I can't particularly remember when I read this, but I remember seeing someone (or reading somewhere) tell a great story about Archie Moore that went like this: Archie was past his prime and facing off against a young decent fighter in which they assumed the young guy had the upper hand. During the match Archie began to talk to the kid. Rounds passed where the kid got comfortable in the ring with Archie and eventually Ol' Mongoose said, "Wait" the kid froze for a sec and Archie threw a punch to put the kid down via KO. It almost sounds like the "Pep wins a round by not throwing punches" story. Any truth to this?
I dont know if the story is true, but Moore certainly did a lot of stuff like that in his later fights. He was always looking for a new way to sucker his opponent.
Actually, this happened in the fight Archie had with Willie Pastrano in the early 60's before Pastrano won the title from Johnson. Pastrano and Moore fought to a 10 round draw, and as Pastrano puts it, in the book "In This Corner" by Peter Heller, he was moving and dancing real good throughout the fight and Moore was talking to him, saying, "beautiful Willie" .."man you're looking good"..."you're moving great Willie", that kind of ****, and then suddenly Archie barks out "STOP"...and Willie must have been hypnotized by the Ol Mongoose, because he did stop, and Moore nearly put his lights out...probably would have gone down were it not for the ropes, but he held on, got on his bicycle again and survived for the draw.
It might of been yvonne durelle. Knock downs in nearly every round, but moore come back to win. Great great fight
Moore did this against Willie Pastrano, Pastrano was outspeeding him ,and on his bike, Archie kept up a commentary ,"you're looking good Willie,my you are clever", round after round Pastrano told his corner about this nice old man, Dundee said, "don't listen to him, concentrate",flattery continued to come from Archie ,then he suddenly said ,"stand still ," Willie obeyed and was nearly taken out with a shot.Pastrano closed his ears after that.
Ah, thank you guys! It was bothering the hell out of me. Now I wish I could track that fight. If boxing had digital tech for as long as the sport existed we would have one hell of a fight library.
Here is a story for you Russ... Archie Moore fought the Big Nino Valdes in Las Vegas in a heavyweight title eliminator in 1955...The sun is shining bright on their faces. So what you know...Clever Archie positions himself the entire fight..so that his back was to the sun, so the sun was shining right in Valdes' eyes. This little mechanism allowed Archie to take control of the fight later on, when this began to irritate Nino. Archie swept the last 3 rounds to win the fight..and earn his title shot.
