by Scott Gilfoid: Middleweight contender Matthew Macklin (29-5, 20 KO’s) never stood a chance against the force of nature WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (27-0, 24 KO’s) last Saturday night in getting stopped in the 3rd round.
Macklin looked like a deer being chased by a hunter in that fight, as he scurried around the ring looking for a safe place to hide. Unfortunately for Macklin, there were no were safe places and he was blasted to the canvas with a shotgun left hand to the body by Golovkin in the 3rd.
Macklin’s loss was his 3rd defeat in his last 4 fights, and that’s journeyman type stuff when you’ve got that many defeats in a short period of time. The frequency of Macklin’s defeats seems to be sending a clear message that Macklin doesn’t have the talent to compete against the cream of the middleweight division.
So where does Macklin go from here? He’s currently still ranked #11 by the WBA, but I expect that to change by the WBA’s next update. We could see Macklin no longer ranked in the top 15.
My advice is for Macklin to go back to the domestic level route by facing the likes of Darren Barker, Martin Murray, Billy Joe Saunders and John Ryder. Facing those guys will give Macklin a chance to see where he’s at.
I mean, if he can’t even beat those guys then it’s pretty clear that it’s time to retire because those are guys that Macklin would be expected to dominate if he were a true world class contender and not just a domestic level guy. Macklin could face some or all of those guys as a confidence booster and a test to gauge what he’s got left.
Right now I think it would be a really bad idea for Macklin to face a talented fighter because the chances are they’d beat him by going to the body like Golovkin did. Besides that, Macklin’s confidence has got to be pretty low right now after all those losses.
He keeps stepping up and getting smacked down by the quality opposition he’s been facing. That tells me that Macklin needs to back off and start facing some easy marks because he can’t afford to keep getting beaten left and right if he doesn’t want to end up as a journeyman.
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