Ken Norton
80″ reach · +6.67% reach advantage · 79th percentile
42–7–1
Ken Norton has a reach of 80″ against a height of 75″ — a reach advantage of +6.67%, long for heavyweight boxing and the 79th percentile of the 317 compared here.
SOURCE·Ken Norton — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-04
How this record is compiled
- Measurements come from the fighter's English Wikipedia infobox; the bout list is parsed from the results table on the same article, read on 2026-07-04. Boxing tables are read by header name and MMA records by the fixed column order of the
MMA recordtemplate — two different parsers, because reading MMA rows as a boxing table returns a fighter's boxing record in place of their real one. - A bout enters the ledger with whatever fields the source states: result, opponent, method, round, year. Any field the source leaves empty stays empty here. A date that cannot be established is left blank rather than inferred, and the bout is still counted.
- A no contest is counted and printed as a no contest. It is never folded into the wins, the losses or the draws, and it never disappears to make a total balance.
- Where the article's infobox total disagrees with its own results table, both figures are published and each is labelled with where it came from. Nothing is averaged and nothing is reconciled against a second database.
- Percentiles rank this fighter among the 317 heavyweight boxing fighters in the dataset — the most specific group of at least 30 that this fighter belongs to.
reach advantage = (reach − height) ÷ height × 100
Bout record
Every bout the article's own results table lists, in order. A dash is a field the source leaves empty — it is not a zero and it is not a guess.
| Year | Result | Opponent | Method | Rd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | L | Gerry Cooney | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 1980 | W | Randall Cobb | Decision | 10 |
| 1979 | D | Scott LeDoux | Draw | 10 |
| 1979 | L | Earnie Shavers | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 1978 | W | Randy Stephens | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 1978 | L | Larry Holmes | Decision | 15 |
| 1977 | W | Jimmy Young | Decision | 15 |
| 1977 | W | Lorenzo Zanon | KO/TKO | 5 |
| 1977 | W | Duane Bobick | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 1976 | L | Muhammad Ali | Decision | 15 |
| 1976 | W | Larry Middleton | KO/TKO | 10 |
| 1976 | W | Ron Stander | KO/TKO | 5 |
| 1976 | W | Pedro Lovell | KO/TKO | 5 |
| 1975 | W | Jose Luis Garcia | KO/TKO | 5 |
| 1975 | W | Jerry Quarry | KO/TKO | 5 |
| 1975 | W | Rico Brooks | KO/TKO | 1 |
| 1974 | W | Boone Kirkman | KO/TKO | 7 |
| 1974 | L | George Foreman | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 1973 | L | Muhammad Ali | Decision | 12 |
| 1972 | W | Charlie Reno | Decision | 10 |
| 1972 | W | Henry Clark | KO/TKO | 9 |
| 1972 | W | James J. Woody | — | 8 |
| 1972 | W | Herschel Jacobs | Decision | 10 |
| 1972 | W | Jack O'Halloran | Decision | 10 |
| 1972 | W | Charlie Harris | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 1971 | W | James J. Woody | Decision | 10 |
| 1971 | W | Chuck Haynes | KO/TKO | 7 |
| 1971 | W | Vic Brown | KO/TKO | 5 |
| 1971 | W | Steve Carter | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 1970 | W | Roby Harris | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 1970 | W | Chuck Leslie | — | 10 |
| 1970 | W | Roy Wallace | KO/TKO | 4 |
| 1970 | L | Jose Luis Garcia | KO/TKO | 8 |
| 1970 | W | Ray Junior Ellis | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 1970 | W | Bob Mashburn | KO/TKO | 4 |
| 1970 | W | Stamford Harris | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 1970 | W | Aaron Eastling | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 1969 | W | Julius Garcia | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 1969 | W | Gary Bates | KO/TKO | 8 |
| 1969 | W | Bill McMurray | KO/TKO | 7 |
| 1969 | W | Pedro Sanchez | KO/TKO | 2 |
| 1969 | W | Wayne Kindred | KO/TKO | 9 |
| 1969 | W | Joe Hemphill | KO/TKO | 3 |
| 1968 | W | Cornell Nolan | KO/TKO | 6 |
| 1968 | W | Wayne Kindred | KO/TKO | 6 |
| 1968 | W | Jimmy Gilmore | KO/TKO | 7 |
| 1968 | W | Harold Dutra | — | 3 |
| 1968 | W | Sam Wyatt | — | 6 |
| 1967 | W | Grady Brazell | — | 5 |
13 of these opponents have their own page here.
SOURCE·Ken Norton — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-04
Reach in context
Reach advantage
+6.67%
80″ reach on a 75″ frame
Compared against 317 heavyweight boxing fighters. Median 3.99%.
| Reach | 80″ (203.2 cm) | 69th pct |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 75″ (190.5 cm) | 57th pct |
| Stance | Orthodox | |
| Division | Heavyweight Boxing | |
| Most active decade | 1970s — 35 of 49 dated bouts | |
| Country | United States |
Record
Boxing record
42–7
50 bouts on record
Finish rate
79%
of wins ended inside the distance — heavyweight boxing median 68%, 75th percentile
The career, bout by bout
49 recorded bouts from 1967 to 1981. Every incumbent shows this as a table you have to read; here it is as a shape you can see.
Career span
15y
1967–1981
Longest unbeaten run
15
without a loss — draws do not break it
Busiest year
1970
8 bouts
Recorded bouts
49
49 with a date
Closest in build
heavyweight boxing fighters with the nearest reach advantage.
- Ross Puritty+6.67% 80″ reach · 79th pct
- Charles Shufford+6.67% 80″ reach · 79th pct
- Agit Kabayel+6.67% 80″ reach · 79th pct
- Dwight Muhammad Qawi+6.69% 71″ reach · 80th pct
- Malik Scott+6.58% 81″ reach · 79th pct
- Owen LeFranc Beck+6.85% 78″ reach · 81st pct
- Jack Gardner+6.85% 78″ reach · 81st pct
- Mitch Green+6.49% 82″ reach · 78th pct
What this record does and does not say
- What is Ken Norton's record?
- 42–7–1 in boxing. That is the aggregate stated in the English Wikipedia infobox; the results table on the same article lists 49 bouts individually.
- Does a no contest change a record here?
- No. A no contest is not a win, a loss or a draw, and it is never folded into one. It is counted and printed separately, so a 20–0 record with two no contests is shown as exactly that rather than as 22–0 or as 20–0 with the no contests dropped. The same applies to a bout overturned after the fact where the source records the change.
- What happens when sources disagree about a fight?
- This site publishes one source — the fighter's English Wikipedia article, read on the date printed under every table — and it does not silently reconcile that against anyone else's database. Where the article's own infobox total and its own results table disagree, both are shown and the page says which one each figure came from. Nothing is averaged, and no field is filled in from a second source to make a total balance.
Where this record leads
The 605 heavyweight boxing fighters this record is ranked against, and the distribution Norton sits inside.
605 FIGHTERS 1970s boxing35 of these bouts fall in the 1970s. This is what the rest of that decade's records look like.
115 FIGHTERS Earnie Shavers vs Ken NortonA bout both records confirm — set out side by side, with every opponent the two men have in common.
1979 Longest unbeaten runsKen Norton went 15 without a loss. This is where that sits against every run on the site.
LEADERBOARD