Does Michael Moorer get the respect he deserves in classic matchup debates?

And I'm focussing on what he ACTUALLY DID DO, and he sure as hell took and survived punches at heavyweight from men who hit harder than Charles, Harding or Hill... Not saying that those wouldn't have been significant fights, I just don't see their relevance in this particular discussion.. I also don't see the necessity to call me a liar or someone who's avoiding questions, when after all, they don't even pertain to what I'm talking about.. I don't have a problem with your opinions, but I think that you're either misunderstanding some of the things that I wrote, or you're looking for an argument..

 

Let me put it this way: how many heavyweight champions had a worse chin than him? One? Two? Three maybe? I think we can agree that he ranks in the bottom 10%, chin-wise. In fact, even in a heavyweight top50, i think he'd still fall in the bottom 10% durability category. The words "glass chin" are somewhat disrespectful and often overstated, but if applied to anyone, i think Moorer would be one of the first to pop into my head..


On comparing Tua-Ruiz and Tua-Moorer: i think the difference here is to look at a pattern. Ruiz, despite suffering that horrible KO loss, showed a good beard throughout the remainder of his career. In Moorer's case on the other hand, the early KO loss is within the pattern of him suffering repeated knockdowns by Cooper, Holyfield, the sole one punch KO by Foreman, etc. So while i agree that the incident on itself doesn't necessarily mean he's got a bad jaw, but if you look at his entire career, then it's part of the evidence that all points in the same direction.



I will add that Moorer came along during a hard time when the heavyweight division was loaded with punchers. I'm not sure how for instance a Jack Sharkey would've done against the Tua's, Coopers and Holyfield's of the division. But that is all speculation...

 

That's a fair response. But if you're going to compare him to other champions, then you should also ask the question, how many other champions were rising in weight from another division and in a time where the heavyweight picture was loaded with big punchers and larger men? How many of their chins held up and perservered, assuming that the first two factors applied to them? Holyfield would obviously be the best example, but I can't think of too many others.. The Foreman knockout was a one-two combination, in which George had the luxury of an over confident idiot standing right in front of him.. Morrison never gave him the same opportunity, and incidentally Tommy getting blasted in one round by Michael Bent when in his prime was far worse than Moorer losing to Tua when past it.... You mention the Cooper and Holyfield knockdowns, but I think any man could have been decked by those guys while trading back and forth at close range.. Moorer also took big shots from Stewart and an aging but still powerful Smith.. Getting stopped on 3 lousy occasions in a career of nearly 60 fights, including meetings with several big punchers is not all that bad.. Would you say that Wlad had a better chin? Because if you do, then I'll remind you that your looking at a man who has been in a very similar scenario, with the only difference being that he had the advantage of being a natural heavyweight and a very large one at that.

To settle this, I'll agree that his chin was weak.. I'm not asking you to agree with me, and in truth I concur with many of your points, but some people are too quick to lable him as being made of glass without examining all the facts..

 

"He beat a terrible Holyfield who had health problems!"

Oh, the same Holyfield was was having a ****ing heart attack against Bowe in their third fight and knocked him down ultra heavily regardless? I don't think even Golota shook Bowe up that badly.

Health issues or not many have Evander as a top 10 heavyweight. Beating the man any which way you want to cut it is impressive.

 

I hear what you're saying,

But in all fairness, Holyfield was in pretty bad form that night. He was very sluggish, and when It was mentioned that he was fighting with a shoulder injury, I believed it to be a fact rather than a lame excuse.. He wasn't fighting with his full arsenal of tools and was very unimpressive. As for the heart issue, I don't know the full extent of what he had going on nor how much truth there was to it, but he did end up leaving the ring for well over a year before returning. I give Moorer credit for taking the win, but there's no doubt that Evander was looking very poor and lackluster that evening.. The fact that Holy ended up beating him as badly as he did, a few years later, despite being quite a bit older, is verification to me that he was not "the real deal" in their April 1994 meeting.

 

Holyfield has a shoulder injury which hampered his showing. You perosnally feel this is fact.

Moorer had major surgery prior to Holyfield II and couldn't train because of it, on top of fighting very soon after the actual surgery.

So does that exception only work one way, for Holyfield?

 

I didn't realize that Moorer was in the same or similar boat.. Thanks for clearing that up.. But, in either case I still don't think that Holy was in top form for the first meeting, nor even close.

 

I agree completely, but Moorer wasn't either. Its mentioned in the commentary on Moorer/Holyfield II.

I remember Moorer shaking Holyfield up in their rematch too. Not too bad for a fat LHW. Guy could whack.

 

On a different subject,

I think the fact that both Holyfield and Moorer were men who rose in weight to fight in a very large and hard hitting era for heavyweights, seems to be forgotten.... Nothing against Bob Fits, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore or Gene Tunney, but let's face it, the heavyweight division was not the same when they made the jump.. ****, Bert Cooper when in good form, would have been a nightmare for anyone who traded toe to toe with him. Especially for fighters who were his size or smaller, and there were plenty of such men in the first half of the 20th century. Can you imagine Archie Moore slugging back and forth with that 1989 showing of Michael Dokes the way that Holy did?

 

Agree with this.

Holyfield is clearly not at his best but its not one way traffic. Moorer beat him, and in terms of excuses Holyfield is right up there with Duran. I say give Moorer extra kudos because of Evanders whingeing.

I am by the way, a humongous Holyfield fan. Just that he moans all the time and the stuff where that Religious touches him and he falls right over is f'n ridiculous, I mean God may be almighty but when have you seen Holyfield laid out with one clean shot? He was play acting methinks.

 

Difference being that Holy and Moorer were deliberately drained and 'grown' into Heavyweights.

Fitz, Charles et al fell into it as they got older and naturally bigger, or after many hard gruelling fights.

Moorer and Holyfield: Both quality (Holyfield way moreso of course) but I don't feel the jump from Cruiser, or the massive draining, is as impressive, maybe because it feels a bit plastic, or because they were natureally bigger than Charles and Fitz, Langford etc etc who did well at Heavy despite coming from lower weights. I hope I'm getting my point across because it doesn't seem to me like I'm doing anything but confuse.

I'm mashed, probably talking ****, don't mind me....

 

"After all that, if you still want to argue that the man had a glass jaw, then there's nothing that I can say that's going to change that." This is a quote from one of your replies to me isn't it?

Now you either didn't read my posts very closely or you are being dishonest about what I did post. Maybe you can cut & paste the line from my post where I said he had a glass jaw.

My questions pertain to the topic of this thread.

Their relevance to this thread is that who a fighter didn't fight is just as significant as who he did fight. Harding, Hill, Andries and Williams may not have punched as hard as Bonecrusher or Botha, but they were far superior fighters and they would have presented a real challenge to Moorer at 175. Instead Double M chose to fight guys like Danny Stonewalker and Frankie Swindell.

You talked about how he was only stopped in 3 of his 57 fights. The fact is those are three of only four truly significant fights that he had in his entire career. Maybe you can help me out and tell me how his durability and how much "classic forum respect" he deserves should be judged off of four fights, three of which were stoppage losses. Unless you think that he had any other fights that are truly significant.

 

Does he?

 

Moorer probably was not even the best southpaw heavyweight titleholder of recent times. That distinction would go to Byrd and Sanders. I don't think Moorer beats either of those guys.

To me, he was kind of like a Herbie Hide. If you matched Moorer up right, he could get a few wins at heavyweight and that was usually due to the other guy not knowing what to do with a southpaw. But if you match him up with top caliber opposition, it won't take long before he gets stopped. Kind of a tightrope act with the guy and he's going to have a real real tough time with elite competition.

The LH version would have had a nice match with stablemate Barber at one time and I really wanted to see those 2 go at it. It would've been a war. Leeonzer Barber hasn't stood the test of time well, but at the guy was probably the last of the Kronk/Steward proteges and had some tools.