Customer Reviews

The Ageless Warrior: The Life of Boxing Legend Archie Moore

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"Ageless Warrior" is a definitive account on the life of boxing legend Archie Moore. Author Mike Fitzgerald masterfully weaves Moore's 200-plus fights and his personal life into an engaging and evenly-tempered biography. Until now, most books written on Moore tended not to let the facts get in the way of a good story. Fitzgerald, with the cooperation of Archie Moore and his immediately family, finally tells the true story of the "Old Mongoose" with pleasing results. If you're an Archie Moore or boxing fan, this book's for you.

This is an excellent portrayal of one of boxing's all time great fighters, whom I had the pleasure of meeting. (He felt that shaking hands was unsanitary, and preferred touching fists.) This book tells of Moore's early struggles, th eproblems he faced as a black fighter, and his ultimate triumph. One reviewer says that this book doesn't mention Moore's alleged tanking of the Marciano fight. I have never believed that he threw that fight, as he fought long and hard against tough odds. Also, he was a 4-1 underdog, which would have made a fix in Marciano's favor unlikely. What this book doesn't mention -- and which film showings of this bout often edit out -- is that when Moore floored Marciano in the second round, Rocky rose at the count of two, and the referee, forgetting that the mandatory eight count didn't apply in a title bout, continued the count, thus giving Marciano extra time to recover. Marciano was clearly stunned, and had the ref followed the rules the outcome might have been different. In Everett Skehan's excellent biography of Rocky Marciano, this incident is mentioned.

Archie Moore did it all in boxing, he was the light heavyweight champion, he fought for the heavyweight title twice and is the holder of the most knockouts by any fighter ever. He did a lot of this while over 40 years of age.

This is the remarkable story of a true warrior of the ring, Moore fought everywhere and wasn't afraid to fight anyone (of the heavyweight champions, he met Rocky Marciano, Ezzard Charles, Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali).

The book is a good read, perhaps not all that I would have hoped that a biography of Moore would be but still not bad. In a perfect world, I would have liked more photos and perhaps more input from Moore himself through previous articles that he had contributed to.

Archie Moore is in the top 5 of history's best light-heavyweights and this book gives him his due. Nicely done.

This is simply but a great book on Moore.

The best one out there on this great champ.

Very good account of Archie Moore's career. He was a true character in an out of the ring. Does not go into the detail of a possible tanking of his fight against Rocky Marciano. That account was put in the Devil and Sonny Liston. But overall, it was very good.