Jamie Moore: “Amir Khan’s lost a few high profile fights and I’d like to see him try to reverse those losses before he gets Mayweather”

I recently had an opportunity to interview former light middleweight British champion, Jamie Moore to get his thoughts on his career and the current boxing scene. Moore currently works with Sky Sports during many of their boxing telecasts, and has also established himself as a well respected trainer among the British ranks. In this interview, Jamie shares his views on Frampton vs. Quigg and the upcoming Fury-Klitschko bout. Moore also gives his thoughts on Mayweather-Pacquiao, Amir Khan’s future, and more. Here is what Jamie Moore had to say.

Robert Brown: Do you think we’re going to see Scott Quigg fight Carl Frampton?

Jamie Moore: I believe we will see it but I don’t think we’re going to see it straight off. I think it’s gonna be a while before we do see it. I haven’t been involved in any of the negotiations, I’m not involved in any of the teams, so I really don’t know the ins and outs.

From what I can gather, it’s coming down to the TV and who really has the majority share of the purse. I do know that Eddie Hearn has made a big offer to Carl Frampton — I think it was something like 1.5 million, plus a cut of the profits of the pay-per-view. That’s big money but Barry McGuigan believes at this moment that it could be made through ITV and terrestrial TV, not just initially but in the long term for building profiles and stuff. I think that’s where the sticking point is at the moment

Obviously Carl Frampton is now tying to crack America, which I believe will be a massive success over there, I think they’ll love him. That could be the sticking point for the fight because will a fight like that made sense in America? Maybe, but I reckon it has to be somewhere like New York where the Irish contingent will get down to it. Then again, that’s gonna take away from Scott Quigg’s grasp of the fight and he’ll have to take a smaller cut.

There’s politics but I know for a fact that Scott Quigg and Carl Frampton want to fight each other, it’s not that they won’t fight each other. I saw an interview with Scott Quigg saying that the only person stopping the fight from happening is Barry McGuigan. I don’t know that to be the case but if that is the case then it’s a shame because I know Barry himself would have like to have been involved in fights like this and been given the opportunity to earn massive money. Hopefully the guys can come to some sort of an agreement but I think the politics are the sticking point.

Robert Brown: A fight that’s recently been announced is Tyson Fury vs. Wladimir Klitschko to be set in Germany for October 25th. How do you assess that fight?

Jamie Moore: Don’t get me wrong, Tyson Fury’s a great fighter and he’s improving. He’s really young and he’s a big guy and his last few fights he’s been boxing southpaw a lot more, so I feel that he’s gonna come out against Klitschko and he’s gonna box southpaw because it’s much more difficult to get your jab off against a southpaw.

Klitschko’s main weapon is his jab, so I think Fury’s first little tactic in the fight will be to start southpaw — whether he’ll carry that through the whole fight, I don’t know, but I feel that it can give him problems.

I don’t think Fury will win, I think Klitschko still has a lot left and although he’s nearly forty years old, I just think that he still has a little bit too much for Tyson Fury at this stage. But I think Fury’s gonna be up there for years to come. He’s young, he’s improving all of the time and he’s such a huge guy. I know him, I’ve been in his presence and he’s absolutely massive.

Robert Brown: I want to get your thoughts on the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. The fight was underwhelming for a lot of people, did it play out how you expected? What do you think is next for Manny Pacquiao? Do you think he should retire of go down to 140lbs?

Jamie Moore: That was an understatement that it was below what was expected. Pacquiao came out and let everyone know about his shoulder injury, which some people weren’t happy about, but at the end of the day, a lot of people were putting money on Manny Pacquiao and they wanted an answer to the reason why he didn’t perform.

I definitely think the shoulder played a part, but I’ve gotta say, I don’t think he’s the fighter he was four or five years ago. I believe he would have given Floyd Mayweather a much tougher fight, maybe right after the point where he fought Ricky Hatton. I think it would have been a much more even fight then, I still think Mayweather would have edged it, but I think Pacquiao would have given him much more problems.

Those little phases in the third and fourth round where Pacquiao went in and put his punches together gave Mayweather a few problems, but he couldn’t sustain it. I think four or five years ago he would have sustained it and given Mayweather more problems. I still think Mayweather would have won.

I think maybe the time is right now for Pacquiao to walk away from boxing. I don’t think he’s ever going to hit the heights where he did before, and he doesn’t have anything left to achieve and he doesn’t need to do it financially. I think his legacy has been built now and it’s intact and I wouldn’t want to see him ruin it now because he got knocked out pretty badly by Marquez and I wouldn’t like to see him get knocked out by somebody who wasn’t capable of knocking him out before then.

His legacy is intact now and I wouldn’t want to see him going in against guys who he would have blasted out of there and losing to them. I would like to see him walk out with his head held high.

Robert Brown: What do you think about an Amir Khan vs. Kell Brook fight? Hypothetically who do you think wins and do you think Khan is a bit gun shy about fighting Kell Brook?

Jamie Moore: Yeah Amir’s been calling out Mayweather for a while and for whatever reason it hasn’t happened. I understand it from Amir’s point of view, he’s looking for the big fights, as in the golden prize against Mayweather and he doesn’t really want to settle for anything less.

The fact of the matter is, Amir Khan’s lost a few high profile fights and I’d like to see him try to reverse those losses first. He hasn’t been back and reverse the Danny Garcia loss, he hasn’t been back and reversed the Peterson loss. He has had some terrific wins at welterweight.

Amir’s saying that Kell Brook needs to have a few more big profile fights but I don’t know, I think the timing is perfect for it, from a British boxing point of view. I don’t think he can get any better timing than the fight right now. If those were to fight tomorrow, I think I’d have to slightly edge towards Kell Brook, but not with any confidence.