Anyone who has the information, or maybe was watching him when he was boxing, do you know why? Was it after he defeated Leslie Stewart because he may have been considered old at the time? Or something else?
I think it might be from how he always looked like some 30-ish dude with a wife,kids and a 9-5 job. Like seriously,he always looked like some pops/unc you'll meet walking outside a convenience store.
Supposedly it was partly in tribute to his aged appearance (his shaven head masked the fact that he started losing his hair in his 20s) but also to his "kindly and gentle manner". https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune/35811912/
The receding hairline has to be the key reason. Plus, it wouldn’t seem polite to call him Moms. It’s startling that he was only 25 when he beat Victor Galindez for his second title and still 31 when he beat Leslie Stewart for his third light heavyweight title. He just seemed like such a grizzled veteran … probably owing to all the wars he had been in. He was fighting top guys very early in his development and thus by the time he hit his mid-20s it felt as if he had been around forever. Love me some Pops. All action, all the time. Never failed to give the ticket buyers (or TV viewers) their money’s worth for sure. And always stayed humble and classy.
