Rhodes defeats Moore – Boxing Results

By William Mackay: 32-year-old Ryan Rhodes (43-4, 29 KO’s) pulled off a major upset last night when he stopped champion Jamie Moore (32-4, 23 KO’s) in the 7th round to capture his EBU (European) light middleweight title at the Bolton Arena, Bolton, Lancashire. Moore, 30, was in control of the fight for five rounds, but suddenly seemed to gas out in the 6th round and start taking punishment from the quicker southpaw Rhodes. In the 7th, Rhodes tagged an unsuspecting Moore with a big right hook that sent him down on the canvas. Moore got up and continued to fight back fairly well for the next half a minute.

However, between Moore’s punches, Rhodes landed a big overhand right that sent Moore backpedaling to the ropes. Rhodes then finished the badly hurt Moore with three hard right hands to the head, causing referee Howard John Foster to step in and stop the bout at 2:25 of the 7th with Moore still standing more or less. Moore was bent over as he was taking shots and there’s little question that he would have gone down if Rhodes had been able to land another series of shots.

Moore fought well until the 6th round. Up until that time, he was landing the harder shots and staying on top of Rhodes to try and minimize his movement. But where Moore made the mistake was by standing directly in front of Rhodes, not covering up and not respecting Rhodes’ power. It was as if Moore was thinking pure offense and not giving a care for defending himself.

Moore was wide open all night by standing right in front of Rhodes and he rarely blocked anything in the fight, other than with his face. Sooner or later, I knew it was going to catch up to Moore because he’s just not defensively proficient and wasn’t focusing on trying to avoid Rhodes’ shots. Moore’s poor stamina seems to be a factor caused by his string of early knockout wins dating back to 2007 in a 11th round stoppage win over Andrew Facey in October 2007.

Since that time, the longest fight that Moore has had was a 5th round stoppage win over Esau Herrera in May 2008. Rhodes really didn’t do much in the fight other than staying upright and fighting enough rounds until Moore tired out on his own and was vulnerable. Moore’s absent defense made him even more vulnerable because he was just standing there with a hit me sign on his face as he stood in close to Rhodes.

Moore was firing away with lefts and rights while in close, but his punches had little effect on Rhodes, who mostly kept on the move, showing different angles for his shots and making Moore use his legs to move follow him. Rhodes looked like he was having fun against Moore and even through Moore was winning most of the rounds, you could see that it was tiring him out having to move so much.

The win gives Rhodes the WBU title and may possibly open some doors for a World Boxing Council light middleweight eliminator bout against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in the future. I would favor Rhodes in that fight.

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