BoxRec

Back in the 1970's,watching old boxing filmed bouts was just not available for the average boxing fan to watch.
But I remember around 1978 reading an article/interview about Archie Moore in one of the Sunday newspaper supplement magazines,
were he had claimed that the referee Harry Kessler had interfered and got in his way of a sure knock out of Rocky Marciano
when Moore had knocked Marciano down in round Two of their title fight.
Apparently the standing 8 count had been waved for the fight for some reason.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_pPfPUQopfg

Going into the fight Moore said he was not worried about Marciano's "Suzy Q"
as he did not believe it could penetrate his defenses.He was more concerned
about Marciano's left hook.
here is some more info about the knock down
pp 269-270.


http://www.books.google.com/books?id=BH ... g=PA269&dq

What the great debate of the fight wasn't so much about a 'long count' as it was the fact that the referee seemed to 'shake' Marciano out of whatever fogginess he was suffering after being knocked down by Moore. Personally myself, it wouldnt have made a difference, but others seem to point out that it was some great thing when it wasnt. Marciano was far too conditioned to be hurt that badly. Point being, from that moment on Marciano was far more aggressive and threw even more punches than before. If anything Moore's knockdown itself "woke" Marciano up and pissed The Rock off.

Another thing, is that there is a difference between the time someone falls and rises to the canvas and a count. A referee is not obliged to look at the time keeper and see what the 'count' is. The count is given by the referee and no one else, and since it is done by a human being rather than a machine there certainly will be differences between a count of ten and what time really elapsed. For example, in the Tyson-Douglas fight Douglas was in fact down for 13 seconds, but got up at the count of eight. Dempsey/Tunney II shows Gene on the floor for 14 seconds, but was up at nine.

There is an entire chapter on Archie Moore and the fight in the book I previously linked up to.
ROCKY MARCIANO:THE ROCK AND HIS TIMES by Russell Sullivan(2002).
pp 254-276.


http://www.books.google.com/books?id=BH ... g=PA254&dq

The Marciano vs Moore fight was definitely NOT a long-count. I fanyone wants to check it fast forward to 07:35 on this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pPfPUQopfg
to see when Moore catches him off balance. The Rock wasn't hurt.

HomicideHenry wrote:What the great debate of the fight wasn't so much about a 'long count' as it was the fact that the referee seemed to 'shake' Marciano out of whatever fogginess he was suffering after being knocked down by Moore.

What fogginess? The Rock was on his feet at the count of 3.

Crease wrote:

HomicideHenry wrote:What the great debate of the fight wasn't so much about a 'long count' as it was the fact that the referee seemed to 'shake' Marciano out of whatever fogginess he was suffering after being knocked down by Moore.

What fogginess? The Rock was on his feet at the count of 3.

That is what Moore defenders say. I was just generalising what true belivers of this story says. Marciano said of the knockdown himself that "I blacked out for just a second." Mind you no standing eight count rule was in effect for this fight, yet when Marciano got up the referee did a count of "one... two.... three...." realised his mistake and let Moore come after Marciano, which I may add he didn't capitalise on. So Moore was also at fault for not following up on his own advantage.

I was surprised to read that Marciano said he had blacked out(for a second)
and also later said
"I wasn't groggy,but I was dazed,and could not see out of my left eye for a while".
Moore had said before the fight that he believed that Marciano could not penetrate his
defenses with his right hand.
Hey HH in your punch count of Marciano vrs Moore,of the approx.691 punches landed by
Marciano in nine rounds,
how many of those 691 punches were right hands that Marciano landed in the fight?

George Chuvalo vrs Mike DeJohn.
Now that was a fight were it looked like the ref
was going out of his way to help a fighter.

Does anyone here have the
Tale of the Tape for
Marciano vrs Archie Moore?
Even tho Moore was the Light Heavyweight Champion challenging
the Heavyweight Champion,Moore obviously was physically the larger of the Two.

Brutu wrote:I was surprised to read that Marciano said he had blacked out(for a second)
and also later said
"I wasn't groggy,but I was dazed,and could not see out of my left eye for a while".
Moore had said before the fight that he believed that Marciano could not penetrate his
defenses with his right hand.
Hey HH in your punch count of Marciano vrs Moore,of the approx.691 punches landed by
Marciano in nine rounds,
how many of those 691 punches were right hands that Marciano landed in the fight?

That was 691 punches THROWN IN TOTAL over nine rounds. I can only guess a percentage on how many landed, because that is just too much additional work. Maybe one day soon I will do a recap of Moore/Marciano with stats of just how many punches landed. One thing I can say about Marciano is that though he threw the right hand alot, he never threw one punch at a time it was always punches in bunches. So if he landed a right, he probably landed the left too. I would say of those 691 punches a good 70% of them landed, because after the third round the tide began to turn and Moore was becoming more defensive and trying to survive rather than fight back.

If you have the fight on dvd ,play it at half speed to get an accurate count if possible.
I played the Jess Willard vrs Jack Johnson rounds on the dvd Unforgivable Blackness,
and it looked real time that way.

Marciano was like the "Meat Grinder"during the Korean War.

I think it was a matter of just
"Six Seconds',
otherwise (according to some,including Archie Moore) it would have been a sure fire knock out.

In this 1981 newspaper interview,Archie Moore talks about the fight,the knock down and the ref.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zS ... 4737294&dq

Brutu wrote:Does anyone here have the
Tale of the Tape for
Marciano vrs Archie Moore?
Even tho Moore was the Light Heavyweight Champion challenging
the Heavyweight Champion,Moore obviously was physically the larger of the Two.

Most sources listed Moore at 5 ft 11 inches tall,but others list him as an even 6 feet tall.
His reach is listed at either 75 or 75.5 inches(compared to the Rock's 67 inch reach).

check out this 1991 interview where Archie Moore talks about his fight with Marciano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpbo90o7BWw

check out this link to a photograph of Archie Moore taken just after the fight.

http://dugger-s-ranch.2299399.n4.nabble ... e8040.jpeg

The referee is obliged to pick up the count from the time keeper. For example if the time keeper is at "two", when the referee has made sure the fighter scoring the knockdown is moving towards the farthest neutral corner, the referee starts his count at "three".

check out this interesting article concerning the 60th anniversary of the bout.

http://www.ringtv.craveonline.com/news/ ... remembered

Its impossible for a ref to accurately count out 10 seconds which is why its called a count of 10 rather than a 10 seconds count, this always bothered me with the Benn- mcclellan 1st round knockdown in which Benn was up before a completed 10 count, the amount of seconds lapsed is irrelevant really.

Yeah I remember DK making a lot of the ref's inability to count to ten in a timely fashion and trying to get the fight result changed because of it. Fact is, the ref was "slow" but he was also slow in counting Tyson out and the count in that was timed to somewhere around the ~14 second mark.

Point is, you follow the ref's count, not anyone else's.

lorenzo1791 wrote:

littlepug wrote:Its impossible for a ref to accurately count out 10 seconds which is why ,,,.

there is a timekeeper who clicks his stopwatch when a fighter goes down--

and conveys the count to the referee

by raising and lowering his arm as he watches his stopwatch

or by hitting on the ring floor with a wooden mallet

As can be seen in countless fight films through the years.

As far as I can tell the ref pretty much keeps his eyes on the fighter down with the odd glance back to the other fighter making it pretty tough to keep an eye or ear out for the timekeeper as well.

Did RKO film this fight as well?
(I think Ive only seen the kinescope of the closed-circuit broadcast)