Jimmy Young: The Artful Dodger

He outboxed the three most feared punchers of the heavyweight division's golden era: George Foreman, Earnie Shavers, and Ron Lyle. His skill and talent extended the great Muhammad Ali to the limits, and many felt Ali was lucky to get the decision when they met in 1976. Yet few remember Jimmy Young, the artful dodger, the man who sent mighty Big George Foreman into retirement.

Young was born and raised in the fighting city of Philadelphia, and got into the sport from hanging out in the Broad Street Gym after school. Young was a normal sized heavyweight, standing 6'1" and weighing 210 lbs in his prime. He developed into a thoroughly-schooled, well-rounded boxer and counter-puncher. He had a good jab, a solid counter right hand, and a capable body attack. Young was also a skilled defensive technician, elusive and hard to hit. Ultimately, it was these qualities that hurt Young's marketability. People watch heavyweights because of their size and power, so while the smaller weight divisions can produce fighters famous for their boxing skills (Willie Pep, Pernell Whittaker), heavyweights who rely on solely on skill find it hard to get career traction. In the modern era, Chris Byrd has suffered from the same problem. Even the Muhammad Ali, famous for his graceful footwork and agility, packed a formidable wallop. Young only scored 11 knockouts in his entire career. Young just did not have a knock-out punch.

Hard Knocks

Jimmy Young turned pro in 1969, at the age of 21. Fellow Philly heavyweight Joe Frazier had only recently captured part of the world title. Young was still, well, young and small at the time: until 1974, he typically weighed in at less than 200lbs.

In the early stages of Young's career, it was pretty clear that his management did not think very much of Young or his skills. Promising fighters are "raised," being brought along with carefully chosen, progressively more challenging opponents. It is in this way that fighters arrive on the national or world scene undefeated, confident, and well-prepared. Young was matched with generally more experienced and developed fighters early on, losing 3 of his first 10 fights.

Then his management made a decision that can only be explained by petty greed and sheer disregard for the fighter in their charge: Young was matched with Earnie Shavers, the most devastating puncher who ever lived. It was Young's 11^th fight, but Shavers' 44^th. Young was unsurprisingly overwhelmed by Shavers, and knocked out in the 3^rd round. It was not an auspicious start to what would be a good career.

Young's Rise to Contention

Young went back to the gym and started to rebuild his broken career. Of his next 7 fights, he won 6 and drew 1. Interestingly for a fighter trying to start over, only one of Young's opponents could be described as a "tomato can" - most of them were solid journeymen with winning records. In 1974, a year and a half after their first fight, Young got a rematch with the feared Earnie Shavers. This time, he managed to score a draw.

Young's next fight took him to Hawaii and matched him with another feared puncher, Ron Lyle. Lyle was heavily favored to beat the unknown Philly boxer with no punch and a mixed record, but Young handily out boxed Lyle over 10 rounds, winning a decisive unanimous decision. Jimmy Young had overcome his early trials and had finally arrived. He was a top ten heavyweight.

Young spent the rest of 1975 and part of 1976 keeping busy with small fights, waiting for another big opportunity. It arrived in April 1976 when he was offered the chance to challenge world champion Muhammad Ali. It was an interesting match in that Ali, who had built his fame with his "float like a butterfly" style, was now aging and slowing, and matched with a younger man with formidable boxing talent. Young's elusive style made Ali work hard, and Young was able to work the angles and counterpunch effectively, at one point landing a hard shot that burst Ali's eardrum. However, the judges gave the decision to Ali. In those latter days of Ali's career, he was awarded a handful of questionable decisions. Young said it best: "To beat Ali in those days, you really had to beat him bad."

Despite the loss, young remained in contention for the world title. Later that year, he met Ron Lyle in a rematch, and once again cleanly outpointed him. Then in March 1977, he met George Foreman and outboxed him so thoroughly that Foreman retired after the match. The bout was declared by The Ring magazine as the Fight of the Year.

Later that year, Young was put into a WBC eliminator match with Ken Norton. The winner would be the #1 contender, and manditory challenger for the world title. Norton had stood as a strong contender in the heavyweight top ten since he became the second man to defeat Muhammad Ali in 1973. Norton narrowly won the fight by split decision. The WBC later stripped then-champion Leon Spinks for refusing to fight Norton, who chose to face Muhammad Ali instead, and gave the title to Norton. Young had come within a couple of points on one scorecard of winning the WBC world title. It was as close as he would ever come.

Decline to Hard Times

Still a top-ranked contender, Young was matched with an 11-0, rising small heavyweight named Ossie Ocassio in 1978. Young was at his then-career heaviest of 220lbs, and thus a little overweight and out-of-shape. Ocassio, who would go on to be a world cruiserweight champion when that division was created edged him with a split decision win. Young got a rematch with Ocassio immediately, but Ocassio improved on his performance, winning a unanimous decision in January 1979. Later that year, Young's weight had risen to 229lbs, and he lost another decision to another rising contender, the future heavyweight titlest Michael Dokes. Young's time at the top was done.

Sadly, Young continued to campaign through the 1980s, trading his name for nickels and dimes. He was brutally exploited by the unscrupulous promoter Rick Parker, the same criminal responsible for the infamous phoney career of Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets. Young became a resume builder, and his resume reads like a who's who of the heavyweights of the 1980s, the infamous "Lost Generation." In 1980, he met Gerry Cooney and was stopped in the 4^th round on a cut. Then between 1982-84, he fought Greg Page, Tony Tubbs, and Tony Tucker, and lost on points to all three. All three won a piece of the world title at some point during the 1980s. Worse, Page, Tubbs, and Tucker were part of a six fight losing streak; Young also lost to three fighters who never went on to accomplish much of anything.

Despite the losses, Young fought on, meeting unknown opposition with very mixed results until he finally retired in 1988. It was a sad spectacle for a talented boxer who had overcome so much to earn a place among the best heavyweight generation in sports history. His record at the end was 34-19-2 (11 KO), with 13 of those losses coming after the fight with Norton.

Young spent his remaining years helping out a friend in an auto garage, and suffering a gradual decline into pugilistia dementia, or "punch drunkeness," due to the punishment he took in his later years as an underpaid punching bag under Parker. In another story familiar to boxing, he was hounded by the IRS for back taxes he could never repay, the money he had earned in his gravy days long since gone. Jimmy Young passed away from heart failure in 2005.