By Terence Dooley
So what does that mean for the other title-belts, the recent spurious ones:
“I hope I can stick to what I said and go the traditional route, at the moment you’ve got the situation Andy Morris is in with Steven Foster Junior. Steven has the WBU title and Andy is British Champion, as far as I know the rules are they can fight but if Andy wins he has to decide which belt he wants to keep but Steve can’t win the British title because he’s classed as a world champion. If that was me I’d keep the British title because that is the most prestigious title and says more than the WBU, you can’t call yourself the world champion if you have the WBU title. Ricky Hatton will tell you himself that he wasn’t world champion until he beat Kostya Tszyu even though he had the WBU title. I feel if you are the British Champion you have a claim to be the best in Britain unless someone else is a world-champion and is above you in the rankings.”
By 2005 Jamie had gotten all the pressure out of his system, the ghosts of 2004 had been exorcised and he put on probably his most rounded display against another former amateur star in David Walker, it was a fight Jamie won decisively but it also sowed the seeds of a post-Lonsdale career in his mind:
“I knew I was getting better and Walker could be hurt, I was naturally bigger and thought ‘if someone like Jimmy Vincent can push him backwards he’s not got a prayer of pushing me backwards’ so I choose to stay outside at first to let him come onto my punches and every shot I hit him with I hurt him."
"He did well to last and that was down to his big heart. He was absolutely devastated after the fight and he must have thought he’d have won but everyone is confident beforehand so I said ‘don’t worry about it Dave’ and he said ‘I’ve got a little baby and I just wanted to get a Lonsdale belt for my baby like you’ve got for yours.’ You know, you have other guys in line for the title and you need to give them a chance that is why I wanted to move on after the Jones fight but for whatever reason I couldn’t get a European title fight so I had to have a British title defence to keep busy. Sky didn’t want me to have an international contest and got me the Walker fight so I said I’d do it but wanted to move on afterwards because I didn’t want to stagnate.”
Stagnation is a key word for the recent history of the British light-middleweight division, we have had a stack of quality fighters over the years but for one reason or another they rarely fought one another. I asked Jamie if he had regretted not being around during the period when the division was buzzing with fighters: ““Not really. Well I do in a way because I’d liked to have fought them all but on the other hand who’s to say I would have? Wayne Alexander was British Champion, Takaloo was WBU, and Steve Roberts was WBF. Wayne was in the position where he was British champion and didn’t want to fight for the WBU or whatever. The other two couldn’t fight Wayne without giving their belts up and they had to earn plus they were with rival promoters. Say for instance Wayne Alexander was British Champion, Takaloo wasn’t WBU Champion and Roberts wasn’t WBF Champion, somewhere along the line the British boxing board would have gone ‘right there is mandatory challenger (Takaloo) and you either fight him or you have to give the title up.’ Now every fighter I know would not give that up because all boxers want to keep that title and all boxers want to fight so the promotional politics wouldn’t be involved. The board would say ‘you have to fight that guy’, like I had to do with Jones and the promoters won’t be able to stop the fights.”
Once again Jamie alluded to the fact that titles can be a hindrance rather than a help: “As I’m concerned someone who is watching boxing knows who the champions are and knows a good fight whether a title is on the line or not. I was supposed to fight Alexander for the WBU title but I’d rather had him challenge me for the British or just have a twelve round fight. Look at Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward, they fought a brilliant series of fights and there was no title on the line. I’ve been watching Nigel Benn’s old fights, you’re talking about the Benn/Eubank/Watson era and Benn is fighting ten-rounder’s on top of the bill against decent opponents. It just shows that they don’t need a title fight. Nigel Benn sold, he was a draw, obviously I’m not near that level yet but I am confident that you can put me top of the bill against anyone live on Sky and it will be a good fight. I don’t think I’ve been in a fight that has not been good to watch or controversial. It is good to know people like it and promoters will put you on.”
So Jamie had missed out, like others, on the strong division we had in the early part of this century yet as he points out: “At that time you also had David Walker coming up and he was an exciting fighter, I got him at a time when he was on his way down but just say he didn’t come across Jimmy Vincent and fought me for the British title that would have been a massive fight. As far as I’m concerned it is all circumstantial, if that fight (Walker-Moore) would have happened on BBC I’d have been the next big thing but at that stage I wouldn’t have let it go to my head which is what I would have done earlier-on, before I fought Dixon, because then I was stopping everyone and believed in it. I’m not that shallow now and I’m quite experienced even though I’ve only had 26 fights. I’ve been through a lot in my career and all that made me a better fighter. The Dixon fight was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“The full story is that I’d been trying to make welterweight and the Christmas before (Dixon) I had to have my tonsils out, I was well on my way to getting down to welterweight properly but had my tonsils out and came to the gym 12st 6lbs and I couldn’t get the weight off. I was getting to about 11st 2-3lbs which is what I get too normally and couldn’t get the rest off. I found out afterwards that I wasn’t eating properly anyway and the guys at the University told me that I was starving my body of all the goodness left. So in the fight itself I was absolutely knackered. I couldn’t even finish training the week before because I had no energy whatsoever. This is what I said before about experience because now I wouldn’t even take the fight I’d pull out of it. Back then though I thought ‘It’ll be alright, it doesn’t matter’ but I always say that everything happens for a reason. I put Dixon down in the third so if he stayed down I’d have known no different about dieting and training but he got up and he beat me up. He showed me ‘this is professional boxing. You are not going to put me down there and I’ll stay down’ you know, like I was used to guys doing. So I got a really, really good lesson and I had a word with myself and said ‘listen that is what it takes to be a champion’ Dixon was an Intercontinental champion and he might not have been the best fighter in the world but he was a good tough, competitive fighter. He taught me the best lesson I’ve ever been taught.”
I asked Jamie if it is a lesson you can only learn in the ring itself: “Course it is. You can teach people everything in the gym but you can’t show someone that sort of professional boxing. The grit and determination that is shown, I’d never come across that before and Dixon was stubborn and he gritted his teeth then taught me a lesson. I tore into him without thought. Now I chip away and chip away, I’ve got a good shot to the body but to the head I’m not a one-punch fighter. I usually get to a guy around the middle rounds and that is why I’ve got so many stoppages around then. I was taught by Dixon not to rush in and let the blood go to your head.”
Now a more rounded and focussed Moore is relishing the upcoming fight against Matthew Macklin for the Lonsdale belt. It is a fight that has everything; two very good domestic fighters meeting for a wonderful title; it also has a back-story when one considers that Jamie could have easily ended-up being trained by the experienced Billy Graham. The fans want the fight to happen right now, postponements have only wetted our appetites and when I asked Jamie about the fight his eyes betrayed the fact that he is really up for this defence of his title.
“They made Macklin the mandatory so Sky said they wanted me to fight Matthew. The thing was I wanted to progress my career but I understand that people want to be British Champion, it is not fair for me to keep the title, if Sky would have said it is Ok for me to do 12 rounder’s I’d have moved on and let other people fight for it because everyone deserves to earn good money from the belt because they put a lot of effort in and deserve a chance. I’d like to give other people a chance because I know what it feels like, but the politics of the TV side of it won’t let it happen. I think they got their fingers burned from the alphabet titles and putting crap fights on but I won’t be in a crap fight no matter what is at stake. They want me to fight Macklin and then do that (move onto other fights) but we’ll just wait and see what happens. It should have been July but they only had two dates and had David Haye lined-up for one so they said it’s going to happen in September.”
It is a fight everyone in the gyms of Manchester are looking forward too including the two protagonists: “Yeah I’m looking forward to it, I was looking forward to defending my title again and second of all looking forward to proving I’m past British level and if they keep me at this level they are not doing me any favours. They need to look at the way they class different fighters and not tar everyone with the same brush. They’ve had guys who it is quite clear cannot step up beyond the British level but I think I’ve shown enough to prove I can and I can at least try at that level and move on. They should encourage me to do that rather than drag me back but I’ll have to do it again, I’ll have to prove myself again.”
“Macklin is a good fighter, there is no doubt about it and if I move on he will probably be British Champion but he is not going to take the British title of me because I know for a fact that I will beat him. I like Macklin, he is a nice lad and I’m looking forward to fighting him. I’m good mates with Ricky and Billy and it was a bit too personal for me but its been made and I’m sure Macklin would have preferred to fight someone for the vacant title rather than me but if it has got to be it has got to be and I’m looking forward to fighting him. He is going to have to learn some of the lessons I’ve learnt along the way and they are good lessons, it doesn’t feel like it at the time but they are things you need to learn.”
Jamie appreciates that there is also a back-story to this fight with Matthew and the fact Matthew is trained by Billy Graham: “When I talk about circumstance and little things making the difference between going that way and this way that is what I mean because I was training with Billy since I was 16 (on my days off from work). When I finished work and turned pro I was training for the first six weeks with Billy and the thing was Steven Foster asked me to come and spar with Paul Burke and that changed everything. If I didn’t go to that gym I wouldn’t have got with Steve Wood (Jamie’s manager) and it was the best thing that happened to me, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Everything has happened for a reason. It shows you the fine differences between what happens and what doesn’t. Like I say that is how it goes and I could have very well been in the opposite corner.”
I asked Jamie for a sneak preview of the fight: “Its gonna be a really good fight, especially for the first half of the fight, it’s gonna be a war, I’m not going to take a step back and he’s not going to take a step back but I know for a fact that he’s not learned the things I’ve learned for the simple fact that he’s not fought the same opposition that I’ve fought. Yes he spars with Ricky all the time but even though I’m a pressure fighter Ricky is an orthodox pressure fighter and throws different sorts of shots from me, it is a totally different perspective. And as the fight wears on he’ll realise what he has never had done to him before, whether he’ll cope with it and go through the fight, finish the fight and learn the kind of lessons I learned remains to be seen but I’d love Macklin to come back afterwards and win my title. I’ve got no problems with Billy, he’s been my mate since I was sixteen and I’ve known Matt a while and he is a belting lad, I wish him all the best but it is going have to be after I’ve moved on which I will be doing straight away. I’m thinking of giving the title up the day after the fight. If it was another fight with someone else I’d probably be disinterested right now but because there is that little personal thing there it is driving me on, it is one of those little things where it is your pride more than anything. There is nothing left for me to do at British level.”
It is going to be a really good fight, it cannot fail to excite the fans and when it is over one of these guys will have a really impressive win on their ledger. Jamie insists he is up for the fight and there was a look of excitement in his eyes reminiscent of the old ‘Dark Destroyer’ himself. Jamie has come a long way since 2004, he told me that he and Colleen are expecting another child due for February and for this fight he will be taking nothing but positive personal circumstances into the ring.
Post-boxing Moore hopes to continue his involvement in the sport, he has a coaching license as well as a promoters license and says he is learning about that side of the sport from Steve Woods and Oliver Harrison, it is also good for young fighters in the gym to receive advice from Jamie, who let us face it has been there and done that: ““Obviously I’ve been there myself so can be outside the ring seeing what happens. I just like helping the lads out and trying to improve them by giving them advice. I love it, I’ve always loved helping the lads out, even when I was an amateur, you give them advice and stuff and I think they appreciate it. Some of the kids probably look up to me because I’m British Champion and they take on board what I’m trying to say. Sometimes I think they can take it for granted when the coach tells them to do something but when another fighter tells them they take it on board better.”
I asked him one last question. The phone rings and Steve Woods tells him he has secured a dream fight - who is in the other corner? “Oscar De La Hoya. That would be great for me after everything he has achieved in boxing. And the thing is he has done it by being a nice guy and there is a place for that in boxing. I’d love to fight him and beat him then have one last fight before my three years is up.” A rematch with Oscar for twenty million perhaps: “Listen mate, like Bernard Hopkins said I’d get out of my grave for 20 million!”
It was good to see the hunger in Jamie’s eyes and he struck me as a proper fighter, the kind of guy you would love to talk boxing with but would hate to see advancing on you from the other corner. Probably the best way to preview the upcoming fight between Jamie and Matthew is to say: Don’t Blink.