In light of Chris Byrd a competitve heavyweight moving down and getting destroyed and the same happening to Roy Jones, just goes to show you how great The OLD Mongoose really was. The lower division offer speed and power and usually some better skills than the BIG BOYs. Moore had a 55-2-1 streak on his way to the Marciano fight and 1 of those losses was a DQ and the other a disputed loss to Harold Johnson who he beat 4 times last one being a TKO. Fighters Moore beat in the 55 streak, Jimmy Bivins 2 times,Joey Maxim 2 times,Oakland Billy Smith,Alberto Lovell,BoBo Olson,NINO VALDES 2 TIMES, KO'd # 1 contender Bob Baker KO9 leading up to the Marciano loss, Archie record after Marciano was 38-3-2 and he beat a lot of the top fighters at Heavyweight and Lightheavyweight during this time. I would consider the Period leading up to the Marciano fight his prime and after Marciano his surviving on skill years but still dangerous years...his only losses being Patterson,Rinaldi,Ali.....These years combined, including 2 questionable losses MOORES RECORD STAND AT 93-5-3 with 63 KO's..........ANY THOUGHTS.......
100% agree, moores heavyweight run in the early 1950s is very impressive. He beat the 3 best young contenders out their clarence henry, nino valdez, and bob baker. Marciano, Louis, Charles, and Walcott did not hold one win over these men.
archie was able to move up to heavyweight and move back down in weight consistently for years in his 40s!!!!! He was in a different class than those two
Don't forget Byrd is 37 and well past his used by date. He'd been stopped in recent history as well etc. Not like he made this move anywhere near his best.
I think that part of the reason for his sucess relative to Jones and Byrd is that he did not bulk up to make heavyweight. He just treated heavyweight fights as catchweight contests.
Byrd was a differcult opponent for the BIG men, just look at his record..other than trying to trade with IKE and ofcourse his Vlad experience...he beat Tua,McCline,Golota? Oquendo?Holyfield.... but he offered a lot of problems when he boxed...when he thought he could walk an opponent down, he paid. I have seen Middleweights beat HVy's in the gym and sometimes LGTHVY's can be quick and hit hard...We saw it happen to Jones and Byrd...Hvyweights have power but the more fit guys in the lower weight classes offer there own brand of danger....Byrd was never beaten and hurt so badly
There a lot lot of guys who rather fight Liston than the tricky southpaw Byrd, who could also have good foot movement...If size is the matter lets face it Sonny was a hair over 6" and his weight was close...Sonny was top heavy and had a long reach....but lets take Sonny from the patterson fights and put him in with Byrd from the Tua fight....I think it would be a competitve fight...I think Sonny would win a close one but Byrd could win... but would it be an IKish fight or a Tua like proformance..it could go either way
Please explain to me how Jones fits into thiss. You're acting as if he was a dominant HW who decided to move down to LHW and got owned, when in fact he was a P4P, dominant MW-LHW for the majority of his career before jumping up to HW in what should likely have been the last fight of his career and then moving back down, weight drained and continuing to slow down physically, to LHW, where he had a tougher fight with Tarver than he would've had in his prime. Seriously, I don't get Jones's inclusion at all. And I think we're taking a 37 year old Byrd's loss a little too seriously here.
Jones was on a High, just winning vs Ruiz for the HEAVYWEIGHT title, he moved down and was flattened by Tarver and then Johnson, decent punchers at the most........Just saying the skill level with the BIG BOYS dropped a notch...Jones was HVYWT CHAMP for a spell...I guess he thought it would be less dangerous with the 175lbers....he was wrong
He had just gotten through dominating the division at 175 before moving up. His age and the weight drainage is what did him in.
And Archie trained his body to do so with completely different methods than used today. Not everyone aged like Moore.