Tell Me About Michael Moorer

One of the best LHW's ever, especially head-to-head.

He's criminally underrated at HW, too.

 

He was a monster at Lt heavy wish he would have stayed there.

 

All this talk of him being one of the best LHW ever (even in the head to head sense) is ridiculously speculative. He may one day have been, but has anyone ever looked at the level of his opposition there? Get a grip, folks. He was never anything but a contender there. The WBO title was not a real belt then (conduct your own debate as to if it is even now), and the opponents he fought were B level if that. We basically have nothing to go on with him at 175. By the time he began to know how to fight, he was an overblown fighter at heavyweight.

 

Michael Moorer was a south paw with an accurate jab. He used the jab to pick apart opposition. I didn't see much of Moorer at LH, but I do know at that time there was no real comp there so those guys were moving up for the big paydays like Holyrock coming from cruiser.

 

I wholeheartedly agree. He had a very flashy record at light heavy very misleading indeed

 

Funny thing is, he changed when he moved up. Maybe it was the added weight, maybe it was a conscious decision to alter a bit, but he wasn't as hell bent once he moved up to heavy. He wasn't quite as fearless at heavyweight, he came forward and punched more at 175. It was like he knew he was sacrificing something to be at the higher weight, but to an extent he made it work anyway. Monetarily, it sure paid off for him. If legacy is what you want, he suffered for the jump.

 

Watch his fights with Alex Stewart, Bert Cooper, George Foreman, and the Holyfield rematch.

 

I said he was one of the best LHW's ever - I have Charles, RJJ, Moore, et al ahead of him, but he was very good at LHW.

I was merely trying to point out that alot of casual boxing fans think Moorer is a joke because he got KO'd by an old man in Foreman when he defended the HW title. He wasn't a joke :good .

 

I have no argument with the idea that he was very good; any boxing fan with any kind of eye for talent could see that. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he had the potential to be very good at that weight. But we just don't know enough about him because of his really bad level of opposition there to say he was even one of the very best. There's a pretty long line of guys who did more ahead of him there. I give him credit as you do for moving up and doing what he did at heavyweight. My second post about this goes more into that.

 

He liked to hit cops. And he didn't like to get hit by heavyweights.

Honestly though, him as a light heavy was almost a fiction. Emanuel had him on something like an 800 calorie a day diet. It was absolutely torture. The man was really made to be 240 and sporting a pair of *****-tits.

 

The Foreman Moorer fought wasn't the Foreman Holy fought. Foreman against Holy was still very slow, but the version Moorer fought would have been a dead heat in the hundred yard dash with an iceberg.

 

Agreed,

Having a mere 22 fights, and against the oppostion that Moorer fought at lightheavyweight did not make him an all time great nor even a candidate. What's worse, is that he actually vacated the division during a very competitive period. Virgil Hill, Charles Williams, and Jeff Harding would have all been fights that fans would have liked to have seen, and if Moorer was looking to make a name for himself there, then he would have had to beat those guys first. The WBO as you said, was not viewed as a true world title in those days, and Moorer's best win was probably against Leslie Stewart.

 

He was too tight at the 175 limit, I dont think he could have stayed there without being dangerously drained to make weight.

But at heavyweight, he was always flabby. At 214, 225, 238, whatever, he was fat. And always a bit sluggish because of it.

He should have tried finding a medium, IMO, maybe around 195-205