By Mark Vester
Jamie Moore retained his British light middleweight title when he stopped Matthew Macklin in the 10th round of a fight already being called by some as a major candidate for this year's 'fight of the year' honors. The Manchester crowd was on their feet as both fighters rarely took a step back and threw leather all night long.
The fight began with both fighters connecting often and throwing a high volume of punches. It was Macklin's body work against Moore's right uppercut, jab and right hands. Moore was landing clean power punches, but Macklin kept coming and throwing plenty of bombs of his own.
Both men would battle at a near toe to toe pace for a majority of the fight, both of them rocked the other in the eight round. By the ninth round, both fighters appeared to be near exhaustion.
Moore began to come on in the tenth, landing a huge left hand that knocked Macklin out cold for the full count, prompting medical staff to rush the ring, as Macklin was minutes later put on a stretcher and taken to the hospital.
Moore now plans to give up his title and move up in weight.
"I said before the fight he is a quality fighter. I believe I am world class and he's heading to world class," Moore said. He's definitely European class and he'll come back, without a shadow of a doubt. I'll give this title up now, I've been at this level too long and hopefully Frank can engineer me to a European or world title shot. At the end I congratulated him and told him what a tough man he was, and he said the same about me. But, 100%, he'll come back and win the British title."
