By Sean McDaniel 29-year-old Matthew Macklin (28-2, 19 KO’s) is being given a great opportunity in his title match against WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm (35-2-1, 15 KO’s) on June 25th at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany. Macklin is roughly the same age as Sturm, but his experience is much less than the German based Sturm because much of Macklin’s career has been spent being matched against domestic quality opposition.

Only recently has Macklin been put in with a decent quality fighter in Ruben Varon, and he struggled badly in this big step up, barely winning the fight by a close 12 round decision. Macklin is going from that fight straight into a bout against an even better fighter in Sturm and that’s probably not the wisest move for Macklin to take. He’s obviously not going to turn down the title shot and the big money that comes along with it, because he might not get another crack at a title for some time.

However, Macklin really needed at least four to six good fights against top quality opponents before fighting for a title shot in my view. I would have preferred to see Macklin facing guys like David Lemieux, Domenico Spada, Nobuhiro Ishida, Daniel Jacobs, Sebastian Sylvester, Craig McEwan and Darren Barker before being given a shot a title. At least that way Macklin would have enough experience and boxing knowledge to have a fair chance of beating a guy like Sturm. I don’t give Macklin any chance right now because he’s very average in his skills and his experience is limited.