Expectation: I ain't gonna lie. I've seen this fight more than a few times. This content is protected Description: 1. Nothing to report. Some of these Main Event clips can be so brief. I can't even award the round to anyone, although newspapers of the day indicate Johnson. 4. An extreme hesitation to mix. Moore missed with a CRAZY shot, almost touching down, haha. Johnson. 5. As in previous and upcoming rounds, there was a lot of infighting, very hard to gauge how damaging that was in the rounds to come, but I'm sure it took a toll on both fighters. Johnson. 7. Moore caught Johnson with a fine right hand. Johnson kept far off, using the jab. Moore reverted back to the crouch after the upright stance failed him. Johnson 8. Moore scored a good right to the body of Johnson and a left hook to the head. Johnson flurried back before tying Archie up. Moore poked out some jabs, and Johnson countered back. But Johnson was not falling for any of Moore's feints. Johnson 9. Moore was able to dictate some exchanges finally, at his pace. A fruit of that was a right hand that I think shook Johnson up, enabling Moore further control in that realm. Moore. 10. A brutal left-right 1-2 threw Johnson off balance, and he was clearly harmed by it. But he went on to get the better of ensuing exchanges, and dropped Moore with a right hook behind the ear, earning a respectable KD. Johnson. 12. Johnson was in a constant retreat of Moore's rights. Johnson. 13. Johnson's tiring was evidenced by his increasingly excessive use of clinching. But Moore just kept coming. A right staggered Johnson at the end. Moore. 14. Pretty standard action going on by this point. Then wham! Clean left-right by Moore shakes Johnson, who starts falling back to the ropes. 5 or 6 left hooks send him to the corner, but Johnson broke out of there, eating a right uppercut simultaneously. Then Moore successively pounded about 4 uppercuts into Johnson's chin, driving a straight right through it, sending Johnson to the floor. Johnson was up, and all in formality, Moore tossed a few more uppercuts and such, and the referee halted the slaughter. Good ref. Final score going into the 14th: 7-2 out of 10 rounds provided. It's not hard to imagine Johnson winning most of the other 4. Assessment: This was a pretty tense fight; both fighters held back a lot out of respect for each other's ability and fear for what the other could do. Yet they still delivered magnificent performances. Johnson was a near-perfect image of counter and control, and to his credit, almost beat the old man. Moore on the other hand, I feel delivered one of his top 10 performances probably . The impressiveness of Johnson's performance only makes Moore that much more impressive. He was getting schooled and controlled by a younger man, and he really didn't know what to do to salvage the fight for most of its duration. And then he came out and did it in glorious fashion. I have always loved this fight, but watching the knockout in round 14 is even more beautifully conducted and impressive when you watch it through a few times, pause at key moments, and even slow it down. A perfect KD. Verdict: I think this is one of the BEST chess matches ever. A lot of being for the reasons I outlined above. Seeing a technical, strategic match like this one can be as good as a slugfest. And for all the calculative rounds, the fight still spawned two knockdowns. Epic match you MUST watch.
I know Archie was prob a different fighter when he fought Charles but I always wondered why he had Harolds number but Charles had his? Harold and Charles were so similar.
Moore could have pulled it out by decision. Johnson was fading and losing rounds. After 13, one judge had it 8-5 for Johnson, but the other had it 6-6-1 (with Moore up by 1 point in the supplemental point system) and the ref had it 6-5-2. So Moore would have caught him on the cards with the 14th, and would have taken the fight if he won the 15th, if Johnson had lasted. Fun fight to watch because they are such good boxers. Moore seems to have been able to come on strong late, even at his advanced age, as he did against Valdes also. And later Durelle.
I’ll explain this as well as I can. Discounting for the fact that Charles had lost a step by the Johnson fight, because I do think there is a stylistic component to this conundrum. Archie Moore liked his cross arm defence and crouched to his right to take away his opponents jab and get subtly closer, and that worked excellently against boxers, he could take away their jab, use his own offensive jab or come over their jab and get in on them, that worked against boxers like Harold Johnson. Against someone like Ezzard Charles, not so much a good idea, unlike Johnson, Ezzard Charles can plant his feet and throw any combination, he can time that crouch of Moore’s by jabbing to get him into the crouch then following up with lightening fast lead uppercut/hooks following up by whatever he wants and Moore is a sitting duck for those against Charles. Moore was more of an effective pressure fighter against boxers than Charles, Charles could pressure, but he’d rather box/boxer punch, Moore is more effective at taking away the jab and wearing guys down, down the stretch, taking away the jab getting inside etc, Charles couldn’t do that as good as Moore, so he had to box more with Johnson and wasn’t as effective at getting inside etc so he had to box somewhat, and Johnson, IMO, has slightly better fundamentals than Charles, so with Charles having to box more than Moore, that gave the fundamentally better Johnson an advantage.
I think this "old school miracle" fight could rival that performance Duran gave to Barkley, it's identic too with Duran down in the cards just to produce a great action packed comeback at round 9, then on this fight Moore was having a hard time with the younger Johnson,and to pull out a final,convincing finish.
