t come easy if at all. Chavez could have won the Welterweight title in 1991 right after Meldrick Taylor beat Aaron Davis for the WBA 147 pound championship.
Dan Duva was negotiating with King to set up Chavez-Taylor II, but the two promoters were at odds because King was trying to use his influence on the WBC to strip Holyfield of the title for fighting Foreman. The bad blood spilled over into the negotiations on the Chavez-Taylor rematch and Julio lost what would have been a perfect opportunity to win the Welterweight title. Before Morales won versions of the Junior Lightweight title, Chavez was the only Mexican in history to have won major titles in three different weight classes, now that record may be in jeopardy if Morales can somehow win the Lightweight title.
(If you want a lesson in Mexican boxing history, refer to my article titled LOS MEJORES: "The Greatest Fighters in Mexican History")
I thought the Toney-Ruiz and the Brewster-Golota fights would help clean up the heavyweight muddle, but all they did was make the situation worse. Now HBO still has to bring back Ruiz so that somebody can take his title away and now Lamon Brewster has to be considered a competitor if there is a Heavyweight Unification Tournament. I followed Brewster’s career early on and he is a mediocre heavyweight, which was very apparent in his performances against Clifford Etienne, Charles Shufford, and Kali Meehan. Lamon won’t beat the WBO number one contender, Luan Krasniqui, who just knocked out Lance Whitaker this past weekend
If you like to read books on boxing, check out some of the books written by deceased New York scribe Phil Berger. I’ve read a lot of books on the sport and his are by far the best.
