THE EYE OF THE STORM
THE difference between a good fight and a great fight might be this: with good fights you remember the details of the fight, whereas with great fights you remember where you were when watching them and how you felt as greatness unfolded before your eyes.
In the case of the 2006 British light-middleweight title fight between Jamie Moore and Matthew Macklin, one of the greatest to ever take place in a British ring, recollections come to me quicker than they normally would when casting my mind back to British title fights.
As if the fight happened yesterday, I can recall standing on a plastic chair in order to see the television my parents had for some reason decided to position high on top of our fridge. I can then remember, with my eyes inches from the screen and the fight barely underway, shutting the kitchen door in the hope that none of my six family members would interrupt what I was experiencing.
“FIGHTERS OVERTHINK A LOT. THE BEST ONES CAN THROW THAT ASIDE”
These details, innocuous and forgettable any other time, only linger by virtue of their association with the fight playing on screen. The action. The drama. The conclusion. In other words, what Jamie Moore and Matthew Macklin produced together on September 29, 2006 in Manchester was so special it gave unexpected significance to the mundane and made an ordinary Friday night somehow extraordinary.
Now, 15 years on, Moore and Macklin offer their own recollections of that night in Manchester, knowing it is, for them, impossible to forget something that all who experienced it, either at the time or since, will forever remember and want to discuss.
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
: I got made mandatory to fight Jamie Moore for the British title but the fight was put back two or
