Macklin: I lost to Martinez because switched off a little bit upstairs

By Boxing News - 03/18/2012 - Comments

Image: Macklin: I lost to Martinez because switched off a little bit upstairsBy Scott Gilfoid: Matthew Macklin partly explains his 11th round stoppage defeat to Sergio Martinez last night as resulting from him not moving his head as much as he had earlier in the round and dealing with fatigue that has begun to set in around that time of the fight. However, I think Macklin isn’t giving Martinez credit for stepping up his game after having been knocked down by Macklin the 7th.

You don’t all of a sudden lose it one round. Macklin went from fighting competitively before the 7th round knockdown to getting blasted over and over again like his head was a big bell for Martinez to ring. How can use lost it in the same round that quickly? No, the difference here is Martinez stopped playing around with Macklin and got serious as a heart attack on him. That’s when he started whipping him like no tomorrow.

Here’s Macklin’s excuse he gave to HBO’s Larry Merchant after the fight to try and explain why he got spanked “I switched off a little bit upstairs, stopped moving my head a little bit. It wasn’t extreme fatigue because it wasn’t that sort of fight but I certainly slowed a little bit, stopped moving my head, got a bit heavy on my feet and he caught me square a few times. That allowed him to get his confidence up and get in a rhythm.”

No, I disagree with Macklin’s interpretations of why he got the living daylights thrashed out of him. It wasn’t because he got tired, and wasn’t as simple as him not moving his head from side to side. Macklin never really did do a great job of moving his head to begin with, so he’s kidding himself here by seeing this as the reason why he started falling apart. Fatigue wasn’t the reason, because he started crumbling the moment he knocked Martinez down, if you want to call it am knockdown. I call it a trip because it looked like a Judo move where Macklin had his leg stuck out and he pivoted and the force of his shot sent Martinez tripping over his left leg.

It was a judgement call made by the referee and I don’t blame him for messing that call up. But the fight changed once Martinez got up off the deck, because that’s when he started tearing Macklin apart like a ragdoll. I’m sure it probably feels better to Macklin to believe that he lost because he got tired and he didn’t move his head enough, but I think that’s not the reality of it. What I saw happening was Martinez getting embarrassed after being knocked down and once he was slightly humiliated, he got angry and forgot about his nervousness and just started beating Macklin up the way he should have been in the 1st round had he been same state of mind.



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