ARCHIE MOORE w pts 15 JOEY MAXIM
January 27, 1954; Orange Bowl, Miami, FL
ARCHIE MOORE had already retained his world light-heavyweight title against Joey Maxim, the man he took it from in 1952. Ahead of their third bout, Moore struggled to make the 175lbs weight limit – largely because of his regular expeditions to heavyweight – and when news broke that Archie’s wife had filed a maintenance lawsuit against her husband on the day of the fight the odds drifted to 6/5 in Maxim’s favour. But Moore, always advancing behind that famous cross-armed defence, bossed the fight against his old rival. Maxim was dropped and almost out in the eighth from a right hand, decked again in the 11th and was grateful to hear the final bell. Moore won by three lopsided scores of 148-134, 148-135 and 145-137.
DID YOU KNOW? A measure of Moore’s quality can be gained from the opposition he was facing at this time. Between 1954 and 1955 he defeated Maxim, Harold Johnson and Bobo Olson at light-heavy, and at heavyweight he bested Bob Baker and Nino Valdes before losing to Rocky Marciano.
WATCH OUT FOR: Multiple fights between two fighters were so common this was introduced by the presenter as, ‘the latest edition of Archie Moore versus Joey Maxim’.
