Right Jab Was Moorer’s Best Weapon : Boxing: Left-hander outboxes Holyfield, who doesn’t complain about controversial decision.

This is the only heavyweight championship fight ever won by a right jab.

By design, it was Michael Moorer’s most important weapon Friday night when he outboxed Evander Holyfield to become the first left-handed champion in the history of the sport’s most glamorous division.

“People were saying we had a puncher’s chance,” said Moorer’s trainer, Teddy Atlas. “I didn’t look at it that way. He would control the fight with the jab. If he didn’t, his chances would be reduced to a knockout, and that’s like the lottery.”

It developed that the only knockdown punch was delivered by Holyfield late in the second round.

A right-left combination put Moorer on his knees.

“I asked myself, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ ” Moorer said. “He put two good punches together. I was stunned but not hurt.”

Moorer had dominated the first two minutes of the round, leading to some curious mathematics.

Two judges gave Holyfield only a one-point advantage in the round, and the other, Jerry Roth, scored it even.

Considering that Roth had Moorer winning by only one point, it wouldn’t have been surprising to hear cries of robbery.

But Holyfield registered no gripes with the decision during a mid-ring television interview before leaving for Valley Hospital to have an injured left shoulder treated.

He also refused to use the injury, reportedly suffered in the second round, as an excuse.

“Give Moorer credit,” Holyfield said. “He fought a rugged fight. His being left-handed, I couldn’t get off the way I wanted to.”

Holyfield was cut above the left eye in the fifth round and the wound was opened later despite the corner work of Don Turner.

Another cut man, Ace Marotta, was fired by Holyfield recently.

“That (the change in the corner) didn’t make any difference,” Holyfield said. “There was blood in my eye, but a champion has to fight under any circumstances.”

The circumstances, according to trainer Turner, were that Holyfield needed a big 12th round to retain his title.

“I told Evander to fight as hard as he could because he was behind,” Turner said. “He went all out, but he just didn’t have it. I thought that the decision was fair. Moorer fought a heck of a fight.”

The new World Boxing Assn. and IBF champion agreed.

“A lot of people doubted me,” he said. “I did what I had to. I beat the man.”

Still, Moorer needed some prodding in the corner from Atlas.

“He was on my . . . from the first round to the 12th,” Moorer said.

At the end of the eighth, the trainer had a question for the fighter.

“If he wasn’t going to win the fight, then I was,” Atlas said.

“I asked him if he wanted to change places with me. He said he didn’t.”