TMK martial arts

PARKERSBURG - Clarence Moore fought the fight he wanted to but in the end the talented boxer from Charleston didn't have enough according to the judges here Friday night at West Virginia University at Parkersburg as Wirt County's Mike Sheppard captured a unanimous decision to win the vacant state cruiserweight title.

Neither fighter was knocked down in the bout that went the 10-round distance, but Moore used a straight right to the face of Sheppard to force the only standing eight count of the match and that came in round seven.

Sheppard looked comfortable for most of the bout aside from taking the seventh round shot and faltering somewhat previously in the sixth round. In the sixth, Moore used some hard rights and was able to keep Sheppard in the corner and eventually caused the ex-Tiger to bleed.

In the end, two of the judges had Sheppard winning by scores of 96-93 and 96-93 while the closest Moore got was 95-94 on the other card.

After the fighters used the first two rounds to feel each other out, Sheppard (11-8-1, 6 KOs) began to work Moore's body. The Wirt County teacher was the first fighter to draw blood as his uppercut to Moore's face in the fourth started a nose bleed.

However, by the time the fight was over both men had waged a serious war that was filled with plenty of blood, sweat and cuts.

A Sheppard uppercut in the fifth appeared to be devastating to Moore (5-5-1, 5 KOs), but the Charleston fighter came out hard in the sixth and seventh as he had his best rounds of the fight.

Although it was Sheppard who was laughing during the fifth round, Moore felt he was doing what he needed to do and when he finished the seventh the Charleston boxer was all smiles.

In round eight, the two combatants continued to pound on each other and Sheppard made a move in the ninth that included a right cross followed by a left uppercut that got the crowd into a frenzy.

Despite a solid left hook that caused bleeding out of Moore's left nostril, Sheppard was unable to put Moore to the canvas.

The crowd was largely in favor of Sheppard as he received chants in round 10 and used a quick jab to set up his other punches.

When the final bell sounded, the two men both thought they had done the necessary work to win the title and even posed for a picture together before the final results were read.

The undercard featured a trio of kickboxing matches with winners coming from Lincoln County in Walter Miller and a pair of Nitro fighters in Dustin Briscoe and Matt Garretson.

Steve Whitehair, a 16-year-old Parkersburg resident fighting for the first time, won a unanimous decision against Charleston's Taylor Eastman. The bout had tons of action and finally got the crowd going for the first time.

Area fighters Joe Kute (Grantsville) and Jason Donnally (Elizabeth) were defeated by Steve Click (Teays Valley) and Rob Fletcher (Charleston), respectively.

Fletcher had the only boxing TKO, which came in the second round. Briscoe knocked out Parkersburg's Dustin Morgan with a hard right cross to the face at the start of the first round in the only kickboxing knockout.

Edison Middle School teacher Jason Czerr captured a unanimous decision against Parkersburg's Jeremy Powell while Wheeling's Josh Baker did the same to Jimmy Haddox of Parkersburg.

Glenville's Keith Barr and Clarksburg's Chris Prescott both had unanimous decision triumphs against Wheeling's Nate Lockran and Aaron Fleming of Parkersburg, respectively.

In the final amateur bout before the main event, a bloodied J.R. Dowler of Parkersburg took a unanimous decision against an unhappy Bruce Runkle of Wheeling.

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Congrats to Mike and all of our fighters. Everyone did great!

Not me, I've been coughing up green stuff all weekend. This sucks! Oh well guess I should learn to have a little humility.

heck man you did good. its hard to when your fight sick as a dog

[quote="TankLT"]Not me, I've been coughing up green stuff all weekend. This sucks! Oh well guess I should learn to have a little humility.[/quote= "mma_gal"] Hey TankLT I taped your fight and you be no means embarrased yourself watching the fight in my eyes it was a close fight, and if you would not have been sick I believe the other dude would have been in bad trouble.