Whitaker easily outclasses Moore. How many fights did Moore have when he fought Duran or Kalule? like 10? Most top fighters with a little experience could have beaten Davey Moore if they used experienced and roughed him up. He was good but not experienced enough.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much raw talent Moore had.Sometimes you get a precocious talent like a Chan-hee park that can beat a great fighter with little experience.Or guys like Chitalada, Payakaroon, Sahaprom that had almost complete skillsets from the onset of pro career, due to Muay Thai experience and the training habits of thier country. Moore was a terrific experienced amatuer talent who quickly developed some serious offensive skills, fighting in a weak division who took an early title shot chance against a poor champion. who cares that he held a jr belt, i prefer to look at how he was fighting and seeing the potential there.imo the kalule he fought, though physically drained and lacking sharpness was still a more formidable fighter than anyone around today at 154 and would almost certainly have handled the likes of Martinez and Paul Williams, simply with his accuracy and technical ability. Plenty of other people certainly did at the time, despite the revisionism to make him out to be some terrible fodder champ that Duran feasted on.that would have potentially have been a much harder fight without Duran closing his eye so early incidentally, but that's neither here nor htere...nobody disputes Duran wasn't still capable of greatness or that Moore had lots of learning still to in certain areas. the win against a not at best kalule, probably gave the people involved with Moore's career the idea he was more advanced than he was.I wouldn't put it past the pea that fought Vazquez to have enough savvy to use his ring-generalship and hand Moore a tough learning loss, but i feel he would have to be sharp and not get into too many exchanges.He doesn't match up that well with Moore at this weight, being that he will be almost entirely unable to get Moore's respect and is at this point slower of hand\not a big mover.His reflexes at this weight aren't what they once were either. It will be up to Pea using angles and the jab to stop Moore from walking him down and getting those viscious lead rights and combinations off.Moore is a lot more fluid with his hands and quicker to put pressure on than Vazquez. I see a lot of rounds with Pea winning the first two minutes with backfoot boxing, hitting moore a lot and making him miss well, but nothing he throws bothering Moore, who starts getting through and lands some good heavy punches after the halfway mark of most rounds, when his physical advatage starts to come into play.Pea will need to be sure he kkeeps the jab going and doesn't get forced to play defense too much, as Moore will just keep throwing. A tough gruelling fight imo, though i'm not sure who i'd pick to win despite being sure how the rounds would play out.It's possible moore would struggle more with the jab and angles than i think...Pea won't try and trade or stand in front of him like Duran and no-legs Kalule did.
I think Pea may be outboxing Moore early, but not hurting him. I pick Moore to take it in the late rounds by UD or late TKO. Skilled but powerless Pernell is considerably over his best weight here.
