Larry Holmes & Ken Norton 1978 Original broadcast Championship Fight boxing on dvd

Holmes-Norton title fight ranks up there with the greatest Heavyweight Championship bouts of all time. In fact the 15th round is one of the best rounds in Heavyweight history. This is the original broadcast with commercials and newsbreaks from 1978, and it also includes a 15 minute interview with Muhammad Ali conducted by a young Frank Gifford. Howard Cosell calls the fight along with Arthur Mercante. Both of the fighters careers are covered with many highlights leading up to the fight. Ken Norton was a well regarded heavyweight contender for the title in the 1970s. He was an ex marine and is well known for his win over Muhammad Ali although many felt Norton was hard done in their two other bouts. In the first bout Norton broke Ali's jaw in the early rounds and went on to win a Unanimous Decision. The other two bouts, Norton lost on points. Norton also fought George Foreman and was stopped in two rounds. Then he was stopped by hard hitting Earnie Shavers in one round. Norton nonetheless kept as a top contender. Following Leon Spinks victory over Muhammad Ali for the world championship in February, 1978, Spinks elected to fight a return bout against Ali rather than face Norton. The World Boxing Council, which had mandated a Spinks-Norton bout for their championship, withdrew its recognition of Spinks as champion. On March 18, 1978, the WBC made history by naming Norton its champion without benefit of a title match. The WBC stated that they considered Norton's victory over Jimmy Young a 'retroactive championship match'. Norton wouldn't hold onto the title for very long. Three months later on June 9th 1978, Larry Holmes would enter the ring as the top ranked Heavyweight in the World and challenged Norton who was just appointed Champion by the WBC. Most of the press at that time were big fans of Ken Norton, due to the fact that he gave Ali three tough and close fights from 1973 to 1976. Norton was favored by the press, but many Boxing insiders knew Holmes was really the goods and that he had an excellent chance to take Norton. A couple days before the fight with Norton, a report surfaced that Holmes had suffered a torn left tricep muscle. This really sparked the Norton sentiment and by fight night, most were leaning towards Norton. In his first 'defense' of the WBC title, Norton and new #1 contender Larry Holmes met in what many consider a classic fight. After 15 brutal rounds, Holmes was awarded the title via an extremely close split decision.