By William Mackay: Former World Boxing Organization (WBO) cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (32-4, 25 KO’s), now a 2nd tier fighter, stopped his fellow 2nd tier opponent Russian Alexander Kotlobay (18-2-1, 12 KO’s) in the 1st round on Tuesday night to capture the European Boxing Union (EBU) cruiserweight title Yubileiny Sports Palace, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The win was only the 4th in the last 7 fights for Maccarinelli, who was stopped three times the past two years by David Haye, Ola Afolabi and Denis Lebedev.

The 29-year-old Maccarinelli absolutely had to get the win over the Russian to stay relevant in the boxing world, and thankfully he came up with the win, albeit against a fighter that has still yet to fight a top tier fighter during his career. Maccarinelli jumped on Kotlobay from the very get go, attacking him to the body with hard hooks and mixing in big shots to the head. Say what you want about Maccarinelli’s chin not being the best, the guy can really punch hard with both hands.

He looked awesome in taking apart Kotlobay. Maccarinelli quickly put Kotlobay down with a big right hand to the head. Upon getting up, Kotlobay was met with withering fire from Maccarinelli, who backed him up against the ropes with a heavy salvo of blows. With Kotlobay getting riddled to pieces by Maccarinelli, referee Erkki Meronen stepped in and stopped the assault just after Maccarinelli landed a huge uppercut to the head of Kotlobay. The bout was stopped at 2:15 of the round.

All in all, it was a good win for Maccarinelli. He showed a lot of power and, at least in terms of offensive skills, he’s one of the best fighters in the cruiserweight division. I can’t say too much about his opponent, though. Maccarinelli beat a guy that hasn’t faced the same kind of opposition that he had and who was really untested until tonight. I would have liked to have seen Maccarinelli use his size by trying to box from the outside more, because he’s going to need to develop his boxing skills in the future if he wants to be successful in the division.

Maccarinelli, as he often does, fought in close like a shorter fighter, and was within range of Kotlobay’s punches, if he had been able to throw any. It didn’t matter tonight, but Maccarinelli needs to learn to use his 6’4” height and start boxing from the outside to protect his chin in future fights. He needs someone like Emanuel Steward to teach him to fight tall, his jab and stay out of the reach of shorter fighters, because I think Maccarinelli will have problems in the future if he continues to crowd his opponents and negate his reach advantage. If Maccarinelli had a great chin, then it wouldn’t matter, but obviously his chin is his weak spot.

In other action on the card:

Sherali Mamadaliev KO 1 Herve De Luca
Dmitry Sukhotsky TKO 1 Pablo Daniel Zamora Nievas
Maxim Vlasov TKO 3 Vasyl Kondor
Elis Idrisov dec 6 Andrejs Barabanovs
Hurshid Abdullaev KO 2 Alexey Kulikov
Ivan Maslov UD 6 Serkomil Rahimov