A Boxing Memory: Davey Moore

A Boxing Memory: Davey Moore

A career that was so brief but far more tragic. A star that once shone so bright before it all came crashing down. The career was cut short. His life also. A world title after only nine fights, an away trip to Japan earned him the WBA  light-middleweight title and seemed to indicate a star was born. But a rejuvenated Roberto Duran, on the hunt for redemption, ended his reign just as it was getting started. Davey Moore had ten more fights after Duran took his soul in New York, and he lost four of them. Moore was only 24 and unbeaten in twelve fights, but he became an old man in a boxing sense after the legendary Panamanian took away plenty in 1983. Plagued by inactivity and managerial problems, the boxing career of Moore never recovered after that night in Madison Square Garden. In 1988, just five years after his fight with Duran, Davey Moore was dead. A freak accident at his home saw Moore crushed under his Dodge Raider. He was just 28.

Born and bred in the Bronx, Moore was raised in poverty. Many times, he was packed off to school with an empty stomach. But at 15, he walked into a boxing gym and found his calling. And his way out of poverty. A model student who excelled in sports, including karate and wrestling, sport would always likely to be his way out of the ghetto.

Moore, who had 96 wins in 102 amateur fights, was a five-time Golden Gloves champion and was only denied a place at the 1980 Moscow Olympics by the United Stated boycott of those games in protest at Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The pro career began without the fanfare and riches that an Olympic medal would have brought. But Top Rank moved Moore quickly. In truth, probably too quickly. After eight wins, including becoming the first fighter to defeat Kevin Rooney, Moore earned a shot at Tadashi Mihara in 1982 for the WBA light-middleweight bauble. The long trip to Tokyo was a rewarding one. After six rounds, Moore was a world champion.

Another trip on the road followed this time to South Africa and a fight with the big punching Charlie Weir. At the height of apartheid, Moore travelled to Johannesburg in 1982 as the betting underdog and upset a lot of plans that night. It was a one-sided beatdown in front of 45,000 fans at Ellis Park, and after five knockdowns, it was over in the early moments of round five. Moore defended his title two more times, with stoppage victories over the former world champion Ayub Kalule and Gary Guiden. Kalule had only lost to Sugar Ray Leonard, that win had started to convince many that Moore wasn’t a champion of convenience. But what came next was a fight Moore would say. ”Oh man, that fight broke my heart.”

Moore lost more than his world title the night he shared a ring with a modern-day legend. Too much too soon? It was in truth, just too much. In many ways, the Panamanian was far too much for a champion who was still learning his trade. In a pre-fight preview, The New York Times wrote of Duran, ‘melancholy replaced anger in his eyes.’ Unfortunately for Moore, on Duran’s 32nd birthday, the anger returned. A different kind of hunger had returned for a fighter who had lost his way after his ‘No Mas’ shame in his second fight against Sugar Ray Leonard. Duran believed his country had turned its back on him. This was his chance to get back everything he had lost in New Orleans in 1980. An upset loss to Kirkland Laing and an uninspiring victory over another British fighter Jimmy Batten seemed to indicate the glory days were long gone. But a four-round destruction of the former world welterweight champion Pipino Cuevas showed more than a few glimpses that the fighting obituaries were extremely premature. After living the party lifestyle after his loss to Leonard, Duran got serious about the sport again before the Cuevas fight.

The night Duran struggled with Batten in 1982 was the only time Moore had seen Duran fight live. The native New Yorker said he walked out after three tepid rounds. The following year, Moore wished he hadn’t walked into the Madison Square Garden ring to face Duran. Hindsight would have told him that. But maybe hindsight shouldn’t have been needed. Nursing a torn knee ligament through his training camp arising from his fight with Guiden, and even more concerning, undergoing dental surgery just a few days before the fight with Duran, Moore should have almost certainly been saved for another day. Those who are employed by a fighter have a duty of care to that fighter. Too many times, they fail in that task.

Initially missing weight added further to his woes. 20,000 fans partied in that iconic building, and the vast majority of them were there for Duran. A party atmosphere with trumpets at the ready. In his hometown, Moore must have felt like an outsider. He almost certainly was. Moore was the 5-2 betting favourite. Duran defied the odds yet again. At the start of 1983, Moore was looking forward to facing the troubled Tony Ayala Jr. in a million-dollar showdown. All Ayala had to do was stay out of trouble. And prison. He couldn’t do either. Duran entered the fray and was supposed to be the gateway to much bigger fights down the road.

Make no mistake, Moore was supposed to beat Duran, who was viewed by some as washed-up and easy pickings for the unbeaten champion. Pre-fight Moore had talked about fighting the likes of Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. Post-fight, he would reflect on why it had all gone so badly wrong.

A thumb from Duran in the closing segments of the opening round did real damage to the champion’s right eye. The butchery had begun. Moore complained that later, the thumb was deliberate, and Duran was no virgin in the dark arts of the sport. Intentional or not, that thumb removed any lingering chances of Moore regaining his title. The right eye started to swell, and Duran inflicted a serious savage beating on a 24-year-old fighter who was in way over his head. Moore’s promoter Bob Arum said he had never seen his fighter so nervous before a fight. Moore had every reason to be. It went on too long. It really shouldn’t have even started. It lasted until the 8th round. It had got uncomfortable long before it was belatedly waved off by the referee Ernesto Magana. Moore’s girlfriend and mother reportedly fainted at ringside. Cries for the referee to wave the slaughter off were ignored by the man in the middle.

Moore needed rescuing from many things that night, the referee being one of them. Magana had a bad night at the office, the understatement of any year. “The worst ref I’ve looked at for a long time,” Ray Arcel, the veteran trainer of Duran, remarked after the fight. He had a point.

Duran ruined Moore. He took away his prime. Boxing failed Davey Moore. The younger champion had been mauled to defeat by an opponent who just wouldn’t be denied. Duran had claimed his third world title and so much more. Moore was left with very little. The former champion never recovered. A win over a badly faded Wilfred Benitez two fights later looked better on paper than it was in reality. Post Duran, there were very few good nights. A disqualification defeat to Louis Acaries in 1984 was a big setback. But a stoppage loss to Buster Drayton two years later in a failed bid to reclaim a world title left Moore feeling like an old man in a young man’s body.

A few hours before Sugar Ray Leonard danced his way to a sensational victory over Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1987, the last remains of reclaiming former glories were extinguished for Moore. Apart from a brief rally in round 4, it was heartbreak in Vegas for Moore. It nearly ended in the opening round. By round 5, it was over. Lupe Aquino, a tough Mexican boxed with enough ferocity stop Moore. Aquino seemed to know victory was a foregone conclusion. He fought with plenty more to give. It was beyond sad. Moore, just a few years ago, was dreaming of beating Leonard himself, but on the undercard of Leonard’s miraculous comeback, the career of Moore was practically over. Another defeat a few months later to John David Jackson on points left Moore firmly on the road to nowhere. Two more fights in front of a few boxing die-hards added a couple of meaningless wins to the resume of the former light-middleweight champion of the world. Gary Coates was the last name on the record of Moore. The 14-20 record said plenty. Coates never fought again. Sadly, neither did Moore. A few weeks later, Davey Moore was dead. His Dodge Raider started to slide down his driveway, Moore tried to stop it, and he slipped on the wet ground and was crushed underneath his own vehicle. A tragedy in many ways.