He was defending it regularly and never lost it in the ring. What gave? Would Harold have beaten Archie by then even though he was also past it? Or was Harold a fake champion? Btw, Willie must have been a fake champion, because, although I never saw his fight with Harold in its entirety, I saw the first 5 rounds and remember Harold easily taking all of them, and there's no way Harold could have won only 3 of the remaining 10 rounds since he was dominating and it didn't look like he was gassing.
I don’t think he was defending it enough at that time. He had constant trouble making weight. Trying to remember the exact thing but that seems about right.
For not defending against Harold Johnson. From memory only, Johnson stopped Bowdry in 9 for the vacant NBA version of the title. Moore never lost his title in the ring,10 years.
He was stripped because he refused to defend against Harold Johnson who was his top contender for the better part of 6 years. He had barely held onto the title by defending it the bare minimum once every year. Yes, he had defeated Johnson previously but Johnson continued to improve and more importantly he continued to win his way to the top of contention. As the years rolled on Moore became less consistent with his defenses. He began stretching the year he had to defend to longer than a year and the competition got less threatening. In short he was sitting on his title. Finally the NBA had enough when he didnt defend his title in 1960 and stripped him. They were willing to recognize the winner of a Moore-Johnson fight as the champion but Moore flat refused to face Johnson. He knew Johnson was at least as good as he ever was and Moore wasnt. So Moore pretended to be the champion until the end of his career while Johnson was actually defending the title. I have an interview with Moore filmed a couple of days after the fight with Ali (then Cassius Clay) and he and Jack Kearns are still pretending Moore was the champion even though they had zero interest in making weight or trying to defend that imaginary title against anyone of note or fight anyone of note for the title.
