By Scott Gilfoid: The struggling middleweight Matthew Macklin (29-5, 20 KO’s) will try to turn his sinking career around on December 7th against junior middleweight Willie Nelson (21-1-1, 12 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the HBO televised Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Joseph Agbeko card at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. Also on the card will be James Kirkland vs. Glen Tapia.
This card is going to have some stiff competition from a Golden Boy Promoted card on the same night on Showtime head-lined by Paulie Malignaggi vs. Zab Judah. That card has Austin Trout vs. Erislanady Lara and Sakio Bika vs. Anthony Dirrell. That seems like a better fight card than the Rigondeaux-Agbeko one, but that’s just my view. I’m sure a lot of fans would prefer to see Rigondeaux face Agbeko than Malignaggi vs. Judah.
Macklin, 31, has really been struggling in the past 2 years. He’s had losses to Felix Sturm, Sergio Martinez and Gennady Golovkin during that time frame. The defeats to Golovkin and Martinez were especially bad given that they were stoppage defeats.
Macklin needs to rebuild big time with his career, because he’s getting beaten on a regular basis now and that’s not a good sign. I don’t know that Willie Nelson is the right guy for him to be facing at this point in his career because Nelson can punch a little, and he’s really tall at 6’3″. I rate Nelson as an excellent puncher. His chin may not be great, as we’ve seen in his fights against Luciano Leonel Cuello and Vincent Arroyo, but Nelson can definitely punch. He’s going to put Macklin in a position where he’s going to have to let his hands go early in this fight or else he’ll get up getting taken out again in lightning fashion like he did in his last fight against Golovkin. Macklin was stopped by a body shot in the 3rd round by Golovkin last June. Nelson is a good body puncher, and he’ll have no doubt watched Macklin’s fight against Golovkin and will be looking to replicate what Golovkin was able to do.
A loss here for Macklin could spell the end of the road for him, at least in terms of him being a world class fighter. I mean, he can still be a decent European and domestic level middleweight, but if he can’t beat a guy like Nelson, then there’s probably no reason to keep fighting at the world level.
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