Triumph of the Relic

The greying Negro caught a crushing right hand to the head, staggered backward, fell heavily to the canvas. At the count of nine, Archie Moore, aging light-heavyweight champion of the world, struggled to his feet. Clumsy Yvon Durelle, 29, the pride of French Canada, promptly sent him down again. Before the first round was over, in Montreal's Forum last week, Archie was decked once more for a nine count. The partisan crowd howled at the prospect of watching the long-delayed demise of boxing's most amazing relic. Said Archie later: "Every time I saw the referee, he was counting over me."

Seldom in his 20-odd years in the ring had Archie taken such a pounding. Not until the fourth round did his head clear. Then he poked his darting left hand into Durelle's face, and kept it there through the rest of the fight. In the fifth, Archie ran into a roundhouse right, and fell again. But it was the last time. After that, every Durelle lunge seemed to land on an elbow or a hunched shoulder. Archie flicked jabs, pumped rights, and suddenly it was Durelle's head that snapped back after every flurry.

Turnabout. In the seventh, Durelle went down. He was up at the count of three. But in the tenth, he was down again. Archie wasted no time in the eleventh. He charged straight off his stool, clobbered Durelle with a tremendous right, dropped him for nine, then polished him off for good.

For Archibald Lee Moore, who now claims to be 49, it was the 127th knockout of his career--a record surpassing the mark set by Young Stribling back in 1933.

Boxing's most engaging clown, Archie has a gift of gab that somehow tends to make the public think of him as a jokester, underrate him as a champion. But for six years he has beaten all comers at 175 lbs. Three years ago in an unsuccessful bid for the heavyweight title, he knocked down Champion Rocky Marciano at an age when lesser fighters have long since gone into the bowling-alley business. On his ranch in Ramona, Calif. Moore keeps up a constant schedule of running, calisthenics and sparring to maintain fighting trim. Explains Archie: "I'm not a young colt any more. If I let go, it's a long way back; so I just stay ready."

"This Can't Be Me." One of the most remarkable Moore traits is his ability to maintain fighting shape at widely varying weights. Now a natural heavyweight, he somehow manages to shed enough poundage from an already fat-spare frame to make the 175 lb. limit for light-heavyweight title defenses. For Durelle, Archie shrank from 208 to 174 without noticeable strain or impairment of his powerful punch. He slyly insists he got a secret reducing formula while fighting in Australia years ago, gave an aborigine a red turtlenecked sweater for it. Says Archie: "I figured they had the straight dope. All the time I was there, I never saw a fat aborigine."

In the postfight hubbub last week, Archie was magnanimous as always. "Durelle is one of the very best I ever fought," he said. "He hurt me every time he hit me. In the first round I said to myself, 'This can't be me!', but something told me I could catch him later on. He can have a rematch any time."

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