By Terence Dooley
I usually try to steer clear of the ‘Rocky’ references but when meeting British light-middleweight Champion Jamie Moore you are struck by the tangible hunger that this fighter possesses, both for his future and for the much-anticipated next fight on his horizon, that all or nothing clash with the improving and impressive Matthew Macklin.
Some boxers drift into boxing yet in the case of Jamie he sought out boxing from an early age and dedicated himself to the sport irrevocably: “I loved watching boxing; I remember when they used to show Tyson in the early morning and my dad would let me stay up and watch it. I first went to a boxing gym when I was ten with my best friend, obviously we didn’t have a car at the time and the guy who was taking us had to stop going so we couldn’t get there because it was quite far away. That was it until I was thirteen and a boxing gym opened just around the corner.”
Fittingly for a man who confesses to loving a ring war Jamie shared the love for the ‘Rocky’ films and Mike Tyson that most lads held at that time: “I always used to love the Rocky films and Tyson, I just had this interest in boxing and I don’t know where it came from, it was just one of those things where I enjoyed it and stuck at it. I lost my first amateur fight, it was the end of the season in the amateurs and I went on holiday to Tenerife with my mate and his family. Nigel Benn was training there for the second Eubank fight. That was it, I used to go and watch him train everyday and I was hooked. I was a bit disappointed after losing my first fight and was wondering what to do but I went on a winning streak. Benn inspired me. When I watch stuff about Benn’s career it is a bit weird, he won the Commonwealth title in his 17th fight and so did I, the way he came back from his loss to Watson inspired me after I lost. He went to America and regrouped over there, I stayed over here but in a similar sort of way defeat made him a better fighter as Benn knew he couldn’t go in there and knock a guy out. If I’d have fought Michael Jones before Scott Dixon he’d probably, I’m not saying he would of, out-boxed me. Because I didn’t know how to pace myself through a pro 12 round fight. I was still a bit in my amateur mode; a bit of a headless chicken before I fought Dixon. Benn thought about things more later on, even though he knew he had the power, he just didn’t have to go looking for it, it would come anyway.”
Nigel Benn, with his no-nonsense ring approach and willingness to fight all-comers, was and still is a big hero of Jamie’s: “The day after the David Walker fight I went to a dinner and got a ticket on the top table with Nigel Benn. I’d not met him since Tenerife when I was 14 and I had a little photo from then that I brought with me. I was like a little kid again. I went over to meet him before I went to the top-table and I was nervous so just said ‘excuse me Nigel can I have my photo took with you?’ and he said ‘alright Jamie that was some performance last night’ and I thought ‘wow!’ I had a photo taken with him on the night and when I get this room finished I’ll put all the stuff up and that will get pride of place. I showed him the photo from when I was 14. He’d asked me in Tenerife if I was a boxer, I told him I’d only had one fight and lost it but he told me ‘don’t give up, stick at it and you’ll be alright.’ He is a massive hero of mine and he was sat right next to me. We talked right through the night, every so often I’d have to pinch myself. Every night (as a kid) I used to put videos of Nigel Benn on and when you are sat there talking to him like he’s one of your mates it is weird.”
Luckily Jamie had taken Benn’s advice and despite the disappointment of losing that first amateur fight he came back to go on a successful streak of wins in the amateur business, however he had long felt that his style was being stifled in the amateur code: ““One of the problems I had as an amateur was that I had too much of a pro style. The amateur boxing guys and the England team wanted tall, upright boxers for the computer scoring. I lost a bad decision in the Northern Counties ABA finals I had the guy down twice and they scored it 4-4 at the end of it and gave it him on a count back. That was difficult to take.”
Jamie decided to take his already semi-pro style to the paid ranks and he immediately felt the benefits as well as setting the scene for his exciting career to date: “It was better, I’ve always been the type of fighter I am now, I’m high-paced and in the amateurs you also had shorter rounds so when I turned pro it seemed so slow, the lad I was fighting had had three fights, won two and lost one, and the one he had lost was a bit disputed. I ended up on the floor in the second myself before taking him out.”
A string of wins followed and Jamie was riding a four-fight KO streak going into a fight with Scott Dixon, this would represent his first big test; Dixon prevailed in the fifth round by KO and although he must have been devastated at the time it would serve as a wake-up call to Jamie: “I’ve got reasons why I lost but I can’t take anything away from Dixon, he beat me on the night and that was it, the other two losses on my record, one against Ossie Duran and the DQ versus Jones (in the rematch) I don’t count as losses due to the injury and the DQ, to be honest the only fight(s) that I feel like I’ve lost are my amateur debut, I also boxed Ricky Hatton as an amateur and he beat me fair and square and I boxed the Canadian middleweight Champion and he beat me fair and square because he was just too big for me. They are the only fights I’ve lost in my life as an amateur and a pro. People will look at my record when I step-up and say he’s got three losses. Against Ossie Duran it looks like I got knocked-out in the third round so it’s better for me.”
Jamie took a break and took the time to digest some salutary lessons he had taken from the Dixon fight. Whilst the rebuilding was really getting underway a chance came up to fight the highly-touted Michael Jones for the Commonwealth, and vacant British, titles. Jamie was a late-sub and had never been the title distance before yet he shocked many by out-boxing Jones. Moore was now the first man from Salford to win a prestigious Lonsdale belt. Jamie had taken a knock in his career and was now on the way up yet triumph was soon followed by pain as Jamie entered into the worst period of his pro career.
Jamie defended his titles over the next year and was coming close to making the three defences required to win a Lonsdale belt outright, however an error of judgement followed by a controversial rematch with Jones would leave him facing career ruin and despair.
Moore took on the tough Ghanaian Ossie Duran in Belfast, it was supposed to be a rough yet routine defence of his Commonwealth title but a thigh injury sustained in training rendered Moore defenceless and immobile, he was given the opportunity to pull out of the fight in the second round but decided to come out for the third in the hope of landing the shot that would see off Duran, instead Jamie lost his title in that very round:
“To be honest with you I never should have taken the fight, I know that now. I was hurt in training; I tore the tendons which connect my thigh muscle to my hip bone in the fight itself. Like I said you learn from your mistakes, I think every boxer goes into a fight not feeling 100%, I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a fight without an injury but that’s just the game. Referee Ritchie Davis wanted to pull me out after the second round but I said ‘no let me carry on’ because that’s what I’m like, I didn’t want to quit, I wanted to try and knock him out with one good leg. I know for a fact I’d beat Ossie Duran nine times out of ten. That was his lucky chance when my hip went, we tried to make a rematch but for one reason or another the fight couldn’t be made.”
Fortunately the British title had not been on the line that night and a year after their first fight Jamie found himself squaring off once again against Michael Jones, this time the title changed hands controversially. As Jamie threw a punch the referee Dave Parris commanded the fighters to break, unable to stop the punches trajectory Jamie watched in jubilation as Jones went down and refused to fight on, pretty soon the jubilation turned into dismay as Jamie realised that it was he, not Jones, who had lost the fight, the official result was a DQ loss in the third round:
“I went over to Jones (before the decision was announced) and said ‘I’m not happy with the way it turned out and we’ll fight again’ and he didn’t acknowledge me, he must have thought I’d won. If I was in the position where I was trying to beat the only person who had beaten me I’d go through anything but when he went down he just kind of shook his head and for me that is giving-up. If you are going to try and beat someone who has already beaten you you’d get-up and fight. I could barely stand-up and I carried on fighting against Ossie Duran and I didn’t have anything to prove. To be fair Jones came back in the third fight and showed a lot of guts but he had to after what happened in the second fight.”
“Jones said recently that the third fight should have been stopped in the third round (when I got put down twice) but obviously it shouldn’t have been because I came back to win the fight and I had him out on his feet at the end of the same round. If I was stood there taking punches and not answering back then fair enough but I was rocking and rolling and coming back with shots, like I say he got back a bit of face after the third fight. I wish him luck but I won’t be fighting him again because in my mind I beat him the first time by out-boxing him, I knocked him out the second time and the third time I out-manned him and out-fought him.”
Bad blood had been bubbling away after the first fight, Jones felt Jamie had made him wait too long for a rematch whereas Jamie felt the performance of Jones in that first encounter had not merited one, now it was Jamie who would be looking for a return bout and you can still sense a little of the frustration Jamie felt after the DQ loss: ““It started off because he got the hump when I beat him the first time and when he got himself in the mandatory position he said ‘I should have beaten him (Jamie) the first time and he’s not fit to lace my boots’ and all that stuff so he seemed really confident and I thought maybe he did have a rough time the first night but I knew I could fight better because I’d not trained for a twelve round British and Commonwealth title-fight (the first time). I’d never been twelve before and knew I could improve and trained in the knowledge that I could do better next time. In the fight I hit him on the chin when the ref shouted break but it wasn’t possible for me to stop the shot, we did testing at Salford University they assessed the exact time between Parish shouting ‘break’ and the shot landing and it was less than a second. So the reaction time under stressful conditions and my having my back to the referee, a lot of different factors, make it impossible to stop your brain from sending the punch on its way in that time.”
Fortunately the rubber match, after Jamie had waited for a while, was settled by legal punches and it exhibited the fighting hearts of both men, Jamie had always wanted a Nigel Benn style tear-up and got one in the third encounter. Moore went down twice in the third before roaring back to floor Jones in the fifth and stop him in the sixth, it was one of those moments in which a fighter hits the wall and has to drag himself beyond it. Jamie had a lot to prove in the ring and a lot on his mind outside the ring that night: ““Jones made me wait, I told him we’d fight straight away (after the second fight) and he said afterwards that I’d made him wait for eighteen months so they’d make me wait but the point was that I’d completely out-boxed him the first time and there was no call for a rematch but there was controversy in the second fight, he still hadn’t beaten me fair and square but was talking about moving on with his career. I get on with him now, he is alright, a nice lad, it was only after the first fight that the needle started, we had three fights between 2003-2005 and he was constantly on my mind so when it was over it was a bit of a relief. People think its strange that boxers fight then hug after the fight but its relief, ‘thank god that is over’, he just kept going on and on after the first fight but I felt I beat him every time. After the third fight things were better because we’d both got it out of our systems and after the fight him and his dad said to me that I beat him fair and square.”
Jamie’s grandmother had passed away a few days before the fight and before she left him Jamie had promised her that he would win this third encounter, he had also opened his family account with the birth of his son Mikey. Under intense pressure and duress he came through the difficult third round to take a win that those who saw it will long remember: ““Like I say Nigel Benn is my idol. The way I came back in the third round was typical of what Benn would do, so something had rubbed off on me there but it was all down to heart, I was hurt, I’ll admit that but I double the impact of the punches because I walk onto them. I’ve got a good chin and getting up after a good shot is a sign of that. My nana died two days before (the fight), she had been ill all through my training camp and two days before the fight I got the phone call to tell me it was time. I had to sit there and watch her die and promised her I’d win the fight for her and she dragged me through that fight, stuff like that is what inspires you. I had my little boy who was five weeks old and I had everything to fight for. Jones didn’t have anything to fight for, I did and that probably showed.”
Jamie is helped by his boxing style and stance, he is a southpaw who boxes aggressively, that rare breed in boxing, and Jones himself confessed he had problems finding adequate sparring for Moore: “I don’t know anyone who fights with the style that I do because I’m like an orthodox aggressive fighter but I’m a southpaw. I met up with Jones a few days after the fight and was having a laugh about it. They’d had murder trying to get sparring! I wouldn’t like to fight me. I like the left hook and the body shots. I try and bring it round almost from the orthodox position and that’s where I get my power from. After the first Jones fight people asked me if I was right handed because of the power I get in my punches. When I was younger I injured my left hand and was constantly in the gym using my right hand and it got better and stronger. I can box orthodox, I can switch like I did in the Jones fight and I hit him with a straight right hand that set him up for other shots.”
It is an aggression Jamie shares with a southpaw from the past: “Marvin Hagler? I loved his attitude. The way he didn’t care and he’d try to knock you out and that was it. I love it, absolutely love it, especially the Tommy Hearns fight where he walks through everything coming at him and takes Hearns out. He’s an aggressive southpaw; I’m probably a bit more aggressive than he was so need to take a leaf out of his book and start boxing a bit more.”
The difference in that third Jones fight was that when Jamie went down in the third round he got-up and blazed back, when you go down it takes an act of will to haul yourself into the fight, what had ran through the mind of Moore when Jones floored him: ““Fucking hell! You get De Ja Vue. It’s weird, all I remember is Oliver (Harrison Jamie’s trainer) shouting ‘grab him’ but the first thing that went through my mind was ‘how has he put me down when he can’t punch!’ Watching the tape you can see Jones was punching harder than in the first two fights. He had a nutritionist and was bigger and stronger at the weight, the second thought that went through my mind was ‘there is no way you are beating me’ and that was it, I just knew I wasn’t going to lose the fight. I think he thought he had me the second time but I wasn’t hurt, I was rolling and my arse fell through the ropes, I got hit on the back of the head and fell forwards on my knees. Obviously I’d gone down from the shot but I wasn’t hurt the way I was the first time. So all Jones did (with the second knock-down) was give me ten seconds to recover without being under-fire. He really thought he had me but I knew he wouldn’t be able to stop me.”
“After the third Jones fight I was back on the up, I had my Lonsdale belt back, the year before I’d had three fights and lost two of them but like I said they wasn’t losses in my mind.”
When we watch a fight we sometimes forget just how much pressure both boxers can be under, especially when you are coming off as bad a year as Jamie had endured in 2004: “That fight with Jones was the worst pressure in my life. Obviously I’d had two back-to-back losses so had to win to keep my career going. I’d just had a little boy who I’d hardly seen because I was training for a fight with Jones and my nana was poorly, we was really close, I was at the hospital everyday. I even had whiplash from sparring so had this pain in my neck. Whether that was connected to me going down in the fight I don’t know. Nothing was going for me for that fight but I never thought I’d lose the fight I knew I’d win the whole time. When I was DQ’d I didn’t know straight away and immediately after the fight I thought I’d won a Lonsdale belt outright so for that to be taken away was awful, it went from bad to worse so I kept going, kept going, he put me down and I kept going and I hurt him and stayed on him because I knew he’d had his best chance to stop me and I was super-fit. I knew that I could stop him. The second time I put him down he looked at me and I winked at him and he got up! I think he was going to stay down but the third time he stayed down and I just fell on the floor.”
“The relief was unbelievable, I promised my Nan I’d win, which I’d done, and I’d wanted the Lonsdale belt outright and was the first person from Salford to have won one let alone get one to keep because when Joe Malcolm was British Champion in 1902 there was no such thing as a Lonsdale belt. So it went from everything being really bad to everything coming right in that one night. I came home and could spend time with my son; I’d kept my promise to my nana and had my Lonsdale belt. It was the best night of my life apart from my son being born which is a different type of feeling. The relief was absolutely amazing, I was sat there with my son on the couch and my belt next to me and I just kept looking at them because I couldn’t believe it, I was absolutely over the moon, it is a beautiful belt and I’m proud of it and really proud of what I’ve achieved and the fans in Salford stop me in the street and say ‘congratulations son, we’d began to wonder if anyone would do it’.’ I go around the gyms and show the kids the belts. I’ve always said this about Ricky (Hatton) - when I was starting off in boxing he was ahead of me and I’d watch his fights and we’d all look up to him, you’d see all the fighters in America and it seemed a million miles away. When I first turned pro Ricky had the British title and you think to yourself ‘he can do it so I can do it’ and now he has moved onto be undisputed world-champion and it gives you a sense of realisation that what seemed out of reach can be achieved. Why can’t you do it, all it takes is a lot of hard work and dedication, it is possible.”
It is clear that the Lonsdale belt still retains its mystique amongst British fans and fighters, Jamie, like Andy Morris, talks about going the Michael Brodie route to a world-title; British, Commonwealth and European. Brodie had a big impact on Jamie and you can still see it today in terms of Moore’s attitude to boxing: “I was a massive fan. The main reason being is that the first time I went to the Phoenix camp I was sixteen and Mike Brodie was training there and Mikie came straight over and said ‘how you doing mate I’m Mikie’ it made me feel really welcome and I’ve loved him since then. The first pro show I went to was when he fought for the British title against Neil Swain and what a fight that was! I remember thinking to myself ‘I hope I can be in a fight like that one-day!’ and even though me and Jones III didn’t last as long it was that good a fight and it was for the British title again. All those other titles that are about now are crap. You win it and you’re proud because you’ve done well and get paid well but it really meant something to me to win the win the Lonsdale belt and it is the same with others as well. You really are proud to have a belt like that.”
