Where do you rate Michael Moorer as a heavyweight?

And alcohol. He drunk a lot. On Kovalev's level

 

Somewhere in the top 30-40. Judging how close Bert Cooper came to starching him I'd bet money at least a few sluggers from history have a pretty good chance of bombing him out.

 

I don't see how he can be rated high at heavyweight. He lost to an old George, and Tua stopped him quickly. With his chin and flat footed style he was very beatable.

 

I really don't rate him at all.

His win over Holyfield looks better on paper than in reality; his win over Bert Cooper, exciting though it was, was ultimately simply a win over Bert Cooper; and his defeat against George Foreman, far from being a great moment in heavyweight history, was at the time a new nadir for the division's reputation.

That may sound harsh, but that's the reality as far as I'm concerned.

 

You talk like if old Foreman and Tua were easy to beat

 

Top 30-40 isn’t unreasonable

 

Tommy Morrison outboxed George... Tua hit hard, but he lasted how long? 30 seconds? Moorer cannot be rated too high in the heavyweight rankings.

 

And? And morrison destroyed ruddock too. This proved that Morrison was underrated.

Tua did not hit only hard,Tua is a top 5 hardest punchers of all time and stylistically was horrible for moorer, and Michael was past his prime.

 

I don't

 

And Bentt beat him,, and Mercer in 5 rounds more because Morrison got tired. Moorer was not great. He had a weak chin, didn't move his head much and was flat footed. Why would he be rated high? I just didn't rate the guy high.

 

As Heavyweight champions go, Moorer was pretty average and I don't rate him all that highly at the weight.

He was a bit unfortunate in the sense that there weren't that many big fights at Light-Heavyweight in the late eighties / early nineties, and as he mentioned in that interview of his which was posted here the other week, getting down to 175 was taking a toll on him and probably wouldn't have been possible for much longer. There's seldom any life-changing money to be made at Cruiser, and there definitely wasn't in the nineties, so he had to try his hand as a Heavyweight despite not really being one by modern standards. Even at a relatively low weight of around 215 lb, his body always looked a shade loose by the standards of other Heavies, and you could see that some of that weight was just extra bulk for the sake of it.

A bigger problem for him was that his power and speed just didn't move up with him at all. The brilliant Cooper brawl was very much an exception: for the most part, Moorer was a very dull Heavyweight who was involved in quite a few low-key and dreary fights. And as others have noted, as well as not carrying his speed and power up, he was also much more flat-footed and less adventurous with his shots as a Heavyweight.

Good win against Holyfield which could (maybe should) have opened the door to some big opportunities, but it's a result which maybe flatters Moorer a little. Holyfield was there for the taking against any world-class Heavyweight that night, and Moorer still made very hard work of it - and of course he got yo-yoed in the rematch albeit he was doing ok for the first few rounds. I can see why Atlas completely lost his rag with him a few times, because Moorer just didn't listen. Losing the Foreman fight in the manner he did was almost criminal under the circumstances.

That said, if he'd have ever fought any of those nineties breeds of new 'Super-Heavyweights' such as Bowe or Lewis, he'd have been squashed like a grape. Even against a returning Tyson he'd have been outgunned. Should have at least forced himself into a position for those fights and paydays by seeing off Grandad George, though.

To be honest, I struggle to accurately rate him as a Light-Heavyweight, too. Obviously a lot more exciting and easy-on-the-eye at that weight, but the WBO really did serve up some poor mandatories for him. His best opponent at 175 is arguably Leslie Stewart, who was pretty much on even terms with Moorer and giving him plenty of problems before Moorer pulled out an admittedly impressive stoppage.

 

For those discrediting Moorer for his loss to Tua, I hope they’re factoring in that Michael was on the comeback trail. That and Tua for all his shortcomings was brutal hitter. You had to have power to stop a durable like John Ruiz in 20 seconds

 

You know what? I like the guy.

How can anyone dislike the guy who beat the man who he needed to beat in order to be the best in the world?

Prime Evander Holyfield!

You can’t rate Evander without rating Moorer. And when you look at Moorer’s fights with Bert Cooper and Alex Stewart you really can’t knock him. He could fight.