By Sean McDaniel: Recently retired former WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KO’s) has a lot of sympathy for his former stable mate Enzo Maccarinelli (29-4, 22 KO’s) after watching Maccarinelli get destroyed in a 3rd round stoppage by Russian Denis Lebedev last weekend on the undercard of the Amir Khan vs. Andriy Kotelnik WBA light welterweight title fight at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester. The knockout loss for Maccarinelli, his third in his last four fights, has left him pondering what to do with his career and whether he should retire or not.
Calzaghe can’t say for certain whether Maccarinelli should retire or not, but in an interview on the Walesonline, Calzaghe says that it will be “tough” for Maccarinelli to come back from this given the amount of losses that he’s accumulated in such a short time span. Maccarinelli was once trained by Calzaghe’s father, Enzo, but left recently after being stopped twice.
“I still believe he [Maccarinelli] is an excellent fighter.” However, Calzaghe says “It looks like it could be the end of his career,” although he’s still not certain whether Maccarinelli should retire or not. Calzaghe feels that Maccarinelli is suffering a problem with his confidence after being defeated by David Haye and Ola Afolabi, and feels that it was the wrong thing to do for Maccarinelli to take a fight against undefeated fighter with big power like Lebedev coming off a knockout loss to Afolabi.
Calzaghe thinks that Maccarinelli needs to take time off away from the sport and spend time with his family for awhile. This is obviously something that Maccarinelli should have considered doing after the second knockout loss. One can’t blame Maccarinelli for wanting to get back into the ring quickly after the defeat at the hands of Haye, because after all, it was only one knockout loss and there wasn’t a concern at the time about potential lasting effects from the knockout loss.
Calzaghe feels that Maccarinelli needs to “put his family first” and focus on them rather than thinking about boxing. Calzaghe is concerned about the potential for “permanent damage.”
Calzaghe obviously has a good point, because the shots that Maccarinelli has been absorbing in his three knockout losses are hidden and it’s hard to say right now what is actually going on inside his brain. In suffering these knockout losses, there’s a risk that Maccarinelli could suffer after effects later on down the road after he retires from the sport.
Maccarinelli was once one of the best fighters in the cruiserweight division, beating the likes of Bobby Gunn, Mark Hobson, Wayne Braithwaite and Mohamed Azzaoui. However, in stepping up to take on David Haye in March 2008 in a unification bout, then the WBA/WBC cruiserweight champion, Maccarinelli suffered a brutal 2nd round knockout loss after getting hit with some huge right hands from Haye. Since that defeat, Maccarinelli hasn’t looked the same, fighting cautiously and without the same energy as he previously had in his three fights since that time.
Calzaghe also had some thoughts and words of advice for 22-year-old British and Commonwealth light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (17-0, 7 KO’s), advising him to “relax a bit. Let him fight some tough Americans, guys that will hit him back and put him in the trenches, and see what happens.”
Cleverly, who some people are saying is the next Calzaghe, has been destroying his British opposition since capturing the Commonwealth title last year. Since then, Cleverly has stopped all four of his challengers inside the distance, easily beating all of them.
Most recently, Cleverly wiped out Danny McIntosh, knocking him down four times en route to stopping him in the 7th round last weekend. Calzaghe feels that Cleverly needs to continue to be brought up slowly rather than being pushed quickly into a world title fight. Although Calzaghe likes what he sees in Cleverly in terms of skills, he says “There is only one Joe Calzaghe. There only ever be one.”
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