Jean-Marc Mormeck

Mormeck in 2005
Personal information
Nickname	The Marksman
Nationality	French
Born	Jean-Marc Gilbert Mormeck (1972-06-03)3 June 1972 (age 53) Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, France
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	Light-heavyweight Cruiserweight Heavyweight
Boxing career
Reach	188 cm (74 in)
Stance	Orthodox
Boxing record
Total fights	43
Wins	37
Win by KO	23
Losses	6

Jean-Marc Gilbert Mormeck (born 3 June 1972) is a French formerprofessional boxer who competed from 1995 to 2014. He is a two-time unified worldcruiserweight champion, having held theWBA,WBC andThe Ring world titles twice between 2005 and 2007. He was the first boxer to hold unified cruiserweight title sinceEvander Holyfield in 1988, and the first fighter to holdThe Ring cruiserweight title sinceCarlos De León in 1987. He was ranked byBoxRec as the world's top 10 cruiserweight from 2001 to 2005 and in 2007, and was ranked No.1 in 2003 and 2004.^[1] Mormeck also challenged for the unified worldheavyweight title in 2012.

Mormeck was born inPointe-à-Pitre,Guadeloupe as an only child to Fulbert and Sonia Mormeck. When he was 6, he and his family moved toParis, France, where he still lives. Mormeck engaged himself infootball andMuay Thai as an amateur. After watching some boxing matches on television, he became inspired to excel in it.^[2]

He fought as an amateur in 1990 and turned professional in 1995. Early in his career, Mormeck lost 2 minor four-round bouts on points but kept winning for years afterwards. On 10 November 1998, Mormeck won the French light heavyweight title with a unanimous decision win over Alain Simon. He defended that title three times before relinquishing it.^{[citation needed]}

Later, Mormeck captured the WBA cruiserweight title by a 9th-round technical knockout win overVirgil Hill on 23 February 2002. Following three defenses with wins overDale Brown,Alexander Gurov and Virgil Hill again, he added the WBC cruiserweight crown to his collection on 2 April 2005, by way of unanimous decision overWayne Braithwaite.

However, Mormeck lost hisWBA and WBC cruiserweight titles toO'Neil Bell after being knocked out in the 10th round. This bout, on 7 January 2006, was for theundisputed (WBA/WBC/IBF) cruiserweight championship.^[3]

In their rematch, Mormeck regained the WBA and WBC titles back from Bell (Bell lost the IBF title over a dispute from the organization) by unanimous decision on 17 March 2007.

In the first defense of his second title reign, Mormeck lost his WBA, WBC and lineal cruiserweight titles as he was bested bymandatory challenger and knockout specialistDavid Haye on 10 November 2007.^[4] Mormeck was dropped heavily in the 7th round after being hit by a strong right from Haye. Although Mormeck rose up just in time, the referee realized that he was dazed and in no condition to go on, which caused the contest to be stopped and Haye winning the fight by knockout.

On 17 December 2009, Mormeck made his return to the ring after a two-year layoff, fighting for the first time as a heavyweight, againstVinny Maddalone. He outpointed the veteran heavyweight over 8 rounds.^[5]

Mormeck fought Uzbek heavyweight and WBA #7Timur Ibragimov (30–3–1, 16 KOs) on 2 December 2010, at Halle Carpentier, Paris.Mormeck started slowly but dominated the middle rounds to win a split decision (116–112, 116–111, 113–115).^[6]

In October 2011, Mormeck was signed to fight unified Heavyweight ChampionWladimir Klitschko on 10 December 2011 atEsprit Arena,Düsseldorf, Germany^[7] until Klitschko pulled out after having a kidney stone removed on 2 December 2011. The fight was postponed to 3 March 2012.^[8] In this fight, Mormeck attempted to be only the third cruiserweight champion to win a world title atHeavyweight, afterEvander Holyfield andDavid Haye. However, he was defeated by fourth round KO.

Following another extended layoff, Mormeck returned to the ring in June 2014 against Tamas Lodi ofHungary. Despite his early stoppage win, Mormeck openly expressed weariness for the fight game following the match, calling for a quick title shot before he could put an end to his career.^[9]

Instead, Mormeck had to get through a fight with formerEBU championMateusz Masternak, which he lost via majority decision. As he had promised before each of his final two fights,^[10] he retired following his defeat.^[11]

• Before his first encounter with O'Neil Bell, Mormeck had no nickname, so he asked his fans to come up with one. He did not know that the fans had selected the moniker "The Marksman" until it was announced at the fight.^[12]
• Mormeck made one appearance in a French television talk-show called "Tout le monde en parle" to raise his mainstream profile.^[13]

• List of cruiserweight boxing champions
• List of WBA world champions
• List of WBC world champions

• Boxing record for Jean-Marc Mormeck fromBoxRec(registration required)
• Jean-Marc Mormeck profile at Cyber Boxing Zone

• 1972 births
• French male boxers
• World cruiserweight boxing champions
• World Boxing Council champions
• World Boxing Association champions
• Living people
• Guadeloupean male boxers
• French people of Guadeloupean descent
• The Ring (magazine) champions
• Knights of the Legion of Honour

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from November 2015
• Pages with login required references or sources