Owen Moran - A British Great

Since Windy has been dragging a few of the old 606 articles over thought I would follow suit with an old article of mine about one of this countries finest ever fighters who plenty of guys whose opinions I respect commonly have in their top ten Brits of all time who to my eternal shame I previously knew little about, namely Owen Moran.

Have been interested in Moran for some time because be it a sense of sympathy I have always found myself fascinated by great fighters who for whatever reason were not fortunate enough to win the world title such as Langford, Burley and Jackson and reading about Moran he does appear to be right up in that company as a truly great fighter of his day.

Never really weighing a lot more than bantamweight Moran quickly found after winning the English bantamweight title against Al Delmont that at his weight genuine challengers were few and far between and so decided to match himself against the best guys stateside at feather and lightweight. His chance to prove himself stateside came firstly against the game Frankie Neill, who whilst was not a great had shown courage in pushing all time great Abe Attell to a 20 round defeat the previous year.

Moran went someway better than that stopping an outgunned Neill at the end of 16 when his corner throw in the towel, a good few number of rounds too late in the eyes of most at ringside who were almost universally effusive about Moran’s elusiveness and offensive arsenal.

On the back of this performance Moran earned his first of five fights with the aforementioned Abe Attell. Against Neill Moran had been happy to let his opponent lead and counter him with well placed shots, but against the wily and cagey Attell, Moran showed his adaptability in being far more aggressive. So closely matched were these two referee James J Jeffries found them impossible to split after 25 rounds. Three further draws between the two suggested Jeffries was not alone in not being able to split them.

If pushing Attell was not impressive enough in 1910 Moran managed something no other fighter achieved when he knocked out all time great Battling Nelson. Nelson had been stopped early in his career and fought to a standstill by Ad Wolgast but the honour of keeping Nelson down for the 10 count is Moran’s alone, nailing the great Nelson to the canvas in the 11 round of their fight. Whilst this performance did not earn Moran a world title he would not have to wait too long for his opportunity, unfortunately that opportunity came in the form of a near peak Ad Wolgast on 4th July 1911.

Like Greb and Ketchel Wolgast was a force of nature in the ring, an almost relentless fighting machine who rarely if ever took a step back and alas this relentlessness proved too much for Moran who eventually fell to him in the 13th of a fight he had certainly had the worst of but had according to all reports he did have his moments.

Reading about Moran and the fact that he held his own in such company as Attell and Nelson it seems unbelievable Moran never won a world title but a number of controversial decisions against him and too many draws in no decision affairs probably cost him, but those who saw him in the flesh maintain Moran was the real deal, Nat Fleischer having him behind only Joe Gans and Benny Leonard at lightweight with the Gans comparison being one that was made frequently throughout his career.

On the whole reading about Moran can fully understand why so many have him in their top ten Brits and he must surely rank alongside Driscoll as the finest from these shores never to win a world title but as the information I could find about him was pretty limited would welcome contributions from those on here more familiar with his abilities as he was obviously something a little special.

Absolutely superb tribute to an equally superb fighter.

For those whose appetites have been sufficiently whetted, there is film ( of surprisingly good quality, ) of the Moran v Nelson fight over at youtube, which I intend to now add to the 606v2 youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeeUxuaRlEw

Thanks for sharing this, jeff.