News – Afolabi Looking For Opponent; Froch Sparring With Pascal
April 10th, 2009
By Dave Lahr: Interim WBO cruiserweight champion Ola Afolabi (14-1, 6 KOs) came out of nowhere to destroy popular British cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli (29-3, 22 KOs) in a 9th round stoppage on March 14th on March 14th at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, Lancashire. Afolabi, who comes from England but has learned his trade in the United States under Freddie Roach, initially hurt Maccarinelli with a right hand in the 3rd round, and then came back later to knock Maccarinelli with another big right hand in the 9th.
The win puts Afolabi, 29, in an enviable position to fight big money fights for the first time in his seven-year boxing career. It was assumed that Afolabi would be fighting WBO interim champion Victor Ramirez for the title in the near future.
Unfortunately, Afolabi hasn’t heard a word from Ramirez’s German promoters. Perhaps it’s a good thing for Ramirez, because I would give him next to no chance of beating Afolabi if the two were to fight. Ramirez, in fact, is probably fortunate to have beaten Alexander Alexeev, who Ramirez stopped in the 9th round in January 2009, because Ramirez looked unspectacular for most of the fight and seemed to win only because Alexeev ran out of gas.
Afolabi is open to any fight as long as it pays well, mentioning opponents like IBF cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek and number #4 ranked IBF/WBC contender Marco Huck as possible fighters that he’d be interested in getting in the ring with in the future.
There was talk of Afolabi possibly fighting Maccarinelli in an immediate rematch, but it’s unclear whether Enzo’s handlers will allow him to take a risky fight like this right away given Maccarinelli’s bad knockout loss to Afolabi in March.
Personally, I think it would be a dangerous thing for Maccarinelli to get back in the ring with a hard puncher like Afolabi so soon, because Maccarinelli was badly hurt twice in his fight with Afolabi and probably needs some extra rest before taking on a hard puncher like Afolabi again.
Maccarinelli has been stopped two out of his last three fights, albeit against hard punchers, but it seems like Maccarinelli needs to take a break and get some confidence boosting wins under his belt before he takes on someone like Afolabi again.
I had have little doubts that Afolabi would take a fight with Maccarinelli in a second of the fight pays well for him. It probably would, because there’s not a log of other options out there in the cruiserweight division for Afolabi unless it involves him fighting a unification match with WBC champion Giacobbe Fragomeni or WBA title holder Guillermo Jones.
Froch Sparring with Pascal
Hoping that he can get some useful tips in how to defeat former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (24-0, 19 KOs) is using number #4 ranked WBC super middleweight contender Jean Pascal as a sparring partner for the Taylor bout. Froch needs a sparring partner than can partially mimic the blazing hand speed of Jermain Taylor and Pascal, perhaps more than any other super middleweight with the exception of Andre Dirrell and Allan Green, comes closest to being as fast as Taylor.
Froch and Pascal will reportedly be sparring today for preparation for Froch’s April 25th title defense against Taylor at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Froch, 31, will be making the flight to the United States in order to seek more world wide publicity and to get a better opponent than he would have likely received should Froch had chosen just to defend his title in England.
Tags: 15 Responses to “News – Afolabi Looking For Opponent; Froch Sparring With Pascal”
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James, how can Macca get KO’d by a “huge” shot from someone who, in your words has no power? Man, this is boxing, you prime your opponent for a KO, or to prevent him from being efficient with BODY SHOTS. It fatigues him and his arms get lower and lower so you can kill the head. Again rounds 5, 6, 7 and 8 show the whole story. Whenever close, when Macca was trying the big shots, most of which were by the way deflected or blocked with arms and elbows, Ola was going to the body with rapid fire shots.
Those may look like nothing but it saps your energy and you’re ready for the taking. See, the difference between the two is that Ola got in the ring with a 12 rounds strategy while Macca got in the ring with a one punch strategy and when that didn’t work he had no other answer. And Enzo Calzaghe is not to blame for that, Macca is the one who’s so in love with his power.
I still don’t agree. Afolabi didn’t land enough tremendous body punches and spent far too much time ineffectively.
Maccarinelli lost because he got nailed by a huge shot. Whether that shot was because he wasn’t concentrating or because he deliberately decided to take a round off, I don’t know. Given his lack of preparation, the former doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable.
Anyway, tremendous body punches or no body punches, that shot in the 9th would have put Macca in trouble regardless. Look what happened in the 3rd round. Macca was wobbled by another big right hand (albeit a more orthodox rather than looping one IIRC).
If he hadn’t caught Macca in the 9th, the Welshmen would have stepped on the gas again in the 10th IMHO. Whether he’d have run out of gas before the end is a moot point, but a distinct possibility given the aforementioned lack of prepartion.
Afolabi needed a knockout to win when the fight entered the 9th. He got it. However, it wasn’t an impressive performance overall.
So Mac punched himself out and the feather fisted Afolabi “pushed” him and he couldn’t get up. Just like Mayweather, who by your standards doesn’t have any power did to Hatton. Again, you should ask Eric Fields how feather fisted Ola is. And I’ll refer you to rounds 5, 6, 7, 8 to understand why Macca got knocked out (since my previous post with links to videos of the fight didn’t make it here). Now if you want I’ll admit that he doesn’t have a ONE PUNCH KNOCKOUT power, which is not to say that he’s not HEAVY HANDED. Being heavy handed is by the way much worse for the opponent than the guy who’ll take you out with one shot. Being heavy handed just destroys a guy.
Afolabi fought Macarinelli with the perfect tactics, i said before the fight that all he had to do was eliminate Macs left to the body, he did that and Mac had nothing. Its probably a more accurate statement to say Afolabi used a “rope-a-dope” approach, Mac more or less punched himself out and was knackered by the end of the 5 and 6th rounds, he was there for the taking at that point.
Afolabi sparred with the Klitschkos, what made Mac think he could blow him out is beyond me. Afolabi is not a hard puncher, if he was, all of anonymous’ imaginery head and body shots would have floored Mac.
Mac punched himself out, was exhausted and got caught out. Simple as that. Shows what happens when you dont prepare correctly.
Hey, James I pressed submit comment button too fast. Afolabi WAS tremendously body punching Macca. Maybe you’re looking the fight with biased glasses. Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV5cDNyo1BU
And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kuakt-qV3o&feature=related
Watch these rounds closely, without the sound and you’ll understand why Macca got knocked out in the ninth round. Have you ever heard of the term “Playimg Possum”?
If you fail to see what’s going on you should switch to MMA.
Personally i believe afolabi was laying traps for maccarinelli because if you watch the fight again your notice he was slipping maccarinelli jabs and throwing very quick counter rights over the top and quite often they were hitting the shoulder but the punch that afolabi landed was a counter right hand over the top which landed flush!
When you can be bothered to put your name to your opinions, I’ll consider them worthy of consideration. If you were so confident of your opinion, you’d put a name to it. Until such a time, your comments are worthless.
FWIF, Afolabi didn’t land tremendous body punches, especially not in quantity needed to slow a fighter down ready for a planned attack later on. Maccarinelli was landing to the body as well during these rounds, not to mention the head, thus he was in complete control. Afolabi landed a huge shot that got him out of a lopsided points loss. End of.
Maybe you failed to see the tremendous body punches in the middle rounds, which was a set up the knockout punch. Please go back and look at rounds 5 through the KO and you’ll understand that boxing is all about tactics. Macca may have been the flashier guy, just like Eric Fields was but what Afolabi was doing through those rounds was put money in a savings account and in round 9 he collected the dividends. That’s how boxing works, my friend.
Afolabi does have decent punch on him, but it’s not what I’d call top level power.
What is more startling is that some believe he was laying a trap for Maccarinelli. He wasn’t. He was getting beat up then landed the bingo punch.
Taylor hant ven stopped any for ages and hes fighting Froch who i feel probly one of the best chins in the Super Middle weight devision cant see froch getting put down so Callum Stevenson can shut up looooser lol
This guy should try his luck against Marco Huck of Germany.
Hard puncher?????????
Yes he’s a hard puncher. Just because he doesn’t have a lot of KOs doesn’t mean that he can’t punch hard. He’s a defensive fighter, always looking to make the opponent miss and counter. But I guess most so called “boxing fans” are like the people who buy books because the cover looks good. They read a record and decide that the guy can’t punch. And you call yourselves BOXING FANS?
I’m British, and I just wanna see Froch get schooled and put on his ass by Taylor!
Afolabi got lucky. I dont like the welsh guy, hes crap and didnt even train properly. How can you go into a championship fight without any sparring.
Hard puncher????????? Please, check your facts first!! Afolabi should take a pop at a title, why not, its slim pickings in Cruiserweight.