Worst boxer you'd pick to be P4P #1 today?

If 9 years as pro (11? in boxing) and 70 fights against guys like Wade, Chase, Booker x2 Burley, Yarosz, Shouge x3 Bandit Romero etc isn't enough to season you into your prime by 27-29 I am not sure what to tell you he became successful later but he was not in his prime no, Archie was only in hospital for 30-ish days I can't remember every detail of his bio but he lost a lot of weight and came back to boxing how shortly after? what year did he get sick? His opponents were tougher then the guys Hagler faced on the way to the title he started boxing in 1969 and was a pro by 73... what was his amateur career like? 21 bouts by boxrec count 63 rounds if all were decisions.... in 1979 6 years as a pro he was ready for a shot and that's only OVERALL 10 years in boxing like Moore... expect Moore was a pro for 9 years which is leagues different to gym work and amateur bouts in his 11th year (not as a pro) Hagler won the title in his prime. I think it's cut and dry honestly again my 0.2$ a fighters prime isn't in his 30s-40s he might've got smarter and it happens but he wasn't "Prime" Duran was smarter at 160lbs then 135lbs but that was his prime at 135lbs.

 

@cross_trainer

 

Not a bad call, and exactly the approach that you woudl take.

 

Like really when I watch Bivol, Benivadez and Artur… David would be a punching bag for Walcott IMO Artur is so old, it’d be like when he was on the rise during an aging, tired division all over again… then there’s Bivol? Does anyone think Bivol is better than Bivins, Johnson, Louis or Charles? - Not me he’d clean out the division again and raise a little hell at 200lbs but those are big guys and he’d have to be selective. What do you think Jan?

 

Not disagreeing with you here, but I think Fred Henneberry and Ron Richards should be included in the list of top fighters he had faced before he fought Eddie Booker. They were both world-class fighters, and those victories were well regarded and served to open doors for Archie when he returned to the USA.

 

Hey KK what do you think of my interpretation of things? I’m of the belief that Moore reached his prime by middleweight finish or his 175lbs beginning. if you read early in this thread you’ll find my thoughts I’m curious what you’d think.

 

You can stick Bob Foster from 160lbs-175lbs with how they do scales today and he’d be the second coming of Ray Robinson.

 

I guess what you're really asking me is at what stage of his career was Moore at his best in a P4P sense.

I think he gave up on trying to make the middleweight limit after the Burley fight. He had lost to Booker a short while before and he probably saw no benefit in starving himself to make weight in a division where he was not going to advance his career. Except for Charles, he was pretty dominant in the light heavy class, especially after 1948. He had a few additional missteps against Morrow, Henry Hall in 1948, but from 1949-'53 he had a great run, so I would vote for that period. When I looked into his date of birth a few years ago, I concluded the correct date of his birth was Dec. 13, 1916, so that would put his age range during those years between 32 and 36, a bit of a late-bloomer, but he was always in fighting shape during that period and he was a very cerebral fighter who learned from doing. I think by then he had learned a lot more fighting guys like Booker, Burley, Chase, and Charles.

Your reasoning is fine. I just think the extra seasoning he had between 1944 and 1948 outweighed the years of youth he had lost during the same period. This is my opinion and it's no better than yours.

As far as whether either of our best P4P versions of Moore could beat the best guys around today, I can have no opinion because I haven't seen any of today's guys fight.