Exclusive Boxing Interview: Jamie Moore

Click for larger image © Mike Cleary

Rugged British Light Middle Champion Jamie Moore is set to defend his title against Matthew Macklin on 29 September at the GH Carnell Centre in Manchester, England on a Maloney Promotions bill. The Salford, England native spoke to SaddoBoxing on many subjects in this exclusive, can’t miss interview.

SaddoBoxing: First off, I hear you’re the first Salford boy to win the Lonsdale belt in over 100 years. That’s quite an achievement, you must be a bit of a hero back home?

Jamie Moore: “Yeah, everyone seems to know me here, I’m like a local sort of hero and it’s good to know…. A lot of the older guys from Salford are all big boxing fans and they’ve all said to me that they never thought they’d see anyone from Salford win the Lonsdale belt. So I’m glad really that I never knew about that fact before the fight, Steve Foster was the last person from Salford to fight for the British title, but he lost. He got straight in the ring after the fight and told me, (that Moore had won the Lonsdale belt) as he didn’t tell me before hand and I’m glad in a way.”

SB: So you knew straight after the fight about what you had just achieved?

JM: “As soon as the bell went and I was celebrating, he came in and told me. Yeah, it was unbelievable with all the fans there, it was the best night of my life that up to now apart from my little lad being born, boxing wise it was the best night I’ve ever had that, yeah.”

SB: This fight with Matthew Macklin seems to be long awaited and should prove more than just a good fight as it would sort out the bragging rights in Manchester. Are those bragging rights important to you?

JM: “Well, not really bragging rights, but respect really, because, well I like to think that I’ve got a bit of respect especially in the Manchester area because of what I’ve achieved. Obviously, Matthew trains here in the Phoenix Camp and it’s a hot bed for breeding good fighters at the moment in Manchester. He’s seen that, come to here and trained down here and like you say it’s a bit of a Manchester derby now because he’s been down here that long.”

SB: Matthew Macklin is seen as a bit of a local now then is he?

JM: “He is…erm well, not so much for the Manchester people but definitely for the people at his gym and especially for me, because I’m good mates with Billy Graham and Ricky Hatton and I’ve known Matthew for a few years now because he’s been training down here, so in that respect it seems a bit weird that I have to go and fight someone like that but its business at the end of the day.”

SB: As you mentioned Ricky Hatton, he says as you and Macklin are both good friends of his, he would prefer it if you both went different ways and didn’t fight each other?

JM: “That’s right, he has said that to me personally. I was the one who told him that the fight was happening, he had been thinking that I was moving on and giving the belt up, which was our first option as we’ve been wanting to move on for twelve months after I beat Michael Jones the first time. But obviously, the ways things have gone on with the politics side of it, they’ve kept me hanging on, and hanging on, and I only kept hold of the British title for the security of the money side of it, and as it’s proved it’s been a good decision.

“But I wanted to give the belt up, move on and box twelve rounders if it wasn’t for a title, if it was against good quality opposition and I was hoping that Sky TV would back us on that, but at that time they said “no, it’s got to be a title fight topping the bill.”

But I think now they have changed their tune and they are willing to have non-title fights as long as it’s a fight, but that was after this fight got made. I believe they wanted this fight to happen anyway, which I believed no one wanted to see me fight for the British title any more.

“I thought people wanted me to step up and see if I could handle it at the next level, but once I realised that people wanted this fight, the boxing fans especially wanted to see it, then I was all for it then because I’m a boxing fan as well and I like to see particular fights being made, y’know proper fights were you have to get stuck in and you can’t really pick a winner. And in a way, this is one of those fights, so that’s why I was initially thinking no one is going to be interested.”

SB: It is definitely. There’s more interest than ever in this fight against Macklin, isn’t there?

JM: “That’s what is getting me motivated, knowing that people are looking forward to it.”

SB: This fight has been postponed twice already, do you feel…….

JM: “Well, it’s been postponed once, as far as I’m concerned the reason being, it got postponed the first time because I was injured and then the second time it’s not really been postponed because it was never really on in the first place. It should have been on the night David Haye boxed last time and Sky decided to give the date to Haye instead and move this one to September.”

SB: Do you feel that you are in a better position now for this fight than you may have been if it would of happened earlier or do you wish this would have been sorted out some time ago?

JM: “Well yeah, I’m in a better position physically, because I’ve not got the injury. I’ve had a fight in between with a bigger guy in Mike Algoet who gave me five good rounds, I mean I was ready for the fight anyway, Macklin has not fought now for roughly five or six months because of it, so its done me a favour in that sense of it.”

SB: Do you think he may have a little ring rust then?

JM: “He may, but I’m not banking on it. I’m just going to go in expecting the best that he can be, but a big factor is he’s never made the weight for about three or four years and he’s been boxing at middle weight. He’s a big lad and it’s going to take it out of him.”

SB: What are you expecting from Matthew in this fight?

JM: “Well, I’m expecting him to bring a lot of pressure and body punching; typical sort of Billy Graham fighter, really. I know that style inside out, I used to train with Billy when I was sixteen and I trained with him up until just before I turned professional. I picked up a lot of things during that time, and a lot of the stuff they do is a part of my style as well but I’ve got different aspects to my style which my trainer Oliver Harrison has added in, and I think I’m the more adaptable fighter.

“Macklin has kind of one way to fight and I’m a good pressure fighter. I come forward and I’m strong and I can go for the body but I have other parts of my game and its it not working, then I can go for something else, but I don’t THINK that Matthew Macklin can do the same. I know he’s a good fighter and he’s good at what he does but, I don’t think he’s got anything else.”

SB: Do you think this will be the toughest fight of your career to date?

JM: Well, I hope not (lots of laughing). On paper, it looks like it’s going to be, so I’m fully prepared for it to go twelve good, hard rounds, I’m expecting it to be to be honest…I’m expecting it to be a really tough hard fight, I’m just hoping that with game plan that we’ve got and the talent that I know I’ve got, I should make the fight easy.”

SB: Although Matthew only has had 18 fights, you both have a common opponent in Andrew Facey, who provided the only loss to Macklin’s career. Have you taken a look at that fight to see how to beat Matthew?

JM: “I don’t really do a lot of watching really, I watch a little bit, and then I leave it to Oliver. really. Oliver does all the watching of the videos and sorts the game plan out and stuff and I box the tactics, box to the instructions but I just remember that Matthew never got going in that fight. He is awkward, Facey. I remember from when I boxed him, he’s sort of un-gamely, he throws punches from awkward angles, and I could see where Matthew was finding it awkward. But he was a bit lazy back then and I don’t think he is now. I think Matthew would beat him quite easy now, and the tactics for that fight, he wasn’t with Billy then.

“I know that a lot of the improvement from Macklin’s point of view is from Billy, because simply, Billy has just got him working, he’s got him doing the stuff that he should have been doing, but Billy’s got him doing that, and he’s fit enough to do it now, it’s the mentality and it seems like we all have it here in Manchester. It seems if you go in a boxing gym here, it“s to work, and when you’re a kid, you’re made to work, work, work and it’s obviously rubbed of on Macklin as well, as he has that sort of style now.”

SB: I think the north-west seems like an amazing breeding ground for boxing, music and football. It’s a great place for talent really isn’t it?

JM: “Course it is, yeah, it goes back to the Beatles days and everything. But, from the boxing side of it, I think it started with the Champs Camp in Moss Side with Phil Martin. At one time he had four British title holders at the same time in the same gym, which y’know it takes some doing that doesn’t it? There was Maurice Core, Carl Thompson, Frank Grant and Ensley Bingham, Oh and Paul Burke, but actually one of them wasn’t a champion at the same time as the others but they were all the rage, so there was like five of them.

“So, like I say it all started from there and it’s just gone from strength to strength, it’s the place to be for boxing. In terms of talent on the music scene, a mate of mine has a band called Hanky Park and I come out to his song actually, a song called ‘Crazy Guy’, a song which he’s written about me, cause he comes into my corner in my fights and stuff.

“The gist of the song is about the split personality, he’s saying I’m like one of the nicest people you can meet outside of the ring, but that hour before the fight, when I’m in the changing rooms and in the ring, I change into a different person. The thing that he’s picked up on is when people say with me being the champion, they are coming to take my belt, but I always say I train like a challenger, and I go in there as if I’m the challenger and I want there belt so I’m going after them.”

SB: That’s a good mentality really, not believing that you’re the champion and wanting to take someone else’s title…

JM: “Exactly, it is yeah, it works for me, instead of sitting there thinking someone’s trying to take it from me, you go and take it from them. You have to take the initiative.”

SB: How has training been going for this fight, have you done anything different to the usual?

JM: “Obviously, we do stuff which technique-wise is different from the tactics side of it, but training-wise, I’ve not done anything that I’ve not been doing for the last twelve months. I’ve done a lot more strength work; I go to Salford University every week and I have my weight monitored to make sure it is coming down properly in stages. and they have developed a strength programme there specifically for boxing, so I’ve been doing that now for the last twelve months and my strength is coming on leaps and bounds.”

SB: “And how long have you spent in preparation in the gym for this fight?

JM: “I’ve been in since just after the last fight. I have a quieter period but I’m never really out of there, I was back in the gym three days after the fight and I just take it easy and just tick over, making sure that I don’t get too out of shape. Usually, I’ll have a blow out for a week or two but I didn’t have one after this last fight because it was only ten weeks after, so I’ve not had a drink since April, so I think I’m due one and I’ll drink them dry in Salford.”

SB: I believe that Amir Kahn is a stablemate of yours; have you worked with Amir at all to improve your own speed?

JM: “Yeah, he trains with us down our gym. I’ve not really worked with him, but he is unbelievably fast isn’t he? I always work on my speed and that anyway, but I done a bit of moving around with him for his last fight because he was boxing a southpaw and he is really quick, but I’ve not done anything specifically with him, no.”

SB: Lots of people are saying that this is going to be the fight of the year and possibly even for years to come; do you think it will live up to the hype?

JM: Well, if it turns out to be my hardest fight, then I hope it is fight of the year, because I got “fight of the year’ last year and I don’t know if anyone has ever won “fight of the year’ twice on the run actually, I’ll have to look it up in the record books.”

SB: It could be another record for the Salford boy then, eh?

JM: “Yeah, that’s it, yeah, that would be alright wouldn’t it? Like I say, I’ve always wanted to be involved in good fights, for the entertainment side for the public. And if it is “fight of the year’ then I’ll be a happy man…as long as I’m the winner.”

SB: Going back into your past a little, you reclaimed your British title in a rubber match with Michael Jones in a fight with five knockdowns. Before you managed to stop him in the sixth, you went down first, two times in the third round. What happened to turn things around?

JM: I’ve told someone else this before in an interview, what happened was, my Nan had died two days before the fight..

SB: Sorry to hear that mate, sorry Jamie…

JM: “It’s ok, she was in hospital for eleven weeks, she was not well all the way through and she came out of it and then two days before the fight she passed away. I’d promised her that I would win the fight, she was over the moon herself, that I was the British Champion, so when it come to the fight, I was determined that I was going to win; I wasn’t going to let my Nan down. I had a five week old little boy who I had hardly seen because I was training for the fight, so I had a lot of stuff to fight for.

“During the fight, I got caught. I walked right onto a shot, y’know it was the old one, where both people throw a shot at the same time, and I just caught first and, erm, all I can remember for the second time I got knocked down, I couldn’t understand how I got knocked down, and when I watched back on video, my arse slipped through the ropes and as I went to put my arms out to stop myself from falling and he caught me in the back of my head and I went down.

“I remember being stood in the corner looking across at him, thinking “there is no way that you’re stopping me’ and the way I look at it, is that my Nanna pulled me through it. I was rolling on the ropes and stuff, making sure I wasn’t going to get caught clean because I knew that if he started to catch me clean, the ref would stop it. Then about fifteen seconds afterwards, I just sort of let go, because I knew he was blowing himself out trying to stop me and I just let some good shots go and I had him out on his feet by the end of the same round.”

SB: On the subject of Michael Jones, you’re the only person to of beat him. Does it mean a lot to you, to be the only person to blemish a certain boxers record?

JM: :Well, to be honest, I only thought about that the other day. I was looking at the ratings and seen his record, and I thought, ‘God, I’m the only person to have beat him.’ Yeah, it doesn’t mean a massive deal, it’s good, I mean obviously it’s good but I always knew that I could of beat him. I mean style wise, I’ve always been good against people like that, and I knew he wouldn’t be able to take the pressure I would put on him.

“I out boxed him the first time, I just knew I could beat him. He’s a bit old now he’s 31 and if he’d have gotten straight back on and started trying to make some moves, he probably could have still got somewhere.

“I mean, ideally, if I’d moved on and tried to get a European title shot or boxed someone in the top fifteen of the world, and Macklin would of fought Jones, then one of those two moved up the ladder and then we could of met higher up for more money. But obviously, it’s not turned out that way, and I’m fighting Macklin in two weeks time.

“But I think he can still do something with himself, Michael, I think maybe he should move up to middleweight because it must take a lot out of him coming down to light middle because he’s massive, he’s like 6ft 1in tall.”

SB: You lost your Commonwealth title to Ossie Duran, who then in turn lost it to Bradley Price, who has made one successful defence since. Do you have any plans to try and regain this belt with a possible shot at Bradley Price?

JM: “I lost the fight to Duran through injury. What happened was, I’d hurt my hip in training about two weeks before the fight and I thought it was alright. I had about for or five days off, I had physio on it and it felt fine. I was back training and stuff and it felt alright and then it just went in the fight. I threw a jab, stepped to the side to throw a left hand and it just went,. I didn’t know what had happened at the time, I just felt this pain. I couldn’t really stand up properly at all on my left leg, this was in the second round.

“I went back to the corner and Oliver wanted to pull me out and I was saying, ‘no, just let me try and take him out, I’ll take him out.’ Anyway, I got caught with a good shot, it was a good shot and the referee stopped it because I just couldn’t get out of the way of it. When I think back, I should never of got in there should I? But I did think I was alright, otherwise I would never have got in the ring. So, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve only been beaten once, which was against Scott Dixon.

“I mean there are circumstances for that where I could make excuses, but everyone has excuses for everyone, but legitimately I know Scott Dixon beat me, and I should of beat him, but I didn’t. He beat me fair and square that night. I have a injury loss and a disqualification loss, but Scott beat me fair and square but as far as I’m concerned I only have one loss.”

SB: That’s really it then, thanks Jamie, although one thing that intrigues me and this may seem a bit of a daft question, but what is the significance of your nickname Mikey?

JM: “It’s not my nickname mate, it’s my sons name. I think boxrec have seen it on my waistband and have just said it’s my nickname, but it’s my son’s name. I don’t have a nickname apart from “Moorsey’, but it’s not a boxing name.”

SB: Oh right, thanks for clearing that up for me then Jamie, and thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure to chat to you, you really are, like your friend from Hanky Park says. a hell of a nice guy outside of the ring, and I personally don’t want to meet you on the other side, thanks again mate.

JM: (laughs) “Yeah, no worries mate, thanks a lot.”