By William Mackay: Matthew Macklin felt good about what was going on in the fight going into the 11th round of his fight tonight against Sergio Martinez in Madison Square Garden, New York. Macklin saw himself up on the scorecards and on the verge of winning the fight until disaster struck in which the 28-year-old Macklin walked into a big left hand from Martinez and was knocked down. Macklin got up but was put down once more before the bell sounded ending the 11th round. Macklin never got a chance to come out for the 12th because his trainer stopped the fight in between rounds.

At the time of the stoppage, Macklin was even one judges’ scorecard at 103-103, whereas the other two had it 105-101, and 105-101. The two knockdowns really hurt Macklin to the point where he needed to score a knockout to win the fight going into the 12th.

Macklin told Sky Sports News “I thought I had the most momentum; I thought I was in the driver’s seat. Some of the rounds were close, but I thought I was dictating. I was the one that was boxing to the game plan, and I was taking him out of his.”

That may be, but the fight changed after the 7th round when Macklin knocked Martinez down. Macklin says he tired out in the last part of the fight and didn’t move his head as much as he did earlier. However, it seemed from this vantage point like Martinez just wanted it a lot more than Macklin did and had the tools in the form of his superior power to put his foot on the accelerator to pull ahead of Macklin and then eventually get a stoppage. It wasn’t about Macklin not moving his head enough; it was more of a case of Martinez sitting down on his punches a lot more than he had earlier and putting a lot more pressure on Macklin than he could handle. It was like Martinez was putting together a last second school paper that he needed to do in a big hurray and he did a great job of getting it done quickly.