rest in peace jimmy young
Posted on Tue, Feb. 22, 2005
Boxer Jimmy Young, who fought Ali, Norton, Foreman, dies at 56
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - Former heavyweight boxer Jimmy Young, who beat George Foreman and fought Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton in the 1970s before his life took a downward turn, has died.
Young, 56, died Sunday at Hahnemann University Hospital, a spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Philadelphia Daily News reported that he died of heart disease after a six-day hospitalization.
The 6-1, 210-pound Young compiled a 35-18-3 record with 12 knockouts during a career that spanned from 1969 to 1990.
He was a quick, stylish fighter, but lacked a knockout punch.
"He was brilliant," boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar said. "The problem is that he was in one of the best classes of heavyweights ever, and all the other stars had bigger punches."
Young accepted his April 30, 1976, championship loss to Muhammad Ali in Landover, Md., although some boxing experts disputed the decision.
"To beat Ali in those days," Young said, "you really had to beat him bad, you know what I mean?"
And he understood when stories after his 12-round decision over Foreman in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 17, 1977, focused on Foreman, who retired for the first time.
But he never got over a split-decision loss to Norton on Nov. 5, 1977, in a WBC elimination bout in Las Vegas.
"After that, it was like his heart went out of boxing. He began losing to fighters he never should have lost to," said cousin Bobby "Boogaloo" Watts, a former middleweight contender.
Young twice beat Ron Lyle, went 0-1-1 against Earnie Shavers and was stopped in the fourth round by a young Gerry Cooney. He estimated his career purses at nearly $2 million, but said he took home far less than that.
In his later years, he battled financial, drug and legal problems. At an October court hearing on a drug-possession charge, a Philadelphia public defender argued that Young had symptoms of chronic traumatic brain injury.
"I don't know who's to blame," Watts said. "Maybe Jimmy himself was to blame. You can't be weak when things start going against you. You got to stay strong, no matter what."
Information from: Philadelphia Daily News, http://www.philly.com
Author: d sekou
Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 05:35 pm
[No profile available]
i thought jimmy young won all three of those big fights.
the only one that was close was the norton fight when ken figured out in the mid rounds that head hunting wasn't going to work against young and went to the body attack . jimmy had to abandon the gameplan in midbout, hung tough and gave as good as he got. it was beautiful . one of the best . a classic boxer vrs boxer/puncher matchup that turned from a sharpshooter's match in the first half of the fight , into a war of attrition down deep in the trenches in the later rounds . a pugilistic masterpiece .
young had quick reflexes and hands , but basically besides walking , turning quickly and unexpectedly , he remained stationary and rarely showed any "dancing" footspeed similar to an ali or ray leonard .
jimmy's defense was his best weapon --making the other fighter miss and then countering with quick combinations-- often by stepping almost behind the other fighter and then nailing him before he could recover his bearings as the fighter instinctively turned to face the disappearing young .
i once had a doberman pincher and a german shepard who would often "spar" with each other as adolescent dogs are known to do.
the dobie would frustrate the larger, stronger shepard by positioning himself almost underneath the larger dog's middle and rapidly weaving right or left to avoid the opponents teeth.
at almost the same time, the smaller dog was counterattacking unprotected flanks , or shoulders depending upon which direction the confused german shepard was attempting to turn in .
for the german shepard ,it was largely a no win situation --if he attacked , he was made to miss and the shepard's opposite end was countered and bitten by the dobie. if the shepard tried to defend , he was attacked and bitten on whichever side was left undefended .
his only hope was in using his greater size and strength to physically bowl the dobie over onto the ground and then make him fight from there-- but the pincher was usually too quick and smart to permit that to happen .
the best the shepard could manage was often a stalemate. the dobie would win simply by fighting his tactical fight , frustrating the german shepard and not allowing himself to get beaten .
the shepard usually quit first .
the encounters between the doberman and the german shepard were what watching jimmy young fighting muhammad ali , ken norton , and george foreman all reminded me of .
fighters like jimmy young were what the oldtimers in the sport used to refer to as "real cute"-- as in, "Oh , you think you cute... huh , muthaf---a ?"
the type guy who wins the fight by making you look bad . rather than slug with you , he wins by employing speed and slick moves instead of power .
he's like a ghost taunting you . he's here and when your fist gets there , you can still see his jaw, you can almost reach him, but he's already gone-- gone just far enough to cause you to miss . he looks polished and classy while making you look like an unskilled amateur .
jimmy Young was a light hitter so none of those other fighters mentioned had any fear of his punching power .
he had a unique defense based upon seeming to offer his head as a target while bending at the waist and weaving his upper body to the left or right to avoid the head shots.
after ducking out of range, while almost doubled over at the waist , his arms were long enough and his body supple enough , that he could then ,like a sapling tree bent in the wind, suddenly spring back and counter punch from close position .
the beauty of it all was that unlike other defensive geniuses in the game ,without 'running' , jimmy could avoid most of the other guy's shots or slip away from much of the force of their punches' through using only slight body shifts and changes of angle , yet still remain close enough to the other fighter to nail him with countershots.
it was a cat and mouse game that was a thing of beauty to watch. it required the intense mental focus of a circus highwire act at 100 feet up and no net .
it called upon the nerve and audacity of the mongoose trapped in the cobra's lair.
it was the short turns , quick spins and close-quarter , deadly artistic grace of matador and the maddened ,wounded bull in the endgame of their match --when distance is sacrificed to gain the close proximity needed to drive in the sword-- and make the kill ---no mistakes can be made as each contestant is locked in a cool and desperate circling along the tightrope of sudden death that for either , is only inches away ...an adrenaline high that in a heartbeat , could turn disasterous.
in the heaviest hitting division in boxing , boasting no real punching power of his own , jimmy young made a career out of making the "baddest men" actually look bad.
to me , he clearly frustrated and outpointed an aging muhammad ali in their championship fight --and ali was my boxing idol.
at the time i even patterned my own boxing style on ali's 'stick and move' . afterwards of course , i added , among others, jimmy young's weaves ,shifts, spins and turns to my repetoire -- techniques he worked to perfection in his bout with a young and still quick and ferocious george foreman --the most dangerous hitter the heavyweights had ever seen . a fighter who had ,excepting for ali , punishingly beaten every man they put in front of him . this included george knocking out a dangerously strong ron lyle ,and earlier , foreman had needed a total of only seven rounds to knock joe frazier down a total of seven times and in their two encounters , knocked joe out twice . george needed only two rounds in which to destroy ken norton .
at the time he met jimmy young , big george was still a fighter in his athletic prime that no one except muhammad ali had managed to defeat . young clearly dominated george from beginning to end , was only hurt once and managed to drop george in the last round of their match sealing an almost perfect victory. george was so frustrated and extended beyond his limit he says he had a religious epipphany in the ring as he was being beat down to the canvas --he quit boxing for ten years as a result, devoted his life to the lord and became a preacher .
unfortunately ,despite his triumphs , like so many others of that era , jimmy young would end up battling drug addiction .
a promising career of glory and big paydays at the top of the division slipped away from him .
the last time i saw him fight , he was was no longer young , lean or slick . the reflexes were no longer what they had been and the extra weight around the midsection noticibly slowed him down. still he showed flashes of the mongoose .
in his performance against a then rising irish "rocky balboa" named gerry cooney , jimmy young was the "opponent" . a grizzled veteran fighter on his way down . no one but he himslef believed jimmy could win . he was brought in only as a test for the promising , heavy-hitting kid on his way up to a title .
young did the best he could do with the skills he had left, and did not embarrass himself , but got a very bad cut near the side of his eye that the ref immediately saw was bleeding too profusely for the fight to continue .
it was stopped in the fourth round-- for all intents and purposes , jimmy young was viewed by the boxing world as washed up.
irish gerry cooney , who had also scored a stunning one round knockout against another also fading 'opponent' --ken norton , went on to a titleshot against larry holmes .
in that title fight , cooney was surprisingly treated to a $10 million payday-- as if he were the champion instead of holmes .
it was unprecedented for a contender who had never held a title to receive the same amount as the reigning champion --it's an accepted rule in boxing that the champion always receives more than the challenger .
as he continued spiraling downward , drugs took their toll on jimmy young . just as they did on arron pryor , and sugar ray leonard and helped hasten each fighter's decline... always sad to see a great warrior go out like that.
for a few moments you were basking in the magnificence of your glory and reminding us of the levels of artistic excellence we can aspire to reach, affirming for us what we can be ...that's how i'll remember you ...rest in peace jimmy young
Boxer Jimmy Young, who fought Ali, Norton, Foreman, dies at 56
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - Former heavyweight boxer Jimmy Young, who beat George Foreman and fought Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton in the 1970s before his life took a downward turn, has died.
Young, 56, died Sunday at Hahnemann University Hospital, a spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Philadelphia Daily News reported that he died of heart disease after a six-day hospitalization.
The 6-1, 210-pound Young compiled a 35-18-3 record with 12 knockouts during a career that spanned from 1969 to 1990.
He was a quick, stylish fighter, but lacked a knockout punch.
"He was brilliant," boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar said. "The problem is that he was in one of the best classes of heavyweights ever, and all the other stars had bigger punches."
Young accepted his April 30, 1976, championship loss to Muhammad Ali in Landover, Md., although some boxing experts disputed the decision.
"To beat Ali in those days," Young said, "you really had to beat him bad, you know what I mean?"
And he understood when stories after his 12-round decision over Foreman in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 17, 1977, focused on Foreman, who retired for the first time.
But he never got over a split-decision loss to Norton on Nov. 5, 1977, in a WBC elimination bout in Las Vegas.
"After that, it was like his heart went out of boxing. He began losing to fighters he never should have lost to," said cousin Bobby "Boogaloo" Watts, a former middleweight contender.
Young twice beat Ron Lyle, went 0-1-1 against Earnie Shavers and was stopped in the fourth round by a young Gerry Cooney. He estimated his career purses at nearly $2 million, but said he took home far less than that.
In his later years, he battled financial, drug and legal problems. At an October court hearing on a drug-possession charge, a Philadelphia public defender argued that Young had symptoms of chronic traumatic brain injury.
"I don't know who's to blame," Watts said. "Maybe Jimmy himself was to blame. You can't be weak when things start going against you. You got to stay strong, no matter what."
Information from: Philadelphia Daily News, http://www.philly.com
Author: d sekou
Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 05:35 pm
[No profile available]
i thought jimmy young won all three of those big fights.
the only one that was close was the norton fight when ken figured out in the mid rounds that head hunting wasn't going to work against young and went to the body attack . jimmy had to abandon the gameplan in midbout, hung tough and gave as good as he got. it was beautiful . one of the best . a classic boxer vrs boxer/puncher matchup that turned from a sharpshooter's match in the first half of the fight , into a war of attrition down deep in the trenches in the later rounds . a pugilistic masterpiece .
young had quick reflexes and hands , but basically besides walking , turning quickly and unexpectedly , he remained stationary and rarely showed any "dancing" footspeed similar to an ali or ray leonard .
jimmy's defense was his best weapon --making the other fighter miss and then countering with quick combinations-- often by stepping almost behind the other fighter and then nailing him before he could recover his bearings as the fighter instinctively turned to face the disappearing young .
i once had a doberman pincher and a german shepard who would often "spar" with each other as adolescent dogs are known to do.
the dobie would frustrate the larger, stronger shepard by positioning himself almost underneath the larger dog's middle and rapidly weaving right or left to avoid the opponents teeth.
at almost the same time, the smaller dog was counterattacking unprotected flanks , or shoulders depending upon which direction the confused german shepard was attempting to turn in .
for the german shepard ,it was largely a no win situation --if he attacked , he was made to miss and the shepard's opposite end was countered and bitten by the dobie. if the shepard tried to defend , he was attacked and bitten on whichever side was left undefended .
his only hope was in using his greater size and strength to physically bowl the dobie over onto the ground and then make him fight from there-- but the pincher was usually too quick and smart to permit that to happen .
the best the shepard could manage was often a stalemate. the dobie would win simply by fighting his tactical fight , frustrating the german shepard and not allowing himself to get beaten .
the shepard usually quit first .
the encounters between the doberman and the german shepard were what watching jimmy young fighting muhammad ali , ken norton , and george foreman all reminded me of .
fighters like jimmy young were what the oldtimers in the sport used to refer to as "real cute"-- as in, "Oh , you think you cute... huh , muthaf---a ?"
the type guy who wins the fight by making you look bad . rather than slug with you , he wins by employing speed and slick moves instead of power .
he's like a ghost taunting you . he's here and when your fist gets there , you can still see his jaw, you can almost reach him, but he's already gone-- gone just far enough to cause you to miss . he looks polished and classy while making you look like an unskilled amateur .
jimmy Young was a light hitter so none of those other fighters mentioned had any fear of his punching power .
he had a unique defense based upon seeming to offer his head as a target while bending at the waist and weaving his upper body to the left or right to avoid the head shots.
after ducking out of range, while almost doubled over at the waist , his arms were long enough and his body supple enough , that he could then ,like a sapling tree bent in the wind, suddenly spring back and counter punch from close position .
the beauty of it all was that unlike other defensive geniuses in the game ,without 'running' , jimmy could avoid most of the other guy's shots or slip away from much of the force of their punches' through using only slight body shifts and changes of angle , yet still remain close enough to the other fighter to nail him with countershots.
it was a cat and mouse game that was a thing of beauty to watch. it required the intense mental focus of a circus highwire act at 100 feet up and no net .
it called upon the nerve and audacity of the mongoose trapped in the cobra's lair.
it was the short turns , quick spins and close-quarter , deadly artistic grace of matador and the maddened ,wounded bull in the endgame of their match --when distance is sacrificed to gain the close proximity needed to drive in the sword-- and make the kill ---no mistakes can be made as each contestant is locked in a cool and desperate circling along the tightrope of sudden death that for either , is only inches away ...an adrenaline high that in a heartbeat , could turn disasterous.
in the heaviest hitting division in boxing , boasting no real punching power of his own , jimmy young made a career out of making the "baddest men" actually look bad.
to me , he clearly frustrated and outpointed an aging muhammad ali in their championship fight --and ali was my boxing idol.
at the time i even patterned my own boxing style on ali's 'stick and move' . afterwards of course , i added , among others, jimmy young's weaves ,shifts, spins and turns to my repetoire -- techniques he worked to perfection in his bout with a young and still quick and ferocious george foreman --the most dangerous hitter the heavyweights had ever seen . a fighter who had ,excepting for ali , punishingly beaten every man they put in front of him . this included george knocking out a dangerously strong ron lyle ,and earlier , foreman had needed a total of only seven rounds to knock joe frazier down a total of seven times and in their two encounters , knocked joe out twice . george needed only two rounds in which to destroy ken norton .
at the time he met jimmy young , big george was still a fighter in his athletic prime that no one except muhammad ali had managed to defeat . young clearly dominated george from beginning to end , was only hurt once and managed to drop george in the last round of their match sealing an almost perfect victory. george was so frustrated and extended beyond his limit he says he had a religious epipphany in the ring as he was being beat down to the canvas --he quit boxing for ten years as a result, devoted his life to the lord and became a preacher .
unfortunately ,despite his triumphs , like so many others of that era , jimmy young would end up battling drug addiction .
a promising career of glory and big paydays at the top of the division slipped away from him .
the last time i saw him fight , he was was no longer young , lean or slick . the reflexes were no longer what they had been and the extra weight around the midsection noticibly slowed him down. still he showed flashes of the mongoose .
in his performance against a then rising irish "rocky balboa" named gerry cooney , jimmy young was the "opponent" . a grizzled veteran fighter on his way down . no one but he himslef believed jimmy could win . he was brought in only as a test for the promising , heavy-hitting kid on his way up to a title .
young did the best he could do with the skills he had left, and did not embarrass himself , but got a very bad cut near the side of his eye that the ref immediately saw was bleeding too profusely for the fight to continue .
it was stopped in the fourth round-- for all intents and purposes , jimmy young was viewed by the boxing world as washed up.
irish gerry cooney , who had also scored a stunning one round knockout against another also fading 'opponent' --ken norton , went on to a titleshot against larry holmes .
in that title fight , cooney was surprisingly treated to a $10 million payday-- as if he were the champion instead of holmes .
it was unprecedented for a contender who had never held a title to receive the same amount as the reigning champion --it's an accepted rule in boxing that the champion always receives more than the challenger .
as he continued spiraling downward , drugs took their toll on jimmy young . just as they did on arron pryor , and sugar ray leonard and helped hasten each fighter's decline... always sad to see a great warrior go out like that.
for a few moments you were basking in the magnificence of your glory and reminding us of the levels of artistic excellence we can aspire to reach, affirming for us what we can be ...that's how i'll remember you ...rest in peace jimmy young
posted by dsekou at 10:47 AM
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