Davey Moore (June 9, 1959 – June 3, 1988) was an American
professional boxer
Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...
who held the
WBA light middleweight
Light middleweight, also known as junior middleweight or super welterweight,PeBoxRec/ref> is a weight class in boxing but also may include other combat sports.
Boxing
The light middleweight division (also known as junior middleweight in the Intern ...
title between February 1982 and June 1983, the second of two professional champions who shared the name in the second half of the 20th century. Each died around the age of thirty, the first,
Davey S. Moore, as a result of punishment in a fight, the second in an accident at his home.
The latter was born in New York during the championship reign of the first. As a boxer, he rose quickly through the light middleweight ranks—perhaps too quickly, according to some boxing writers and critics.
Notable amateur fights
Davey Moore won four New York Golden Gloves Championships. Moore won the 1976 135 lb Sub-Novice Championship. Moore also won the 1977, 1978 and 1979 147 lb Open Championships. He was defeated in the 1980 147 lb Open division by Pedro Vilella who was a three time New York Golden Gloves Champion. Moore was trained at the Morrisania Youth Center in the Bronx, New York by Leon Washington, a former professional Middleweight.
Professional career
Moore earned a spot on the 1980 US Olympic Team, but did not compete due to the
US boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
One of Moore's early wins was in June 1981 over Kevin Rooney, who would later train Mike Tyson. Moore entered the fight with a 6–0 record, while Rooney was 15–0. Moore won by a TKO in the seventh round of an eight-round fight.
After winning eight professional fights, five by knockout, the
WBA named him their No.10 challenger, and in February 1982, he traveled to Japan, where he knocked out defending champion
Tadashi Mihara in six, winning the WBA world junior middleweight title.
In April 1982 he defended his world title against
Charlie Weir in Johannesburg, South Africa, taking five rounds to knock him out. Then in July 1982 he fought former world champion
Ayub Kalule, whom he stopped in the tenth round in Moore's second title defense.
Moore started 1983 by beating challenger
Gary Guiden, by knockout in the fourth round. He had been scheduled to fight
Tony Ayala Jr.
Antonio Ayala Jr. (February 13, 1963 – May 12, 2015) was an American professional boxer who competed in the light middleweight division. He began his professional career in 1980, and by 1982 he had compiled a record of 22 wins and no losses, wit ...
, but Ayala was convicted of burglary and rape and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Next, Moore defended against former two-division world champion
Roberto Durán
Roberto Carlos Durán Samaniego (born June 16, 1951) is a Panamanian former professional boxer who competed from 1968 to 2001. He held quadruple champion, world championships in four weight classes: Lightweight, welterweight, light middleweigh ...
. Moore appeared to be overconfident against an aging 'Hands of Stone' Duran but Duran totally outclassed him and dished out vicious punishment, hammering shut one of Moore's eyes and stopping him in eight brutal rounds at
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...
. The beating was so one-sided that Moore's mother and girlfriend were both said to have fainted at ringside. Many knowledgeable observers believed that referee Ernesto Magana should have stopped the fight far earlier. This was proven to be correct by the fact that Moore was never the same fighter after this contest. In 1992,
Colombo crime family
The Colombo crime family (, ) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during ...
Caporegime
Michael Franzese testified that Moore was handled by himself and other Colombo mobsters, and that although they knew that Moore was in poor physical condition because he had undergone oral surgery just 2 days before the fight, they decided to proceed with the fight due to the profitability of betting on Duran. Franzese believed that bribery may have taken place for Moore to pass the physical examination.
Moore won his next two fights, the second in
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...
over
Wilfred Benítez
Wilfred "Wilfredo" Benítez (born September 12, 1958) is an American-born Puerto Rican former professional boxer and the youngest world champion in the sport's history. Earning his first of three career world titles in separate weight division ...
but then he was disqualified in the ninth round against Louis Acaries in Paris. In 1985, he won one more fight and was in line to challenge
Carlos Santos for the
IBF World Junior Middleweight title. That fight did not materialize, but eventually he did get to challenge for the IBF title against
Buster Drayton
Moses Buster Drayton (March 2, 1952 – November 20, 2022) was an American boxer who won the IBF world title at light middleweight (154 lb). Drayton turned pro in 1978 and won the vacant IBF light middleweight title with a decision win over Ca ...
in August 1986. Moore lost by TKO in the tenth round and only fought 5 more times, winning 3 and losing 2.
Professional boxing record
Death
Moore was killed at his home in
Holmdel, New Jersey
Holmdel is a township in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Located near Raritan Bay in the Raritan Valley Region, the township is a regional commercial hub of Central Jersey, home to Bell Labs and PNC Bank Arts Center, and a ...
, one evening in early June 1988 when his four-wheel drive vehicle began to roll down the driveway. Caught off guard, he attempted to stop it but was dragged under and pinned. Paramedics arrived to find him lifeless, the official cause of death being
blunt traumatic asphyxia. He left behind his wife Dria and their children Dira and David Moore Jr. AKA Broseroyce
See also
*
List of world light-middleweight boxing champions
This is a chronological List of World Super Welterweight / Junior Middleweight / Light Middleweight Boxing Champions, as recognized by four of the better-known sanctioning organizations:
* The World Boxing Association (WBA), founded in 1921 as the ...
*
Anton Yelchin, an American actor who died in a similar manner to the subject of this article
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Davey
1959 births
1988 deaths
American male boxers
Boxers from the Bronx
African-American boxers
Accidental deaths in New Jersey
Light-middleweight boxers
World light-middleweight boxing champions
World Boxing Association champions
20th-century American sportsmen