The best punch trackers on the market
13th December 2020
By: Noah Abrahams
The longest reigning light heavyweight champion of all time, Boxing Guru remembers the legendary Archie Moore on what would have been his 104th birthday.
Competing professionally for over 28 years, ‘The Old Mongoose’ was a highly strategical, but defensive boxer with a cast iron chin and a heavy right hand.
Moore won 186 of an astonishing 219 bouts. Box Rec’s third greatest pound for pound boxer of all time, just who was ‘Ancient Archie’?
READ – THE BEST PUNCH TRACKERS ON THE MARKET
A black rights activist and once trainer to Muhammad Ali, Moore was raised in a poverty struck Missouri.
Boxing became a way of life for the American. Moore worked and trained at the same time in the early days. Chopping down trees for a living, the Boxing Hall of Famer began beating opponents in the ring and fighting racism outside of it from a young age.
An icon within boxing and civil rights movements, the sporting legend had to compete over 175 times before being given a shot at the heavyweight world title.
On the 21st September 1955, Moore faced Rocky Marciano at New York’s Yankee Stadium for the National Boxing Association world heavyweight title.
THE BOXING GAME YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!
When a Moore right hand sent Marciano flying to the canvas for only the second time in Rocky’s career, the world knew that he meant business.
Several people (including Moore himself) believed that Moore only lost to Marciano because of poor time keeping from referee Harry Kessler. The accusations towards the man in the middle, were that Kessler allowed Marciano too much time to recover from Moore’s knockdown.
Marciano eventually won the fight by knockout in round 9 – His sixth and last title defence before retiring in 1956.
THE GREATEST HEAVYWEIGHT KNOCKOUT ARTISTS!
Moore’s second world heavyweight title fight went down a year after the Marciano loss. On the 30th November 1956, Moore off the back of 11 victories fought boxing great Floyd Patterson in Chicago.
A victory for Moore against Patterson would have made him the oldest man to have won a world heavyweight championship at that time (aged 39).
Instead, Patterson, at age 21, became the youngest world heavyweight champion of all-time (the record broken by Mike Tyson aged 20 in 1986).
The fight was over in five rounds. A Patterson knockout meant that Moore never became a heavyweight champion. Moore said:
“I felt Floyd Patterson was a vastly improved fighter. He has potentialities of being a great fighter when he gets some experience. I felt confident I could beat him, but I also learned that youth can be too much. I came up the long hard road, but when I got there, I found the door slammed shut.”
THE GREATEST HEAVYWEIGHT KNOCKOUT ARTISTS!
A clash with Yvon Durelle in 1958 highlighted perfectly the kind of man that Moore was. When defending his world light heavyweight title in Montreal, Canada, he was dropped three times in round one and then once again by Durelle in round five. Moore, however, never gave up. A fighter his whole life, the American won by a knockout in the 11th round.
A lineal light heavyweight legend, Moore’s penultimate fight was with former apprentice Cassius Clay. The rumour has it, that Clay (Muhammad Ali) sacked Moore as his trainer. ‘The People’s Champion’ was supposedly unhappy with the way he was being made to box. Ali said that Moore tried to change his style and forced him to scrub gym floors and clean dishes.
Ali rhymed that: “Archie Moore…Must fall in four.”
Ali beat Moore by knockout in round four!
WHEN ALI WAS BANNED FROM BOXING AND SENTENCED TO JAIL!
Retiring in 1963, Moore was the only man to have fought both Marciano and Ali. Following on from a career that spanned over four decades, Moore was famous for helping to train George Foreman in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ heavyweight world title bout against Ali in Zaire.
Moore travelled all round the world in later life. Helping underprivileged children and young adults, the boxing great taught them skills and installed his belief into everyone that he met. Moore believed that anybody could do anything if they put their mind to it.
A boxer, a film star and a humanitarian, they don’t make them like Moore no more!
“If I don’t get up off the mat then I lose the fight” – Archie Moore.
