Darren Barker vs. Simone Rotolo on March 9th at the Wembley Arena, in London, UK

By Boxing News - 02/18/2013 - Comments

barker3423By Scott Gilfoid: Looks like promoter Eddie Hearn wasn’t able to scratch up the big name that he wanted to find for his fighter former EBU middleweight champion Darren Barker (24-1, 15 KO’s) to fight on March 9th at the Wembley Arena, in London, United Kingdom.

Instead of getting a big name for Barker, Hearn found 37-year-old Italian Simone Rotolo (35-3, 15 KO’s). Barker and Rotolo will be fighting for the vacant IBF Inter-Continental middleweight title.

Needless to say, this has got to be a big disappointment for the 30-year-old Barker because he was hoping to get a shot against Andy Lee, Matthew Macklin or one of the other top middleweights in the division. Facing Rotlo has got to be a tremendous letdown.

You can make a pretty good argument that this is a big step down from Barker’s last opponent Kerry Hope, who Barker stopped in the 4th round last December.

Hope is a decent, but lacks power. But Rotolo appears to be a sizable step down from Hope, and you don’t like to see a fighters’ career going backwards unless they just lost in their last fight or are coming off of an injury.

Barker did have an injury not long ago, but nothing since his fight with Hope. This fight is the result of Hearn not finding someone for Barker to fight.

The funny thing is WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin was open to giving Barker a title shot, but Hearn doesn’t like the match-up and he doesn’t see it as a worthwhile risk despite the fact that it would be giving Barker a chance to win a world title.

I don’t understand that. If it’s about sport, then why not take the fight? Hearn said it himself that it’s about the sport.

Barker already got a big fight against WBC Diamond middleweight champion Sergio Martinez two years ago in October 2011, but Barker got worn down by Martinez’s big power shots and was taken out in the 11th round. Since then, Barker has fought only once in beating Kerry Hope.

Rotolo has stepped in up a couple of times in his career and been beaten on both occasions in losses to Sebastian Sylvester and Hamlet Petrosyan. Those aren’t big step up fights, but Rotolo lost them just the same.

Rotolo has since won his last eight fights since his loss to Sylvester in 2007. Unfortunately, all eight of his opponents have been 2nd tier. He beat someone named Lorenzo Cosseddu by a 10 round unanimous decision I his last fight. I’ve never heard of the guy before.



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