By William Mackay: Ireland’s Paul McCloskey (22-1, 12 KO’s) is about to face his moment of truth against one of the most powerful punchers in the light welterweight division in Breidis Prescott (24-2, 19 KO’s) on Saturday night, and it’s going to be really tough for McCloskey to survive long once Prescott gets his offense cranked up.

McCloskey, though, is just as cocky as he was in his loss to Amir Khan recently, and seems to think the win is in the bag already despite the fact that he’s really out-gunned in this match-up because of his lack of power.

McCloskey said about Prescott: “I guarantee I’ll beat Breidis. His win over Khan was three years ago – the Amir Khan I fought is streets ahead of the one that he fought, and I lived with that Amir Khan for six rounds and would have gone as long as he wanted. I’ll outbox Breiids. He can try to get into my head about running or spoiling or whatever, but the bottom line is I’m a better boxer and I will beat him with my boxing skills.”

The conventional wisdom is that McCloskey is the better boxer while Prescott is the much bigger puncher, but I’m not so sure about McCloskey being the better boxer. Prescott is a changed fighter now, as he’s adapted, learned new skills and come back a completely different fighter from what he was two years ago. He’s really learned, and is more of a disciplined boxer/puncher in the Wladimir Klitschko mold than the pure slugger he was back when he destroyed Khan in 54 seconds in 2008.

Prescott is so much better now compared to then. Maybe he always did have the ability to box in the past if he wanted, but chose not to use it back then because he relied so much on his crushing power. But whatever the case, Prescott is now a fighter that can move from one aspect of his game to the other. He can punch when he wants to but is more of a boxer now that likes to use his powerful jab to dominate from the outside. He will walk you down if he sees weakness, but he doesn’t get stuck in that mode like he used to and just head hunt. McCloskey is going to find out the hard way that he really misjudged Prescott in this fight, and he’s going to get a boxing lesson until Prescott decides to lower the boom on him to knock McCloskey cold.

Prescott said “He’s getting knocked out, no question. He’s never been in the ring with anyone as powerful as me.”