Why did Patterson have an easy time with Archie Moore?

Because Moore was older than Triceratops fossils.

 

None of those guys were anywhere near the quality of Patterson, anyway, it was quite a competitive fight up until the finishing left hook.

 

Have to remember as well that Moore was fighting an extremely young Floyd. Can you imagine him copeing with Floyd's hand speed at that time!?

 

I have two theories…one is he was still shot from the Marciano bout. Meaning his chin wasn’t ready for a decent contender bout that’s why he basically took a year off of fighting anyone significant before meeting Patterson (which in Archie’s career is extremely odd and raises a question was something wrong w him?). The other is that he threw the fight. His knock down looked fake and even his corner thought and accused him of throwing the fight after in the dressing room. He certainly didn’t look himself that fight and I don’t think prime for prime Patterson beats him.
I think the likelier reason is he needed time from the beating he took from Marciano to recover and he wasn’t ready and another year older. Like Wlad needed time to recover when he lost to Sanders than losing to Brewster Archie probably needed time to recover and wasn’t ready. He didn’t have a history of throwing fights so it’s hard for me to imagine he did.

 

Moore struggled with speed.

 

I dunno...Within a single year after facing Marciano he faced 11 opponents, winning them all.
If he was so exhausted or broken up would he really fight so frequently?

 

I think you nailed it. Floyd’s Quickness and possibly his style as well completely took Moore by surprise.

 

Could it not be as simple as Floyd was just the better man that night?

 

Yeah, he fought bums…which is the opposite of what Archie does. He was keeping busy but w non threats imo.

 

Exactly, when you're facing a young fighter with lightning speed and knockout power there's a chance you may get flattened.

 

Speed and power can explode your chin at any moment. That, and Archie considered it the worst performance of his career.

 

Yes. Better, faster, and significantly younger. A passing of the torch type of fight like Hopkins vs Kovalev. Moore was never in a million years going to win outside of a freak punchers chance. It's really that simple. He didn't have the legs and energy to keep up with the blistering hands and talent of Patterson at that age.

 

I think Patterson suffers in some people's eyes historically because of how D'Amato handled his career and him being eventually eclipsed so badly by Liston, Ali, etc., whose physical tools he simply couldn't match and because he hit the canvas so many times over the years ... but young, peak Floyd was a pretty frickin' good prize fighter. I'll unashamedly plead guilty that he's my favorite heavyweight champion, even if he wasn't close to the best.