By Scott Gilfoid: Cruiserweight Ola Afolabi is picking WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (26-0, 23 KO’s) to knockout challenger Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KO’s) on June 29th at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort, Mashantucket, Connecticut.
While Afolabi likes Macklin a lot and thinks he’s got a lot of power, he thinks Golovkin is going to be just too strong for Macklin to handle and he sees the fight ending in a knockout for Golovkin.
Afolabi said to Sky Ringside “I think it’s going to be a knockout. The guy [Golovkin] hits incredibly hard. I’ve been in the ring with heavyweights, cruiserweights, light heavyweights, and I get in the ring with this kid and every time he hits me, I saw whoa…Macklin has the style to walk into something.”
Afolabi notes that Golovkin boxing ability isn’t the best in the sport, but his power is just so good that nobody can stay in there with him for long without getting knocked out. Macklin will be no exception. He does walk into shots because he likes to punch it out with his opponents, and that’s pretty much his only way of fighting.
I don’t think Macklin will be able to stick with a different kind of game plan if his trainer Buddy McGirt decides he wants to keep him from slugging. I’m sure that’s exactly what McGirt is trying to drum into Macklin’s head in training camp, but under fire, I see Macklin reverting back to what he’s always been, a slugger. Macklin won’t be able to change his stripes to be anything more than what’s he’s always been, even if McGirt is telling him between rounds to box.
At best, I see Macklin following in Gabriel Rosado’s footsteps by moving around the ring for six or seven rounds, giving the rounds away in a purely survival-oriented game plan. But sooner or later, Macklin will decide to stop running and make a stand. Once that happens, Golovkin will quickly bury Macklin with big power shots and leave him either down on the canvas or bloody and battered to where the referee will quickly stop the carnage.
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