Dubious Quality

What started the journey was knowing that his father was Ken Norton, who most famously broke Muhammad Ali's jaw in a fight in San Diego in 1973 and won a shocking split decision.

I remember this fight quite vividly because I watched it live on ABC's Wide World of Sports one Saturday afternoon (4 p.m. Central, always). At 12 I was still a huge Ali fan and couldn't believe what I was seeing as Ken Norton controlled most of the fight. In the 11th round, he broke Ali's jaw in four places, and Ali fought the last round that way.

Howard Cosell was a much better boxing announcer than I remembered, by the way.

Ali was sluggish in the fight and barely danced, a far cry from his younger days, but when he did, his footwork was mesmerizing. 

This led me back to what was considered his most dominant fight in his prime, against Cleveland Williams in 1966. I found the full three-round fight here and spent the entire time watching Ali's feet. He was incomprehensibly quick, with probably the great footwork of any heavyweight fighter in history.

The other fighter who I always thought had incredible footwork was Mike Tyson, although his technique was cut to cut off the ring instead of dance. Tyson never reached his peak because his personal life was an abandoned mine train (later to include a rape conviction and prison sentence when he was 26), but I always wondered who would win a fight between the two at their best.

I can't watch boxing anymore. We know too much about CTE now and what a terrible toll it takes on fighters. Like today, though, I can watch the old fights, ones long in the past, and not feel like I should be ashamed for supporting the sport.