Hut*Hut wrote:I think Ezzard Charles would be No1.
In prime-vs.-prime terms, most would agree with you. OTOH in terms of overall career accomplishments at the weight, a very good case can be made for Moore. Charles beat Moore all 3 times they met in their respective physical primes, but Moore went on to have a freakishly long career at the top, including of course a title win and many defenses - Charles was effectively shut out of the LHW title hunt during his briefer tenure at the weight.
Moore was a late bloomer in so many ways - first pro bout in 1935 at age nearly 22 at a Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - BoxRec notes that this may well be considered a semi-pro bout, and Moore didn't really start his pro career until nearly a year later. Didn't win his first title until May 1943, when he won the California State Middleweight Title at nearly age 30. Moore lost a fair number of bouts in that first decade, including a lopsided 1944 loss to Charley Burley (who was 4 years younger than Moore but was already entering the latter part of his career, and had lost twice to an up-and-coming Ezzard Charles 2 years previously). Moore had his 0-3 trilogy vs. Charles in the several years following the Burley bout, and also lost no small number of other fights during that period, though likely some were of the dubious home-cooking variety.
In my opinion, it wasn't until around 1949, after Charles moved to heavyweight, that Moore, now 35 years old, began to really come into his own. Beat Joey Maxim in 1952 for his first World Light Heavyweight Title, 4 days after his 39th birthday (! - Imagine if Bernard Hopkins had just won his first middleweight title this past January). Moore defended the LHW title four times (2 rematches vs. Maxim, vs. Harold Johnson, vs. Bobo Olson), then in September 1955 unsuccessfully challenged Marciano (the Rock's final fight) for his heavyweigh title (it's not clear whether Moore had to vacate his light-heavy title when moving up, but it seems not), defended the LHW title in June '56 vs. Yolande Pompey, 5 months later unsuccessfully challenged a young Floyd Patterson for the now-vacant heavyweight title, defended his LHW title once more in September of '57 (vs. Ernest Anthony), then not again until December '58 when he had that memorable first bout with Durelle (the Ring FOY for '58 wound up being the Robinson-Basilio rematch) just a few days before Archie's 45th birthday. Archie defended the LHW title twice more (beat Durelle much more easily in the August '59 rematch, easily beat Giulio Rinaldi in June '61, in a rematch of a non-tile-bout loss to Rinaldi the year before). Moore had only a half-dozen bouts after the second Rinaldi bout, but they included a win over Pete Rademacher, the 1956 Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medalist, best-known for challenging Patterson for his HW title in '57 in Rademacher's professional debut (and doing so in spectacularly unsuccesful fashion, then getting smashed by Zora Folley a year later in his second fight - what were Rademacher & co. thinking, rushing into a title fight so soon? But that's for another thread) and a TKO4 loss to a young 15-0 heavyweight and 1960 Olympic Light-Heavyweight Gold Medalist named Cassius Clay, in November of 1962, just 4 weeks before Moore's 49th birthday, in Moore's 218th (and penultimate) pro fight.
Quite an astonishing career, that.