Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Archie Moore 1959

[Hawkins]

After talking about Archie Moore in another thread it got me to thinking about the Ray Robinson/Archie Moore fight that was almost made in the weeks following Archie's first fight with Durelle.

I read about this in Archie's book called Any Boy Can. Shortly after the Durelle fight Ray invited Archie and his wife to his house. It was veiled as a dinner date but was really an attempt by Robinson to get a crack at Moore's LH title.

Anyways, to make a long story short the negotiations broke down (anyone familiar with Ray Robinson knows what kind of negotiator he was) and the fight never happened.

My question is, who do you think would have prevailed had they fought?

Personally I think Archie would have convincingly beaten Ray. True Arche was 42 at the time, but he was better at 42 than Ray was at 37.

I think the fact that Archie used all the different angles, his good defense and ever present punching power would have been too much for Ray. True Ray still showed flashes of brilliance at 37, and was better than most, but lets face it Archie Moore was a different animal than Joey Maxim.

I just think it was all wrong for Robinson.


What do you think?

[Brockton Lip]

Agreed. Although the temperature could have been less extreme, I think Robinson would lose a decision and if hes not careful, he'd get stopped by Moore.

[ROSS CALIFORNIA]

Yeah, I absolutely agree on all that. Moore proved he could still fight very good at that age. I think Robinson would have needed his speed and stamina for his particular style to beat Moore. Moving up in weight and the age probably would have been too much of a handicap for him.