Who wins, prime 4 prime? I think Roy Jones JR would be too fast for Archie, and would hurt him. Roy doesn't have a very good chin, and Archie definitely has a punch. I imagine the fight either has Roy beating Archie to the punch, and slipping shots all night or Archie eventually wearing him down for a mid-late round KO/TKO. Would be a great fight!
Moore KO or Jones decision are my picks. Moore by KO from a flush counter is what I like though. If Moore can land on a raw speed demon like a young Ali, at age 45+... he can land on Jones.
This being 15 rounds is definitely in Moore's favour. Moore with a late championship rounds come-from-behind KO over a tiring Jones.
I feel that this would be a serie with split wins. I am sure that moore would stop him in one of the fights in some point does not matter early or later rounds.
It's interesting whenever this fight comes up, there seems to be a consensus that Jones can only win on points, and that Moore can only win by knockout / stoppage. And in terms of who people actually pick, by far the most common take seems to be that Jones bags the early rounds, Moore comes on strong late on, and takes a tired Jones out late on. All of which is possible, but I'm not sure I see it like that. The idea of Jones tiring or running out of steam is quite a popular one, but I don't really see any evidence for it. Yes, Moore was proven in the fifteen round era, which Jones of course wasn't. But stamina was never an issue for Jones and he didn't have a tendency to fade late in fights, or slow down later on. He was a great athlete. I think he could have handled the fifteen rounders without too much bother. Obviously how a fighter deals with the late rounds has a lot to do with the guy they're up against, but it's not as if Moore was a relentless pressure fighter (more an educated pressure one, at best) or someone who tried to work you over for three minutes of every round. I don't think it's a guarantee that Jones will be the more tired and weary fighter in the late stages as many others do. Also, what about the possibility of Jones knocking Moore out? Archie was known to be a slow starter at times. Looked sluggish early on against Johnson in their classic fifth fight (and who knows what might have happened if that knockdown he suffered later in the fight hadn't come right at the end of the round?) and of course the near-miss against Durelle is the stuff of legend. Morrow also caught him cold and took him out, too. It's the early rounds where Moore is going to be having the most trouble getting to grips with Jones' raw speed, and while there have been more concussive hitters at 175 than Jones, he could still end fights against durable and good standard opponents with one shot (Griffin, Hill). Nobody ever seems to consider the chance that Jones might take Moore out early, but I think it's a possibility. Obviously Moore generally had a better standard of Light-Heavyweights to test himself against, and his own power (which carried late) and the fact that Jones was one-punched into oblivion a few times are reassuring factors in his favour, so I can understand the consensus. But the problem is that those defeats came when Jones was irreversibly on the downturn. During his long peak years there's no real blueprint which ever emerged for how someone might beat him, which is why I'm surprised at how strong the consensus of Moore wearing him out and getting him late is. Seems to be a lot of guesswork in it. The closest thing to a blueprint for beating Jones during his peak seemed to be the first Griffin fight and to a lesser extent Harding for a few rounds. In those cases it wasn't about pressuring Jones or going after him with power. They had success by breaking his rhythm, countering, finding a balance between occasionally pushing him to the ropes but then also letting him lead and using feints etc. So maybe if Moore is going to win, points might be the way for him to go? Jones figured out Harding soon enough and had probably turned the tide against Griffin if he hadn't blown it with the DQ, but of course Archie is a cut above those guys in terms of ring intelligence and always looked smoother and more composed in the latter half of a fight. I think just assuming that Moore can find the big shots to spark Jones is dangerous, simply because of how hard it was to catch Jones. He was very difficult to figure out and while he wasn't as technically correct as some of the guys Moore fought, he made up with that with his athleticism and unpredictability, which was different to anything Moore was used to. Obviously Moore was a fantastic puncher, but he was a quality boxer too. Jones is never a popular pick in hypotheticals against the absolute gold standard of 175 pounders such as Moore, Charles, Foster etc., but I think he could definitely win this. So could Moore, of course, but I just wanted to challenge the usual conceptions about this fight. And of course, I could be totally wrong and talking a load of crap.
