Chantelle Cameron has re-joined trainer Jamie Moore.
Cameron had been training with Grant Smith in Sheffield and then Stephen Smith in Liverpool but is now back with Moore, who coached her to the biggest win of her career, when she became the first woman to defeat Katie Taylor in May 2023.
Cameron lost a close fight in the Taylor rematch six months later and is now 21-1 (8 KOs).
Since the Taylor reverse, Cameron has won three times, defeating Elhem Mekhaled, Patricia Berghult, and Jessica Camara.
“She’s just been back this week,” said Moore.
“When we went our separate ways, we never fell out. We had a few little disagreements but not in terms of arguing, we just didn’t see eye to eye on a few things and we said we were better off going our separate ways. We didn’t want to fall out. We’d had a great few years together and we’d achieved loads.”
Moore said Cameron had taken the Taylor loss hard, and that was a good sign because she was such a competitor, but that it hurt her and while they stayed in touch, they knew they would no longer work together.
“Every time I had a fight or a big win with one of our fighters, she’d always message me and say congratulations,” said Moore. “And vice versa.”
Recently they went for coffee in Manchester and Cameron told Jamie she missed him and his No. 2, Nigel Travis.
“But that was it,” said Moore, “I never thought in a million years that it was to work together again.”
But two things have assisted shaping Moore’s mind.
Moore was dear friends with Ricky Hatton, and he knew how the failure to heal the rift between Ricky and trainer Billy Graham hurt them so badly for many years before Hatton passed away.
Then, having seen Giant – the movie documenting the acrimonious split between Brendan Ingle and Naseem Hamed – and watching the film’s climactic scene, a meeting between the two that never happened but where they both considered being reunited and where they put their differences behind them, Moore thought he and Cameron should have another run together.
“It’s only boxing, isn’t it,” said Moore. “My wife was really close with Chantelle when she was with us, and over Christmas we were talking [with Cameron] and she’d been talking about this next fight and then she sent me a message saying, ‘Are we finishing what we started or what?’”
Moore asked Cameron to clarify, and Cameron said she wanted to come back to the gym.
“Life’s too short,” replied Jamie. “Let’s do it, kid.”
Moore spoke highly of the work that both Grant and Stephen Smith had done with Cameron, and that he’d been impressed with how she boxed since moving on, especially against Camara under Stephen Smith.
And the move back was not to do with the coaching she was receiving, more the relationship she had established with Moore and Travis.
“As soon as she walked in the gym, she came in, gave us a hug, said hello to Nige, and within 10 minutes was sat laughing and joking and I said, ‘Do you know what?’ I’m not kidding, it doesn’t seem like you’ve been away.’ And it had been two years. It felt dead natural.”
There is speculation that Cameron could box on a big show, on Sky Sports and promoted by MVP, that would feature the likes of Savannah Marshall, Ellie Scotney, and Caroline Dubois on Easter Sunday (April 5), and Cameron could find herself in an eliminator or boxing for an interim title at 147lbs.
“She hasn’t got time to mess around,” said Moore. “She’s 33 and I think she wants maybe another couple of years and then she’s got other plans out of boxing. I just think there’s so many of these bad-type of stories where it becomes bitter and twisted. But it’s just boxing.”
Yesterday, Moore played padel with Travis, his cruiserweight Pat Brown and former fighter Jack Catterall, who left Moore to join Bozy Ennis in Philadelphia last year.
“He [Catterall]’s left the gym and gone to America, I don’t agree with the reasons why he’s gone,” said Moore. “But that’s not my decision to make, that’s his. And I have to respect that. And at the end of the day, he’s still a top lad, I’ve got a lot of time for him, and just because he doesn’t train with us it doesn’t mean that we can’t be mates.”
