Jamie Moore - "I’m a different animal at middleweight!"

On Saturday night at the MEN arena in Manchester, Jamie Moore returns to the ring after defeat last time out in a barnstormer versus Ryan Rhodes which saw him lose his European light-middleweight crown. Moore (38-4) is now fighting at middleweight and has been matched against tricky Belarusian Sergey Khomitski (21-7-1).

Jamie has been mixing it with the best in Britain and Europe as a light-middleweight for years now and was on the brink of a shot at the WBC world title. The fact that he just could not do the 11 stone limit anymore has been well documented and now it’s time to move up a division and push himself to the top at middleweight.

During his near six month break from the ring Jamie has had surgery on an old shoulder injury. ”You know what I feel brand new now; I’ve had to have surgery on my shoulder again. I had the original operation 12 months before I fought Ryan Rhodes, then two weeks after the operation I tripped over my little girl and thought I had pulled the pins out!"

“I told my surgeon and he told me to come back when I had some time off from boxing. It’s been sorted now and I have recharged my batteries,” Moore added.

Jamie continues to train at Oliver Harrison’s gym in Salford where his preparation for this fight has been first class. ”I'm training like a demon for this fight, its made me realise just how much it was taking out of me to make light-middle. In the past I just didn’t have the energy to train. I’ve started eating well again now and the difference in the gym has been unbelievable.”

“This fight is at 11 stone 8 or 11 stone 9 so I have got an extra nine pounds to play with. Believe me it was real real tough getting down to 11 stone. It's still not easy but these nine pounds extra makes a real difference,” admitted Moore. 

“Martin Murray, who is one of the best young prospects in the country, has boxed the kid i’m fighting (Murray won on points over eight rounds). I’ve done a lot of sparring with Martin who has been helping me out with the lad’s style. He gave Martin a good fight and even had him down in the seveth round,” continued Jamie.

Saturday night's fight is no gimme, the Belarusian has been in with some good quality fighters. Jamie has been keeping tabs on his opponent and knows exactly what he has to do.

”I always do my homework on fighters, especially at this stage of my career I can’t afford to cut corners. I have made sure I know what i’m up against, I’ve got a game plan that we feel is going to make the fight ten times easier for me. The only people that have beaten him have been good fighters. He has only been stopped once by unbeaten German Gennady Golovkin, who’s meant to be the next coming!”

I’m sure everyone reading this remembers last October's fight with Ryan Rhodes, it was an absolute corker. Rhodes weathered the early storm where Moore was landing his big shots then Jamie seemed to run out of gas. Jamie showed great respect to Ryan afterwards, this is what he had to say about that the fight.

"If Ryan would have beat me when I was on my game I would have done exactly the same thing and held my hands up and said I got beat by the better man, then I would have maybe thought to myself ‘that’s my level’ and that’s me done”

“But I know the reasons behind losing. It was well known round these parts what I had to go through to make the weight. So it wasn’t a case of me losing and being disappointed in myself, obviously I wasn’t happy that I lost but in a weird sort of way I was glad, a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The only reason I stayed at that weight was because I was so close to a WBC shot Frank Maloney, Steve Wood and Kerry Kayes all told me to move up because it was too big. I was just waiting for this WBC shot then I was moving up,” admitted Moore.

Jamie had KO’d his previous four opponents in five rounds or less. “I had been getting away with it at light-middle because I was finishing people early. The fight with Ryan I didn’t have anything left after three rounds.”

Can Jamie emulate the same success at middleweight going forward? ”Without a doubt, I’m a different animal at middleweight! People were saying they had never seen me this good over my last few fights and to a certain extent they were right because I was stopping them all. In hindsight now I wasn’t even able to train properly so that can’t possibly have been the best of me.”

He is hoping that his high ranking with the WBC will be carried up to his new division so he can push towards a world title shot. “The WBC still have me ranked in the top ten at light-middleweight so once I’ve fought a couple at middle hopefully they should like for like rank me in the new division,” hopes Moore. 

Finishing off, I got an experts opinion on Saturday’s main event. “I think Haye will beat Ruiz. I think Ruiz will tuck up nicely for a few rounds and maybe even have some success. Then David will get his timing and after four or five rounds take him out and look good in doing so”

Jamie’s fight is part of the undercard of David Haye’s first WBA heavyweight title defence against John Ruiz. The fight is televised on Sky Box Office at 21.00 on Saturday night.