Too Little, Too Late, Too Young, Too Bad

Take two persons who would seem to be stars of the same magnitude and then try to figure out why one seems to be so much larger or more famous or, maybe, more notorious than the other.

An example, in baseball, would be a Jose Canseco or Darryl Strawberry vs. a Cal Ripken or a Tony Gwynn. Or an Arnold Palmer vs. a Gary Player in golf.

All are (or were) great, but guys such as Canseco, Strawberry and Palmer, for differing reasons, seem to get so much more attention.

Joe Namath and Mark Rypien both won Super Bowls at quarterback, but you know which one is a legend and which one is a quarterback who won a Super Bowl.

Michael Jackson plays banana split to Barry Manilow’s vanilla.

For quite some time, the heavyweight champion of the world has been first Buster Douglas and later Evander Holyfield. Neither, however, has ever been the most famous active boxer. That was always Mike Tyson. Nine persons out of 10 would have identified him as the heavyweight champion long after he took his tumble against Douglas.

Maybe Holyfield will get his due now that Tyson is closing in on becoming the most famous convict. Maybe not.

Holyfield, with Tyson all but gone, suffers from the lack of opponents good enough to give him a marquee fight and with it a) a big pay day and b) attendant notoriety.

Indeed, Holyfield’s problem parallels that of one Terry Norris, the current WBC super-welterweight champion. His quest for fame and fortune is stymied by a continuing lack of a dance partner.

Norris’ next title defense will be Saturday at the Sports Arena against a fellow named Carl Daniels. It is being billed as the Shoot-Out at High Noon, which has a nice ring to it. In truth, the card starts at 11:45 and Norris-Daniels do not come on until 2:05, but I’m not one to take offense with literary license.

Daniels, at 26-0 with 17 knockouts, is probably a worthy opponent, but the fight has hardly attracted the attention of the multitudes.

Consequently, Norris, though sailing along with a nine-bout winning streak and a career 30-3 record, will settle for half of what he made last summer in a title defense against Brett Lally. It’s hardly the direction a young man would be hoping his financial fortune would be headed.

To get the big bucks, a man has to become a “name” beyond the boxing world. He has to be an Arnold Palmer as opposed to a Gary Player, a Joe Namath as opposed to a Mark Rypien. Boxing fans alone do not a legend make.

Terry Norris is an outstanding fighter. He is a family man. He works hard. He takes care of himself. He is modest, not given to bravado.

In short, all he does to make headlines is box . . . and win.

Fellows like Namath, Strawberry and Canseco make headlines by making waves.

That is not Norris’ style.

Maybe he needs to get stopped for speeding at 3:30 a.m. with a machine gun on his dashboard. Or get caught sneaking out of Madonna’s townhouse. Or big mouth his way through a press conference. Or fight with a glove on only one hand.

Naw. None of this stuff is for Norris.

If anything, he needed to be born sooner . . . by maybe 10 years.

At about this same time a decade ago, his approximate weight class was populated by fighters such as Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran. Put two of those guys in a ring together, and turnstiles and satellite dishes would spin wildly. These were fights people wanted to see.

Even Ali had his Fraziers and Nortons and Foremans. He might have been perceived as much less than he was if he had not had such noteworthy opposition.

Norris vs. Daniels might be a nice fight, but the world has not been clamoring for it.

In fact, the world is not clamoring for Norris vs. Anybody.

It is too bad, because the man deserves a benchmark fight to establish his greatest . . . and his fame.

“To create bigger fights,” Norris said Thursday, “the opponents have to get bigger names for themselves.”

In a nutshell, that’s it.

Maybe someone will emerge from the Olympics with a “name” to excite the populace. Maybe such an opponent will come out of a gym in Detroit or Houston or Philadelphia.

In the meantime, Terry Norris will have to be patient. No one is there right now. He just has to make sure he is when someone comes along.