Wow it’s not even my Bday! Guess merry Christmas to all!! Ty was a pleasure to watch. I honestly didn’t think another Moore fight existed. Gives me hope other fights from all kinds of fighters are out there somewhere. What skilled displayed by both men. Big Archie fan so I can’t tell u how great this was for me to watch. Thanks again!
George and I have a lot of other old 50s and 60s fights we will be uploading now. This was just the first. Many more are on the way.
What a performance from Old Mongoose! Valdes put up decent effort, but he didn't know how to attack Moore's defense and his defense was weaki at times. He had some decent moments, but Archir controlled the fight from the beginning. Thank you!
What a display of torso movement from Moore. Along with that cross-armed defense, made him really hard to hit with a clean shot. One thing which struck me. Moore almost never was against the ropes. It was Valdes who got pushed against the ropes and trapped in a corner now and then. As a matter of fact, despite the immense size differential, it was not clear which man was the stronger. Moore did not take many backward steps. Valdes was big and durable, but Moore was so much more skilled and put on a clinic on how to fight a bigger man. Another reaction. I wonder if the later domination by the big men of the division doesn't have something to do with the "smaller" super-heavyweights not having the flexibility and torso movement we see from the likes of Moore, or also Marciano. They tend to be relatively stiff, like Valdes, which plays into the hands of the bigger men. Flexibility is the best asset a smaller man has.
Thanks for highlighting this fight. Moore couldn’t miss him with the left hook and overhand right. Alvarez should check this one out, for his lumberjack shift in a few hours, then marvel at Moore’s yearly activity throughout his career. Interesting to note that this was just one of four wins, Arch clocked up in March ‘53. Fights were on 3, 11, 17 & 30th of March. Wonder if film of the second Valdes 15 round outdoor fight exists?
I wish it did. But I've never found any support for that theory. Unfortunately. Boxrec describes it as a "slugging match" and evidently Valdes troubled Moore up until the last three rounds.
Moore looks fantastic. You can really see how much he'd mastered his style, great at range and up close.
Great breakdown and I often thought the same when I watched guys like Tua just not be able to move off the center line like past shorter fighters because he was so obese. He’s not the only one just the first obvious comparison to come to mind.
I must admit I've always seen this as my favourite Moore performance. On paper he shouldn't have been able to fight the way he did and win, but he did.
If anybody had the footage it would probably be Mike Lebell, since he was a huge Archie Moore Fan and had a huge collection of his fights. Jimmy Carter was at the fight and him and Kid Gavilan used to use this fight as an example of literally using everything to your advantage to win at YA back in the early 90’s. Here is Archie’s account of the fight. “AM: In 1955 I fought Nino Valdez in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time Nino was the top ranked heavyweight. He was 6’ 4’ tall and weighed about 215 pounds. It was a 15 round bout and the winner was promised a bout with Marciano for the heavyweight title. The fight was staged at an outdoor arena in the lateafternoon. As the sun began to settle on the west side of the ring I was sitting in my corner facing the sun and noticed that Nino was sitting with his back to the sun. The bell rings and I move to maneuver and before any activity starts I’ve already got my head under his chin and I’m muscling this big guy around. I face him into the sun and I keep turning him to the sun. He’s trying to get back around and I keep cutting himoff. I’m always maneuvering him back to face the sun which was very bright. And all the while I keep spearing him with the left hand and keep twisting and twisting and turning him and try as he could, he couldnever make me turn into the sun. The sun was of course bothering him and I kept thumping himwith the left jab. Hard stiff stiff jabs. Pretty soon his eyes began to lump up. One eye closed up completely and the other wasclosing fast. By this time the sun was going down and the fight was coming to a close. I won 14 out of 15 rounds. “
