This past week heavyweight contender Ken Norton passed away. I would simply like to express to you what he meant to me as a teenage boxer.

Ken and his friend Joe Frazier were my favorite heavyweight boxers. These men appealed to me because they worked very hard and were not the giants of their class. Joe had the classic ‘Philly shell’ peek-a-boo style, where Ken used a more oblique cross-armed peek-a-boo guard. They both beat Ali, both suffered defeats at Ali’s hands, and were both crushed by George Foreman, who Ali toyed with, making them part of a classic boxing style dichotomy = A beats B, B beats C, but C beats A.

Ken was quiet, respectful and always in top shape, where Ali clowned, insulted opponents and let himself go between fights. I loved Ken for breaking that trash-talking jaw. They met three times and Ken made himself the nemesis of the man who for me exemplified the popular bully in school. One of their fights was so controversial that there was a special show broadcast on network TV in which celebrities [including Joe Frazier, who hated Ali for his racial slurs and personal betrayals] viewed the bout replay round by round and then each did an open scoring in which they had to justify their score.

Ken starred in the extremely politically incorrect film Mandingo, which was the Django of its day but featured more realistic slave owners and period correct firearms. He was in the first sex scene I ever saw. He did two epic fight scenes, the best being a brutal brawl with another slave in the garden of a New Orleans brothel.

Ken actually won a fight toward the end of his career against Jimmy Young [who made Ali look like a slug and beat Foreman] with body punches—a lot of them.

Ken made an appearance on a prototype of the World’s Strongest Man competition and proved himself [unlike most boxers] to be a good all around athlete.

If you survived the 1970s one of your most hated personas is probably Howard Cosell, who was Ali’s mouthpiece and had no patience for athletes who were merely competent. Cosell wanted biomechanical savants like Ali who could do amazing things without necessarily learning the nuts and bolts of their craft. I would have to say that the modern sports fan’s lack of tolerance for a fighter with a loss on his record began with Cosell, who ushered in the cult of personality in sports. After Cosell and Ali a boxer could only be taken seriously by the public unless he was flamboyant or undefeated. Courageous risk-takers with sub-Hollywood personas no longer need apply.

On one occasion Ken was commentating with Howard at a George Foreman fight. I only saw it once nearly forty years ago so will paraphrase as best I can. Howard kept on commenting about ‘The power of Big George Foreman’. On three occasions he commented to the audience on how “No one knows better the devastating power of George Foreman than the man seated next to me, who was crushed by Big George Foreman…” I recall laughing out loud with my cousin at this exchange, as we could hear the ever-growing anger in Ken’s voice.

Howard even moved Ken, who remained polite despite the growing irritation in his voice, to agree that George had the most power out there. Finally, as Howard went to the well of Ken’s demise with even more style, actually describing how Ken ‘bounced’ off the canvas [Mind you, they were supposed to be watching and commenting on an ongoing fight] Ken said, “Enough Howard!” and the back-stabbing, career-kicking, athlete-indicting, blabbermouth asshole-armchair expert of all time, actually shut his mouth for one of those few timeless moments that it remained shut while he was in the position to regal the TV viewers with the many failings of the athletes that struggled for their enjoyment.

Thanks Ken.

Rest in Peace.