By William Mackay: Irish light welterweight Paul McCloskey (23-1, 12 KO’s) may be in big trouble as he goes into this Saturday’s fight against the hard hitting journeyman/contender DeMarcus Corley (38-19-1, 22 KO’s) in a 12 round bout at the Kings Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Corley said on his twitter page “I’m hitting real hard; real f****** hard. No games.”

McCloskey is going to have to try and come up with some tricks if he’s going to win this fight, because playing defense all night long won’t get the job done against Corley. McCloskey got a gift decision in his last fight, but I don’t see that happening twice. If it does, McCloskey will likely find it next to impossible to get anyone other than journeyman type fighters to come and fight him in Northern Ireland. Hopefully, the judges get it right this time because they didn’t do McCloskey any favors by giving him the decision last time out, because very few boxing fans agreed with the decision.

McCloskey, 32, has the hometown advantage in this fight but it may not matter, because the southpaw Corley is fighting on a higher level right now, as evidenced by his impressive win over Gabriel Bracero last January and his close decision loss to Marcus Maidana in August 2010. With McCloskey, all you can say is that he lucked out when he fought terribly in his last fight against Breidis Prescott and was given a gift 12 round decision while fighting in his home city in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

McCloskey will be fighting at home again in this fight against Corley, but the difference here is that Corley has not only the power, but also the stamina to easily defeat McCloskey. Corley will be taking the fight to McCloskey early on just as Prescott did last September. But the difference here is that Corley won’t wear down in the 2nd half of the fight, and will be hitting McCloskey with power shots the whole time, not just jabs like Prescott was doing.