The last time Harold Lederman watched a fight in anything called “Yankee Stadium,” he wound up ducking plenty of punches thrown his way.
There were repeated phone calls to his house, reporters on his doorstep, a whole nation up in arms over something he had done. At least he won’t have to go through all that again when he watches Yuri Foreman defend his WBA junior middleweight championship tomorrow night against Miguel Cotto at the new ballpark in The Bronx.
Lederman, now serving as an unofficial judge as part of the HBO broadcast team, was one of the judges who scored the controversial fight between Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton on Sept. 28, 1976. Lederman had the fight even after 14 rounds before giving Ali the 15th round, part of a unanimous decision that favored Ali. However, many fans and media who saw the bout thought Norton had won.
“It had to be one of the most controversial title fights in the history of heavyweight boxing,” Lederman said this week. “The fight was very close. It was one of those fights where Ali was giving away the first six or seven rounds, but he had the uncanny ability to know when to turn it on.
“I had it all even after 14 rounds, but Norton didn’t throw a punch in the 15th round until the final seconds when he landed a vicious left hook,” Lederman added. “Ali had been jabbing him to death for about two minutes. It’s one of those things where you say, can one punch win a round? I didn’t think so.”
That fight was the last fight at the old Yankee Stadium. The 34-year drought ends tomorrow night when Foreman, who lives in Brooklyn by way of Israel, makes his first title defense against Cotto, who is moving up to 154 pounds after holding titles at 140 and 147.
Lederman will be ringside scoring the bout for HBO, a less stressful job than he had three decades ago when his telephone “didn’t stop ringing for a month” after the fight.
“I got calls from all over the world with people asking me why I scored the fight the way I scored it,” he said. “I knew it was 7-7 after 14, but Norton’s corner didn’t think he was in any danger. They told him to go out there and not get hurt. He should have jumped all over Ali at the beginning of the round. But he waited for 2:50 and then he unloads.”
The bout in Yankee Stadium was the third of one of the best trilogies in boxing history. Norton won by split decision in their first meeting in March 1973, when he broke Ali’s jaw in San Diego. Ali won the rematch by split decision six months later.
“If [Norton] got robbed, he got robbed by one round,” Lederman said.
