SOMETHING TO SAY
“Everybody got a rhythm with boxing, just like everybody got to be on rhythm with rapping as well. We’re all solo. There’s so many rappers out there that we don’t know about, just like there’s so many boxers out there that we don’t know about. But some make it out, some don’t. It’s the same. It literally is that same. We all independent artists. Think about it,” said Norman from his gym in Forest Park, a part of metro Atlanta. “In boxing and in rapping, in the industry, we all do that thing. Finding your speed, finding your tempo, finding your rhythm, finding your fan base and push it, push it, push it. And that’s why I keep on dropping these mixtapes. And guess what? My fan base loves it. I’ve gone double platinum.”
operate, but the work Norman is doing at close proximity isn’t always physical. Against Sasaki, Norman’s output peaked at 78 punches in a single round but averaged out just south of 65, which is high but not otherworldly when compared to other fighters. A lot of what Norman is doing on the inside is research work, an exercise in patience rather than relentlessness. Norman isn’t just country strong; he’s whip- smart, too. “When we’re fighting back and forth, that’s my specialty, because most people, they get crazy. They go crazy. You know, they get too anxious, too hyped-up. Their energy is too high,” said Norman. “For me, the whole time, I’m chilling on the
The Sasaki knockout in particular has gone double platinum in terms of internet virality. Norman traveled to Tokyo to battle Sasaki on his home turf and crushed the charismatic Japanese contender’s would-be celebration with a knockout as frightening and picturesque as one will see in high-level boxing. Norman landed a sweeping left hook that rendered Sasaki unconscious and situated directly upon the center ring
inside. Throw all the punches you want, I’m just looking at you. I’m cool. And guess what? I’m going to find my little spot, and I’m going to touch it. That’s it. I trust my defense, I trust my chin, I trust my conditioning and I trust the fact that I will land that shot and it will put you down. And if it does not put you down, I know it will sting you a little bit and make you think twice.” Norman’s fusion of inside fighting and reactionary
“I trust my defense, i trust
my chin, i trust my conditioning and i trust the fact that i will land that shot and it will put you down.”
sponsorship logo, motionless for an uncomfortably long time. Sasaki revealed the next day that he’d lost memory of the last month and a half. To produce a knockout that sensational, it requires a gargantuan level of power, of course, but there are plenty of hammer-fisted fighters who haven’t scored KOs that look like that . Norman admits that he was actively looking for the perfect shot to produce something that would live in his Instagram reels forever. Doing that requires an elite level of ring IQ – preparation, anticipation and instinct. “He kept jabbing to the body. He kept lifting his head up and standing straight up right there. I said ‘OK, do it again,’” Norman reminisced. “I kept seeing that he kept imitating me. Like, even at the fight week, he was trying to do everything I was doing, like, ‘OK, he’s gonna try to constantly do everything I do.’ “I said, ‘[I’ll] throw a jab to the body so he’ll throw one.’ That’s the only way I threw it. I knew he was gonna go back to it, but he ain’t thrown it in a minute. I threw it down there, and, sure enough, he did too. I was on the inside. You probably couldn’t tell, but the left hook came right after that. “And here we are. History was made.” At first glance, Norman’s record (22 knockouts in 28 wins) may depict him as simply a pure powerhouse or a volume puncher. During his ascent through the ranks, that was often the scouting report on him. Indeed, a lot of Norman’s work gets done on the inside the way a sheer brute might
counterpunching can likely be traced back to his first and still- favorite reference point in boxing: Roy Jones Jr. Jones was the first fighter Norman fell in love with as a fan, and while he also extracted influence from Mike Tyson and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Jones is forever “his dawg.” There’s one particular move Norman likes to use, not dissimilar to the one that flattened Sasaki: He will throw away a right hand never meant to land, only to distract his opponent and to help Norman rotate his body before leaping in with a left hook. It’s a sequence that seems lifted right out of a Jones highlight reel, like a sample of a famous tune borrowed to make a new classic track – like Willie Hutch’s “I Choose You” becoming “Int’l Players Anthem” as Andre 3000 drops an all-timer of a verse. It’s a technique that became even more potent, Norman says, in 2023 as he recovered from a right-hand injury and could only use his left in training for a period of time. Not only did it give Norman time to strengthen his left hook exclusively, but he says it also helped him learn to throw it more effectively without the trigger and decoy of the right hand, enabling him to throw the shot even faster and with even less of a setup if he wanted to. In other words, he felt an uptick in power, but the real blessing of those one-handed weeks was the boost to his timing. “My timing is my specialty. People think it’s my power, but my timing is real deal my specialty. Once again, I like
F ive years before Brian Norman Jr. was born, Big Boi and Andre 3000 of OutKast stood on stage at the Source Awards to accept their award for Best New Artist (Group) and delivered a rallying cry for anyone below the Mason-Dixon Line. “It’s like we got a demo tape and don’t nobody wanna hear it,” said Andre 3000. “The South’s got something to say.” For OutKast, it was a plea – or better yet, a demand – to the music industry to take them and southern hip-hop in general seriously. An insistence that the musical landscape was more than just the east and west coasts. A pushback against the assumption that rappers from southern states were “too country,” unsophisticated, untalented. It’s a moment of defiance that resonates with Norman, who wasn’t even born yet but entered the world in Atlanta immediately inheriting a kinship to his city’s hip-hop heroes. Norman sees his story as a true parallel to theirs. “Everybody doubted them, everybody said they ain’t gonna do this and do that. Like, even when they won an award, they were still booing them on out,” said Norman. “So why y’all booing me? That’s how I feel about it.” Broadly speaking, Atlanta isn’t viewed as a boxing hotbed, with world-famous gyms mostly located in the eastern U.S. in New York or the west in Los Angeles and Las Vegas,
Norman will be defending his WBO welterweight title against Devin Haney in Riyadh.
where the bulk of the boxing intelligentsia resides as well. Like OutKast, Norman has had the backing of an industry powerhouse – they were produced by Babyface and L.A. Reid; he’s promoted by Top Rank – but until recently, it wasn’t enough to afford him the kind of anticipatory hype many of his contemporaries enjoyed. Norman has likened his fights, and in particular his highlight-reel finishes, to “mixtapes,” little slices of media that serve to keep the public satiated and get them excited for a big project to come. In particular, his bloody beatdown of Giovani Santillan in 2024 and his Knockout of the Year candidate over Jin Sasaki in Japan reaffirmed the belief of those already in The Assassin’s fan base that he is the best welterweight in the world. Those stoppages certainly helped create a few more fans as well. Now the WBO titleholder prepares to drop what he hopes will be his first mainstream hit single, a November 22 showdown with multi-division champion Devin Haney at the ANB Arena in Riyadh as part of the blockbuster Ring IV event.
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