By William Mackay: Trainer Buddy McGirt believes his fighter Matthew Macklin (28-3, 19 KO’s) has got the skills and the ability to not only competitive with former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (48-2-2, 27 KO’s) next Saturday night on March 17th, but also good enough to beat him when the two fighters square off at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York. Macklin, 29, is an underdog in this fight and many boxing fans see him getting knocked out by the hard-hitting southpaw Martinez.

McGirt told the Nypost.com “I must say Matthew’s just going to go in there and let his fights do the talking. I must say, though, that I am very confident that he is going to shock an awful lot of people in this fight.”

It sounds good when McGirt is saying it, but it doesn’t sound too realistic given how good Martinez has been looking the past few years in comparison to Macklin. While Martinez has beaten the likes of Kelly Pavlik, Paul Williams, Serhiy Dzinziruk and Darren Barker in his last four fights, Macklin has had to struggle to beat contender Ruben Varon by a 12 round decision and then losing to WBA World middleweight champion Felix Sturm by a 12 round decision last June.

Macklin clearly isn’t fighting on the same level as Martinez and there’s not a lot he can do to raise his game for this fight. He’s going to need to raise his game quite a bit for him to win, but he doesn’t have the tools needed for him to make that jump. Macklin can punch, but he’s not a huge puncher. Macklin has speed, but he’s not really blazing fast.