By Scott Gilfoid: I already feel sorry for DeMarcus Corley (38-19-1, 22 KO’s) ahead of his bout this Saturday against Ireland’s Paul McCloskey (23-1, 12 KO’s) at the King’s Hall in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Corley, 37, will be the visiting fighter and McCloskey, 32, will be fighting at home where a huge amount of his Irish fans will be there to give McCloskey all the support he needs.

The crowd won’t fight the fight for McCloskey against the stronger, harder hitting Corley. What the Irish crowd will likely do is cheer so loudly for every miss that McCloskey ends up with when he misses his punches that the judges will end up handing McCloskey, #8 WBA, a decision victory even if he appears to lose it by a lopsided decision. McCloskey isn’t going to KO Corley, because he doesn’t have the power to take out a 1st tier fringe level contender like Corley. I can see McCloskey getting stopped before Corley.

We saw how poor Breidis Prescott was jobbed when he went to Belfast to fight McCloskey last year in September. I saw the fight four times and had McCloskey winning all of one round. That’s all I could give the guy because he was swept in the first half of the fight by a fresh and powerful Prescott. In the 2nd half of the fight, Prescott ran out of gas but was still able to control five of the six rounds using his jab. McCloskey was the aggressor but it wasn’t effective aggression, because he was missing so badly with his shots. It didn’t matter, though, because the judges were giving him rounds where McCloskey was eating jabs and missing punches. If that’s all it takes to win rounds, then I think boxing is really going down the tubes this kind of upside down way of scoring fights is all wrong.

The southpaw Corley, #15 WBC, needs to put constant pressure on McCloskey and make sure he can do this the entire fight when McCloskey tries to rally in the 2nd half like he often does.