By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (34-5, 27 KO’s) will be lowering his sights on Friday night to try and capture the British cruiserweight title off of little known British domestic level champion Shane McPhilbin (8-2, 5 KO’s) at the Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom.

It’s hard to know why the 31-year-old Maccarinelli wants to waste his precious time going after this strap, because no one knows who McPhilin is aside from hardcore boxing fans and trying to win a British cruiserweight strap is a huge step backwards for Maccarinelli. I know there’s a method to the madness here.

Maccarinelli obviously wants to stay busy, making a little bit of money, build his confidence up and sharpen his skills to stay ready for an eventual world title shot. However, I think this is the wrong way of going about getting ready for a title fight. Maccarinelli needs to be facing world class opposition in the cruiserweight division rather than getting in bad habits of wiping out British champions like McPhilbin or some of the other guys he’s been facing and beating recently since his loss to Alexander Frenkel.

I’m from the school where if you screw up against a good fighter with power, you don’t go back to fighting guys that you were fighting 10 years ago. You get back on the horse and take on someone with excellent skills but maybe not so much power to ensure that you don’t get knocked out again. But to go hunt for a domestic level title like the British strap belonging to McPhilbin, that’s a wast of time.

Maccarinelli could end up facing WBO light heavyweight champ Nathan Cleverly at some point. Cleverly is running out of guys for him to fight and the real popular fighters like Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson probably won’t be willing to travel to Wales to fight him. Maccarinelli is perfect because he’s even a bigger name than Cleverly and will probably knock him cold.