Moore Has Eyes Set on Lonsdale Belt.

Light middleweight Jamie Moore has won twenty of the twenty-two professional fights he’s entered into but none of them come close to carrying the importance of tonight’s contest at the Altrincham Leisure Centre in Manchester. In the opposite corner of the ring will be none other than Michael Jones, the man Moore decisioned a year and a half ago to take not only

the vacant British title but Jones’ Commonwealth crown as well. While Moore lost the Commonwealth to injury and the efforts of Ossie Duran he not only still has the British belt, but has successfully defended it twice since defeating Jones. Now comes the all-important third defense. Should Moore defeat Jones a second time he gets to keep the symbol of the British title, the Lonsdale belt, forever.

If you happened to see the first Jamie Moore-Michael Jones fight, you may not have been the only one surprised at what went on in the ring in Liverpool that night a year and a half ago. Jones was coming into the match as the unbeaten Commonwealth champion and that after a sterling amateur career. Few gave Moore the benefit of the doubt as he had already been stopped inside the distance by former Commonwealth welterweight king Scott Dixon. He was also stepping in to fight Jones as a late replacement, with less than a week’s notice. Once the bell rang however, Moore gave Jones no respect and even less peace. Jones bravely tried to hold off the aggressive challenger but was never able to dictate the terms of the bout and consequently absorbed a frightening amount of punishment in a losing effort. “Michael Jones has been going around saying that I never should have beaten him and that he’s going to prove it in the rematch,” said Moore. “So, I’ve got an even bigger incentive this time to do a better job on him than the one I did the first time.”

One of the remarkable things about the first Moore-Jones contest was that the Manchester man had only five-day’s notice to prepare for a double championship bout. With a more appropriate length of time to train for this British title defense, Moore feels that he can only improve upon his work. “As always, I’m going into this fight expecting to go the full distance, twelve rounds in this case, but if it finishes early then that’s a bonus,” he said. “The first time we fought, because it was on such short notice, it was always in the back of my mind to make sure I kept a little gas in the tank. Obviously, I proved that I could do the twelve rounds easily. I do think that with the training that I’ve been doing and the game plan I’m going in with, I’ll do a better job.”

Something that may give Jones hope is that while Moore handily defeated the likes of Gary Logan and Andrew Facey while defending his British belt, he was knocked out by African Ossie Duran, who ripped away Moore’s Commonwealth title in the process. Most fans and media expected Moore to handily defeat the former Commonwealth welterweight champion from Ghana, but an injury suffered in training camp became a nightmare that Moore could not control in the ring. “I was too big and strong for Duran to be honest and I felt in command up until I planted my left leg to throw a hook midway through the first round,” he recalled.” The impact of that tore the tendon that holds the thigh muscle to the hip. After the round ended, the referee came over to the corner and said that if Duran started catching me that he was going to stop the fight because in his estimation I was in no condition to carry on. I tried to carry on but I got caught with a good shot. I’m hoping that somewhere down the line I’ll get to fight him again so I can straighten out my record but I’m not too concerned about that.”

Manchester has been Britain’s “fight capital” of late and Moore feels tremendous pride to hail from the region. That along with his chance to win the Lonsdale belt has added fuel to his competitive fire going into this fight with Michael Jones. “I’m from an area of Manchester called Salford and to the best of my knowledge, there’s never been a British champion from Salford until I won it, at least since about 1918, when they started giving belts out with the championship ” said Moore. “So, if I beat Michael Jones again, I’ll be the first person ever from Salford to win the Lonsdale belt. If I do, all the local papers will be going crazy. There’s a lot of motivation for me in this fight.”

Should Moore prevail he’d like a few more domestic dustups before heading off to the inevitable bigger and better situations. Included on his to do list are former IBO titlist Richard Williams and an unbeaten high risk, low recognition European champion by the name of Sergei Dzindziruk. But Moore is well aware that those possibilities are no more than vapor unless he can put it all together tonight against a man bent on revenge and reclaiming lost honor. “Michael Jones was pretty one paced last time we fought and I was just too quick; I had too much for him, really,” stated the British champion. “I expect him to be better this time as he’ll try to reverse what happened before but I’m very confident he won’t be able to do so. I feel that I’m the one who has more room for improvement in regards to the first fight. I don’t think that Michael Jones can change his style; he’s been doing it too long now, he’s thirty years old. If anything, I think that I’m coming to the fight better equipped while he’s coming to do the same thing. It’s not like he’s a fighter who can add a bit of boxing to what he does. He’s a pure boxer and not really a hard puncher. He isn’t going to be able to hold me off for twelve rounds, that’s for certain.”

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Curtis McCormick can be reached at thomaspointrd@aol.com