Archibald Lee Wright or famously known as Archie Moore was one of the world’s best light heavyweight boxing champ during 1952 to 1959, and likewise during 1961. He was considered as one of the longest to play in the professional boxing career and was famously known as “The Old Mongoose“.
He was born on the 13th of December of 1916 in Benoit, Mississippi but was later raised at Missouri. Moore started his boxing career in 1935 and had 9 fights to which 5 of them were won and lost 4. He was also nicknamed as the “Fourth of July Kid“, which means that he might have more than 9 fights.
Moore began his professional boxing career in 1938 and won 11 of his 12 fights. He had 8 fights in the following year and won 5 of it, lost 2, and had 1 no contest with Jack Coggins. Moore toured in Australia in 1940 in which he won all of his 7 fights (6 of them were knockouts). After his tour in Australia, Moore had a match with Pancho Ramirez to which he won by knockout in just 5 rounds but he lost to a 6-round decision to Shorty Hogue.
Archie Moore was considered as one of the greatest boxers in boxing history to hold the most number of knockouts as he has 131 knockouts in total. He ranks at number 4 in the 100 Greatest Punchers of All-Time by The Ring magazine and was recognized as the Greatest Pound-for-Pound boxer in the boxing history by BoxRec.
He was described to have a unique and distinct move in boxing. He was also the thought as one of the boxers who had the longest stay in boxing career. When he reached 48, he was recognized as the oldest Light Heavyweight champion of all time. He was then previously from the middleweight division but then he moved to light heavyweight, hence he continuously proved his worth to be called as a boxing champ and did not waste his fights in his whole career in boxing.
At 39 years old, Moore got his Light Heavyweight Championship and held on it for almost 10 years. At 42, he tried to rise from Lightweight up to Heavyweight and tried to steal the championship from Marciano. But Moore lost to Marciano in the 9th round.
Archie Moore was considerably one of the greatest boxing icons in history. He won most of his total fights of 220. He was an important icon for the Black American Community and has involved himself in African American causes. Moore also entered the showbiz industry and became a successful actor in both film and television. Archie Moore died at the age of 81 on December 9th of 1998 in his home in San Diego, California.
