Jamie Moore rubbishes Jack Catterall complacency talk

If Tyrone McKenna upsets the odds and defeats Jack Catterall tomorrow night in Belfast it will be because he is the better fighter and not because the English star has overlooked ‘The Mighty Celt’.

Catterall [21(12)-0] stepped in at a months’ notice to face the Belfast light welter following the unfortunate second withdrawal of Phil Sutcliffe Jr and was installed as a heavy favourite.

With Catterall signed to promoter Frank Warren, he is very much the ‘a-side’ of tomorrow night’s clash at the SSE Odyssey Arena and there has been talk of fights with WBO champion Maurice Hooker and stablemate Ohara Davies.

Indeed, so extensive has been the talk, some have suggested that the WBO Inter-Continental beltholder is overlooking McKenna [16(6)-0-1] and already has his eye on ‘bigger’ fights.

McKenna himself suggests this, and comments from Catterall stating that the Lenadoon southpaw will only be his third toughest opponent have added fuel to the ‘overlooked’ fire.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, though, according to Catterall’s coach Jamie Moore – who also trains Belfast featherweight star Carl Frampton.

Moore feels this belief that McKenna is being overlooked is more due to the media rather than anything.

The former Irish, British, Commonwealth, and European light middleweight champion explained how “the only people that have ever mentioned the fight for Jack with Ohara Davies or Terry Flanagan or anyone like that is the media.”

“The media people ask him the question and he [Catterall] always says ‘well, y’know, I’ll get through this fight, fingers crossed, everything going well, and then I’d take that fight’.”

“Stop feeding it,” Moore jokingly told the assembled media at the final press conference for the Mick Conlan Homecoming card.

Moore has only worked with Catterall for his past two fights – one-round blowouts of Kevin McCauley and Christophe Sebire – and he has been impressed by the former British champion and current WBO #5.

The Salford-Kilkenny coach described how “Jack has been a dream to work with and with him being so talented it makes my job ten times easier. Jack has shown massive improvements in our five months and he will take it to another level.”

“You’ve not scratched the surface with Jack and over the next three years he will go on and on.”