JCC

Going into this fight! Archie Moore was the light heavyweight champion of the world ... there were only 8 weight divisons in those days.

Archie Moore had been pressing hard for a fight with Rocky Mariano for the world heavyweight title and came to the point that fans were demanding it.

Archie Moore was a great fighter in that era. Then at age 38, going into the fight with Maricano, Moore's professional record was 167 fights, 22 losses, 6 draws, with 111 KO's.

Archie Moore was a very skilled fighter going into the fight with a younger Marciano. Moore was a very clever and tricky fighter, he could box, and he could punch. He was an all around great fighter.

There was no more worthy a contender for Marciano at the time than Archie Moore, and the Marciano camp believed that Moore may would be Marciano's toughest fight.

Going into the fight ... in Moore's last three fights, he had Ko'd Harold Johnson and Carl "Bobo" Olson and decisioned Nino Valdez. Since winning the world light heavyweight championship title from Joey Maxin in 1952, and Moore had successfully defended the title four times.

Only Ezzard Charles, whom Moore fought in the mid 1940s, had been able to dominate Moore. Ezzard fought Moore three times without defeat, decisioning him twice and knocking him out once, which was a considerable feat since Mooore had only been KO'd four times out of 167 fights before his fight with Marciano. Moore also had won his last 20 fights going into the fight with Marciano.

The fight was schuduled for September 20, 1955, and was postponed one day because of the threat of a hurricane moving up the Atlantic Coast.

The largest crowd ever to see Marciano fight, 61, 574 fans showed up at Yankee Stadium while hundreds of thousands crammed closed-circuit-television theaters across the country to see the Marciano-Moore fight.

The fight would gross $ 2,248,117, then second only to the second Dempsey-Tunny fight in earnings.

JC

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"The more I sweated in the gym, the less I bleed in the ring."