Enzo Maccarinelli vs. Ovill McKenzie II on Cleverly-Kovalev card on August 17th

By Boxing News - 07/09/2013 - Comments

maccarinelli2By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (36-6, 28 KO’s) will be facing Commonwealth light heavyweight champion Ovill McKenzie (21-11, 10 KO’s) in a rematch on August 17th on the undercard of the Nathan Cleverly vs. Sergiy Kovalev fight at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

The 33-year-old McKenzie stopped Maccarinelli in the 2nd round last November in a fight that was prematurely stopped by referee Ian John-Lewis. It was an odd stoppage because Maccarinelli was up against the ropes and covering up and throwing occasional shots back at McKenzie.

I have no idea what made John-Lewis pull the plug on the fight, but I guess he saw something with Maccarinelli that made him step in and halt the fight.

John-Lewis probably did Maccarinelli a favor in stopping the fight though because Maccarinelli wasn’t doing much in the fight and was getting pretty well dominated in the two rounds of action. He just looked over-matched in the fight and had it gone further, McKenzie would have likely gotten him out of there.

Maccarinelli hasn’t looked at all good since he moved down to light heavyweight. He looks painfully thin for his 6’4” height, and a lot of the power that he had at cruiserweight seems to have disappeared with him moving down. At the same time, I don’t think Maccarinelli has gotten any better and I imagine we’re going to see that on August 17th when McKenzie starts nailing him with big shots.

The only way I see Maccarinelli beating McKenzie in this fight is if he can get him out of there early before McKenzie has had a chance to nail him with a ton of big shots.

I know McKenzie can be out-boxed, as we saw in him losing to Tony Bellew in July 2011, but I don’t think Maccarinelli is the guy that can do it because it’ll require for him to be able to take a bunch of big shots for him to last the 12 rounds.

If Maccarinelli were able to use his height and reach to fight on the outside by using his jab, then maybe he could win by a decision. I don’t see that happening. Maccarinelli is just like British heavyweight David Price with his inability to throw jabs from the outside. For some reason, Maccarinelli at medium distance when he throws his jabs and he’s always within distance of getting nailed by his mostly shorter opponents.



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