As many know, Sugar Ray Robinson made Oscar De La Hoya look like Mahatma Gandhi at the negotiating table. From the beginning of the negotiation process with Moore, Sugar Ray put himself in charge of the financial details, and attempted to dictate terms to Ageless Archie. Specifically, Robinson and Moore would each be guaranteed $500,000, and they would be fighting exclusively for Archie’s light heavyweight title. Archie realized he couldn’t melt down to 160 pounds, and didn’t see a problem with the bout being for his title only. However, he knew there was more behind the details with the proposed guarantee of $500,000.
Moore proved to be a better negotiating opponent than Robinson realized. Moore inquired about theater television incentives, and Ray quickly stated, “That’s included in the half million you get.”
Moore instantly replied, “I understand that. The price is right, Ray. But inasmuch as we can’t walk away with that half-million each, why don’t we work out a deal with those people where we could invest $250,000 of our purse in the theater television? This would set us up economically for life.”
Robinson was emphatic and unyielding. His reply was visceral and unequivocal. “They won’t do it!. They won’t do it!”
The negotiation ended there. Moore felt something was wrong, and detailed his thoughts in retrospect.
“Well, I was surprised that Ray could answer my question before he had even discussed it with his people. How did he know what they would or wouldn’t do? This was the first time it had been proposed to him, and he tells me flat-out that they wouldn’t go for it. Well, I didn’t like that, so I accepted an offer of $250,000 to fight a rematch with Durelle instead of waiting around on Robinson. This kind of made Ray mad, but if he would have at least talked to the theater-television people about this and given them my proposition, I would have gone for the deal even if they had refused. I just didn’t like the idea of his flat refusal to even approach them with my proposition. And so that is why I never fought Sugar Ray, and I’m sorry about that because I think that we could have made boxing history. I felt sure that I could have beaten him, and he probably felt the same way about me, and that’s the way he should have felt. If he had taken up my suggestion and the television people had gone for my idea, we both could have been rich men today. But anyway, I still like Sugar Ray Robinson. I think he’s a great guy and a great boxer.”