By Shaun Campbell: Former European light-middleweight champion Jamie Moore confirmed his retirement from the sport a few days ago. Although Jamie never fully got the recognition or the fame he deserved, his thrilling encounters with Matthew Macklin, Michael Jones and Ryan Rhodes to mention a few, will live forever in the minds of the British boxing community. Those who haven’t seen those fights surely need to look them up on youtube and see what a fantastic warrior Moore was. On medical grounds he has been advised to retire at the age of 31.

Every fighter has that one great fight which cements their legacy. Ricky Hatton will have Kostya Tszyu, Lennox Lewis will have Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather will have Oscar De La Hoya, and Arturo Gatti had three with Micky Ward. In Jamie’s case, his brutal battle with Macklin will go down as his signature night. This fight was voted as one of the fights of the decade in British boxing. Jim Watt and Ian Darke had the pleasure of commentating on the fight. At the time Moore was the British light-middleweight champion, and Macklin (who was the middle-weight European champion until he broke his nose and was forced to give up the title a week ago) was the challenger. Not many expected this fight to go 12 rounds, and it didn’t. A classic backwards and forwards fight where Macklin set a ferocious pace, which Moore kept up, landing cleaner, more effective shots. Moore eventually knocked out Macklin in round 10, who lay unconscious for minutes.

He then went onto defend the title and won the vacant European belt with a 3rd round knock out over Michele Piccirillo. Sadly for Jamie, he lost this belt in another fantastic match with Ryan Rhodes. It was thought that with a successful title defence against Rhodes, Moore would finally get the world title shot. Unfortunately his world title shot never came. Moore lost a middleweight contest in his last fight on the undercard on the Haye-Ruiz bill. At this point it looked like the likeable, modest fighter from Manchester was done. It was not a fitting end to entertaining career which a fighter gave so much to the sport, and did not get enough back.

His passion for boxing is unquestionable as he said he retired with “great sadness and regret” and described boxing as the sport he still loves. Jamie Moore retires with a record of 32 wins (23 KOs) and 5 defeats. He does deserve to go down as one of the most exciting fighters Britain has seen. The big nights in America never came, and many more people should have been aware of him. I urge people to please go and watch his wars with Macklin, Rhodes, and Jones. On behalf of the boxing fans in Britain, thank you for the memories Jamie Moore and good luck in the future.