Boxing Preview: Jamie Moore vs. Roman Dzuman

ByRicky Jones

A good fight card takes place tonight at Crow Tree Leisure Centre in Sunderland, England headlined by Jamie Moore’s maiden European Light Middle title defense against Ukraine’s Roman Dzuman.

Moore, 31-3 (22), finally got an opportunity to fight for the European crown two months ago after years of false starts and the 30 year old Salford southpaw simply tore through ex-IBF Welter and two-time former European light middle ruler Michele Picirillo, who was knocked out in two rounds.

Moore rarely has big fights this close together but wasn’t taxed very hard by Piccirillo and should be in good fighting shape in tonight’s defense against Dzuman.

Dzuman, 23-6-1 (10), has some names on his resume that will be recognizable by British fans during his nine year career at welter and light middle, including Jawaid Khaliq, James Hare, Jozsef Matolcsi, Eugenio Monteiro and Vladimir Khodokovski.

But the 33 year old Lviv man’s best chances to win meaningful bouts have come over the last two years when Dzuman faced the lineup of Zaurbek Baysangurov, Alexander Abraham, Lukas Konecny and Ivan Gontsa, who collectively possessed a 80-3-1 (51) record when Dzuman fought them.

That’s a pretty healthy list of opposition and it’s not surprising that Dzuman didn’t win a single one of those bouts but he did hold Gontsa to a draw, took Konecny the distance and was competitive until he was stopped by European champ Baysangurov and Abraham.

Dzuman will likely offer up stiffer resistance to Moore than Piccirillo was able to manage but he’d have to pull off the perfect performance of a lifetime to lift the European crown tonight from the surging Englishman.

The undercard at Crow Tree LC is a good one and is headed up by the rematch between British Heavyweight Champion Danny Williams, 40-7 (31), and John McDermott, 25-4 (16).

Last July, McDermott was on his best ever form to have Williams on the verge of a KO loss in the fifth but Williams came back to win by majority decision despite losing three points along the way.

Following his surprising eighth round stoppage loss at the hands of Albert Sosnowski in November, look for Williams to come in much lighter in weight and more motivated than usual to defeat McDermott.

European Super Bantam Champion Rendall Munroe, 18-1 (8), will look to add the vacant Commonwealth title to his trophy cabinet but must defeat an unknown quantity in Ghana based opponent Issac Nettey, 3-2-1 (1).

Former Olympic Bronze Medallist Tony Jeffries, 1-0 (2), will make his hometown debut in Sunderland when he faces Germany’s Roy Meissner, 2-9 (2), and big punching heavyweight Larry Olubamiwo, 4-0 (4), takes on Russian journeyman Daniel Peret, 15-21 (6).