Best super heavyweight that Archie Moore could beat

Were these titles at all recognized by the public? That's the first time I heard about them.

 

No, at least not widely. Marciano was the heavyweight champ.

 

The NSAC title is commonly referenced on here compared to other old alphabet belts. I'm surprised you haven't heard of that one.

Its hard to say the timeline for both of them was very short. Moore lost to Marciano after winning the NSAC belt and would have been recognized otherwise because Marciano wasn't going to fight again after Cockell. But Moore campaigned to fight Marciano and when he lost any recognition he would have gotten went away. Moores NSAC title is more of an aborted real belt than a real or fake one.

The Canadian belt was less recognized and got more turned into a bye for Moore in the IBCs process to name a successor for Marciano. Moore did not have to win another fight to fight Patterson. It seems to have been generally accepted that beating Parker was not enough to make Moore champ but at the time he was the only HW title claimant and had some advantage of incumbency over the 14 months following his Marciano loss.

The point was that despite it being a very small era Moore arguably beat the two biggest top HWs for his belts. Holman who Moore didn't beat was 6 ft 3 like Valdes but was a little lighter. Cestac was 6 ft 4 and Moore beat him twice. When you throw the Baker win in there Moores got a fairly proven track record against larger opponents even if you don't consider any of these guys superheavyweights(they were Bridgerweights).

 

Antonhy Joshua

 

I said it would be a tough assignment for Moore, what do you want me to do, say Cooney would pulverize him in a round? He wouldn't because Archie Moore was smarter than Norton and Lyle put together and would make it tough for Cooney unlike Norton and Lyle. And if he weathers those historic-level body shots and gets Cooney deep into the fight he's got a chance because Archie could go deep and I'm not confident Cooney could.

 

I'm not sure Moore beats AJ, even though Moore is the greater fighter

 

They were been bigger and stronger,

but younger?

Lyle was 39. Norton just about 38 (and there were always a belief that he was a couple of years older than his listed age)

The best evidence (the 1920 census) is that Moore was born in December, 1916. If this fight came off in 1955, he would be about the same age as Norton and Lyle when they faced Cooney.

*to me, Cooney's real quality remains a question mark. So I think Moore would have a good chance.

 

So you could say that Moore was the first light heavyweight to win a world title at heavyweight since Fitz?

 

I wouldn't label "prime" Cooney's stamina "very poor". While we don't have a lot to go on he got into the 13th round against still prime Larry Holmes and i don't think anyone with very poor stamina is doing that unless they have granite in there jaw for starters.

Some fights against some actual contenders would have shown us more in various departments but he was still competing quite deep into the fight.

 

Moore was the last to do it until Spinks. In between Fitz and Moore plenty of fighters won versions of the LHW and HW title mostly before 1930.

 

Serious question: why wouldn't you consider Cooney a super heavyweight? I saw Cooney and Lennox next to each other in person few years ago at the WBC convention, and Cooney is at least 1 and half inches taller than Lennox who is unanimously considered a super heavyweight.

 

But does super heavyweight have to do more with weight or height? One could be 6'4 and not even a heavyweight, let alone a super heavyweight. Then you can have someone like David Tua, who's under 6 feet, but be a solid 225 pounds

 

Because there were fights where he weighed in the 220s, he did against Norton.

 

I think Moore could beat a lot of the big guys.

 

Valdes and Baker werent bad fighters at all and Moore beat both convincingly. I think hed be competetive with todays bigger guys. Typically it was the movers that gave him problems. I think hed have more trouble with a Fury or an Usyk though.