By Sean McDaniel: Former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli 32-5, 25 KO’s) is going back to his old trainer Enzo Calzaghe in hopes of recapturing his former championship form. Maccarinelli, 30, has his work cut out for him, as he’s been knocked out in four out of his last eight bouts in the past three years.

Most recently, Maccarinelli was stopped by Alexander Frenkel in the 7th round last year in September, suffering a broken jaw in the fight. Maccarinelli, instead of seeing it as a problem with him having issues taking hard shots without getting knocked out, he blamed it on his lack of conditioning and his weight lifting. It’s hard to agree with Maccarinelli because it wasn’t his conditioning that led to him getting stopped by Frenkel.

It was a case of Maccarinelli getting tagged by a hard shot and then being too hurt to fend off additional shots. Besides his weak chin, Maccarinelli’s fighting style seems to be more of a problem with him getting knocked out than his conditioning and the time he’s spending lifting weights.

The 6’4” Maccarinelli fights too close to his opponents and gives up all of his height and reach in doing so. For a fighter as tall as him and with his weak chin, he needs to be minimizing the amount of time he spends in close range with his opposition. However, he seems to enjoy getting in close and throwing shots. Sometimes it works for him, but sometimes it doesn’t.

Maccarinelli will now be fighting at light heavyweight where he thinks he can be a factor. He’s likely going to be too weak to fight at that weight once he starts melting down from the mid-190s that he’s been fighting at. That’s 20 pounds of weight that Maccarinelli will be forced to lose and you got to figure that most of it will be lost in the form of muscle. He never carried around much fat and any weight that Maccarinelli takes off will likely leave him weaker for it.

Calzaghe was a great trainer for his son former super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe, but he was a lot less successful with Maccarinelli. A lot of the things that Calzaghe seemed to be teaching Maccarinelli were things that shorter fighters would do. He didn’t seem to be teaching Maccarinelli out to fight on the outside, which is what he really needed with his weak chin.