Terry Norris was a great amateur and professional fighter who was unheralded considering his many talents and accomplishments as a Boxer.

February 5, 1991
A Champion Who's Fighting Obscurity

By MICHAEL MARTINEZ, Special to The New York Times

CAMPO, Calif.- Within the walls of the two-story barn -- seemingly lost in the mountains near the Cleveland National Forest -- the World Boxing Council's superwelterweight champion, Terry Norris, has been preparing for the fight of his life for more than three months. It is not a fight he takes lightly, since a victory will surely springboard Norris from obscurity to stardom.

So he wakes every morning and runs, lifts weights, spars, trains and then sleeps again, knowing that he will gain instant celebrity if he steps into the Garden ring on Saturday and beats his opponent, Sugar Ray Leonard, the aging but capable former champion.

The task is an interesting one for the 23-year-old Norris, who grew up idolizing Leonard, now 34 and somehow still fighting. When Norris speaks of Leonard, his remarks are a blend of admiration and tough talk. He was 9 years old when Leonard won an Olympic gold medal, but so many years have passed that Norris now believes his time has arrived.

What Norris does not have is the marquee attraction and the respect he believes he will receive by beating Leonard. Although he has been W.B.C. champion since a first-round knockout of John (the Beast) Mugabi last March, he remains, for the most part, an unknown to all but the most ardent followers of boxing. He retained his title last July with a 12-round victory over Rene Jacquot of France and is 26-3 with 14 knockouts.

Norris has trained and lived the last five years at the ranch owned by his manager, Joe Sayatovich, who converted a portion of his 30-acre property into a training facility called First Fighter Squadron.

Sayatovich's ranch is a haven for a half dozen young boxers, including Norris, who followed his older brother, Orlin Norris Jr., to the facility and never left.

Norris, though, retains a large measure of respect for his opponent, the result of having watched Leonard since his youth and having dreamed about the fight, literally, since it became a reality.

Norris was 9 when he fell in love with boxing, but he said his path was derailed for several years in high school in Lubbock, Tex., where he was born and raised. He was an exceptional baseball player and batted .417, attracting a number of college scholarship offers. But a brawl, which he said was triggered by a racial epithet, caused him to lose interest quickly.

Even when he is not in training for a bout, he comes to the big yellow barn six days a week to work out.
"He's sacrificed more than anybody else we've had up here," Sanchez said. "It's like he says, 'I can enjoy things afterward.' "

By his own admission, Norris frequently pushes himself too much. In preparation for Leonard, he is sparring 12 rounds every other day and lifting weights, something considered a taboo in the fight game.

"I have a tendency to work myself too much," he conceded. "I don't see myself that way, but they do. I am a workaholic, and they have to slow me down, but that's typical of me. I look at all my opponents as great fighters, and I always want to be at my best for them. I don't want to have an excuse."


"Beating Leonard, you don't have any idea what it would mean to me," he said. "My title is at stake, but the respect from everybody in the whole world is at stake, too. That's what I want -- the respect -- so that when I walk outside, people will know who I am, not see me as just a shadow.

"Right now, nobody knows me, but I'm the champion. I'm Terry Norris. After this fight, it'll change."

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Terry Norris won his fight with Sugar Ray and eventually lost his Boxing License because he developed a distinct slur in his speech which indicated brain damage had started to show up. He had many fights but the blame for the damage was his work ethic in the gym. He sparred too violentlyt and that was his undoing. Contrast that with a fighter like Roberto Duran who was disciplined about only fighting hard in an actual contest and never in training. He had many hard fights but did not allow himself to get hurt in the gym. Tommy Hearnes was another 'gym rat' and had many of his hardest fights in the Kronk Gym. He shows signs of slurred speech, too.