Good interview. I think Michael tells it like it is. I hung out with him last year at the IBHOF weekend. Sometimes he may come across as unfriendly, but, I found him to be very a very genuine person. And it is nice to see a retired boxer who still has all of his faculties in good order.
I agree that Wilder needs to throw more punches. Michael Moorer telling him he needs to throw more punches is funny, though. Like filmmaker Michael Moore telling someone they need to go on a diet.
It was pretty cool. When I asked for his recollection of his fight with Bert Cooper, he laughed and said, "I remember getting my ass kicked for a few minutes." I highly recommend going to the IBHOF induction weekend for any true boxing fan. Unfortunately, do to the Covid-19 issue, this year's event has been cancelled.
Must be great memories to have I’d love to attend the IBHOF’s induction weekend but I’m over here in Europe hopefully I will one day thanks for your reply
Thanks for posting, @janitor. I can understand why some take Moorer for being a bit surly at times, but that usually comes with being a straight shooter. He says what's on his mind, be it good or bad. Seems like a good guy overall. Thanks also for sharing your story of meeting him, @Smokin Bert. It's a shame to hear him referring to himself as one of the countless boxers - even multi world title winning ones - who are broke. Hopefully by broke he means not living the lifestyle he was probably accustomed to in the nineties and now being more of an ordinary Joe, rather than living hand to mouth or worrying about the covering the imperatives. Have to say, though, when he said to Umar that "not many people ask me about the Foreman fight these days", I got the impression that what he really meant was, "I don't want to talk about the Foreman fight - move on." And move on Umar did. Would have been interesting to see what 1995 and 1996 would have had in store for Moorer if he hadn't got carless against Foreman. Moorer's a bit of a forgotten man in the nineties crop of Heavyweights, but with Lewis recently toppled by a very beatable McCall, Bowe starting to lose the battle of the bulge and Tyson soon to make his massively publicised return, Moorer could have found himself getting that big payday against Tyson, or even reunifying the major belts. Instead he was relegated to being a bit of a sideshow for those couple of years until Evander ended his days as an elite fighter in 1997.
Good post. Not sure exactly what his financial situation is but I remember reading that he had been working as a bail bondsman in recent years in addition to helping Freddy Roach train fighters. A lot of former champions are now anything but millionaires. I know Glen Johnson, Vassily Jirov and Antonio Tarver all do private boxing lesson through local gyms for money now. I know another former world champ personally that now works as a security guard to make ends meet. It's a rough business for sure. Most of my friends that fought competitively all have some sort of long term injury from the sport. Whenever this Covid 19 stuff calms down I will be having surgery to finally get my deviated septum fixed now that I am done getting punched in the face.
Great interview. I find it extremely gratifying that a former heavyweight champion also believes, like me, that it is time to get rid of the cruiserweight division and bring in super heavyweight. Moorer said it would be the first thing he would change. Everything over light heavyweight is a heavyweight. As it is in amateur boxing. Then have super heavyweight above heavyweight.
