Archie vs Ali Analysis?

[YukisHeart]

Going through another little phase of fascination with the classic, old-time style, particularly with respect to the principles of defence and the cross-armed guard/lock.

Moore is the exemplar of this style by most people's lights, but I'm struggling to really familiarise myself with its nuances. Obviously, his bout with Cassius Clay (as he then was) was a losing effort, but I'd be interested to see a knowledgeable analysis.

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My own notes, having just watched the fight for the first time, with the sound off:

• To me, Moore appears very hard to hit clean, and moves in and out of his guard almost seamlessly. But is Clay only toying with him?
• He really does look old. There are estimates ranging from 46 to 52 for his age during this fight; I definitely lean towards the upper end of this spectrum
• I've gleaned a lot of good knowledge by trawling through posts by Sinister. Something he often comments on is that the old-timers fought upright, shoulders back, not really ever bending but instead "folding" at the hips. I have to say, in this particular case I feel I'm seeing a lot of back rounding. What am I missing?
• He might be beloved now, but it's not difficult to see why Clay attracted Jones-level hate in his own time!

Some other examples of the guard below. Cheers!

 

[Sinister]

Archie was built fairly weird. Very large boulder-shoulders, craned neck. I noticed this when I saw an interview with him and his chin was kind of jutted out. We can improve posture greatly, but we can't undo physiological make-up completely. It's going to be tough when you use a losing effort of an old fat Archie at the end of his career to try to understand his style, though. Archie, in his prime, was very very tricky. Half of his positions using the lock were deceptions. He'd get out of position on purpose, and have specific counters for if you took the bait. Then I also saw a fight that just happen to come on ESPN classic one night where Archie didn't use it at all.

I think a lot of people think too much of the lock defensively. Moore was NOT a defensive fighter if you look at enough of his fights. He was tricky, absolutely. But what was true about Moore through his best days and worst, was he could crack, and hard. Same with Foreman. The Lock seemed, to me, more like a way of getting the opponent to open up by forcing them to tap on your arms to try to get you to open up. If you review things from that perspective, they might look a little different. And it would explain why Gilbert Baptist didn't do quite as well as Moore despite replicating the positions and movements nearly perfectly. He did well, but he was no one-punch bomber.

 

[samtotheg]

Sinister, what is your opinion on Ezzard Charles ..the guy who whipped archie moore and charley burley...I know you admire burley but from what I read Ezzard took him to school!!!!!!

 

[Sinister]

Ezzard Charles was one of the greatest fighters to put on gloves. And sure he took Burley to school, equally skilled and MUCH bigger, that'll happen.

 

[a guy]

I assume you've seen this thread:

http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f11/studying-cross-armed-guard-k-lock-2649203/

Connor went on to analyze it more thoroughly:

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2014/6/1...reverse-engineering-the-lock-history-analysis

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2014/6/1...s-armed-guard-the-lock-part-2-boxing-analysis

 

[clashnat]

Didn't Ezzard Charles start out as a middleweight? The story is that he beat everybody at middleweight and moved up because they wouldn't grant him a title shot.

 

[Sinister]

Pretty much.