Jamie Moore on Antonio Tarver, drugs in boxing, Ricky Hatton's protege and being avoided

A Magic Man in the twilight, the return of a drugs cheat, Ricky Hatton's protege and avoiding dangerous bouts. Here's Jamie Moore...

Is Antonio Tarver vs Dillian Whyte a bout you'd like to see?

It's a good fight for Whyte and not a very good fight for Tarver. Tarver is long past his best and I don't think he's been anywhere near it for years. Probably the turning point was the Rocky 6 movie - I don't think he's come back from that period in his career.

The reason it's a good fight for Whyte is that if he can get in there and do a good job on him, then it's a good name to have on his record. At this stage of his career, I can't see Tarver being effective against a big, strong, young heavyweight like Whyte. I always thought that at 35, fighters at light-heavyweight and under are getting old. 40 years old for a heavyweight is probably the limit. Of course there are exceptions like Evander Holyfield and Bernard Hopkins but Tarver has never been particularly evasive. His success has mainly been down to his southpaw style and he's not defensively brilliant, so facing Whyte wouldn't be great for him.

Erkan Teper was allowed to fight last weekend. What does that say to David Price and boxing as a sport?

It shouldn't be allowed to happen and I'm dead against it happening. Anyone found taking drugs and cheating should be banned for life. David Price should be completely naffed off. He's had two setbacks in his career and both of the guys that have beaten him were found to have been taking drugs. It's all very well saying that it's good for him to say he's unbeaten in a way, but the mental effects of those defeats won't go away. It'll take a lot to come back from it.

He'll need all his mental strength but I think Price is good enough to recover from the two setbacks. He can have another section of his career now and he can make it a successful one. But Teper should never be allowed to box again when he's gone in there potentially putting someone's life at risk. 

What do you know about Ricky Burns' new mandatory challenger Kiryl Relikh?

I didn't know much about him until I went over to Ricky Hatton's house on Sunday. He's his promoter and was speaking about him. We had a good chat and Ricky kept telling me that the young Belarussian can really whack.

Ricky is 100 per cent confident that Relikh is going to beat Ricky Burns. He's won all but two of his 21 fights by knockout and that in itself tells you he's a dangerous fighter. I've got no experience of seeing him fight to go on but I absolutely trust Ricky Hatton's opinion and if he's saying that then there must be something to it. Apparently, he's got a very exciting style so I think Ricky's hoping the people of Manchester take him to their hearts. He might find difficulty speaking in broken English but not a lot of people can understand us Mancunians a lot of the time anyway!

Does Isaac Chilemba have the right to be annoyed that Sergey Kovalev vs Andre Ward is already arranged?

You could perceive it that way, yes. On a more practical note, Kovalev is such a brutal puncher that he's always going to be dangerous. It's a calculated risk by Kovalev to fight Chilemba ahead of taking on Ward in the big one, and I don't see Chilemba giving him too many problems.

Chilemba took some hefty shots from Tony Bellew and definitely caused him a lot of problems in the first fight so he can be a handful but I'm not sure about him against Kovalev. I've said before I'm not a fan of tune-up fights in general but I think Kovalev will just be too good and hit too hard for Chilemba.

Do you feel that you were avoided by anyone during your career? Did you avoid anyone yourself?

I felt Sergio Martinez avoided me. Obviously, he was a terrific fighter and it wouldn't have been because he was scared of fighting me. We offered him the fight a few times and it was very, very close to being made on a couple of occasions but he went down a different path. He obviously made the right choices because he was involved in some big fights and I think he looked at me as high risk for low reward.

I could have easily have avoided Matthew Macklin. I was in the situation where it was a lot of risk and not a lot of reward. It didn't progress my career but Manchester bragging rights wouldn't allow me to avoid him. I felt they were trying to push me into a corner over the British title but I'm glad I went through with that fight because everyone wants that kind of signature fight.