By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn, the promoter for Paul McCloskey (23-2, 12 KO’s), was mighty disappointed at seeing his fighter get stopped by 37-year-old journeyman DeMarcus Corley last Saturday night in a fight that McCloskey couldn’t afford to lose.

Hearn is now saying that McCloskey, who suffered a broken nose in the 2nd round of the fight, will have to settle for fighting for the European title when he returns to the ring in September.

Hearn told Irish-boxing.com “If you want to be beating the likes of Juan Manuel Marquez, then you have to be beating the likes of Corley. But if you’re not on your game you’re not going to beat Corley…when he [Mccloskey] returns in September, he’s going to be fighting for the European title. Can he get motivated for that?”

I doubt it. Gosh, this is bad, isn’t it? McCloskey gets spanked by Corley, and now he’s being brought back down to the Euro level rather than staying at the world class level. Hopefully, Hearn was just kidding about having McCloskey fight for the EBU title, because if he puts him in with EBU light welterweight champion Denis Shafikov, I see McCloskey suffering another loss.

Shafikov, 26, may be only the European Boxing Union champion, but he’s got good power and excellent offensive skills. I think he’d beat McCloskey no problem. If you’re going to have McCloskey take on someone that’s going to beat him, Hearn should at least match McCloskey up with a world class fighter so there won’t be as much fallout then there would be if he’s beaten by a Euro level guy. Shafikov can fight, as he showed in destroying Lee McAllister by an 8th round stoppage last February. If you throw McCloskey in with Shafikov, you’re only going to get the same results. McCloskey is ranked #2 EBU, but he needs to avoid Shafikov because he would spank him worse than Amir Khan and Corley did.

I didn’t think McCloskey was half bad against Corley. I had him winning until he got tagged with two big right hands that had him out on his feet in the 10th. McCloskey’s problem is he fights with his hands down by his sides like some of the quicker American fighters like to do, but unfortunately McCloskey lacks the quick reflexes of the talented Americans to avoid getting hit. He can avoid a lot of shots with his all defensive style of fighting but as we saw with the Corley fight, sooner or later something is going to land.

McCloskey needs to change his style of fighting to account of his slower hand speed and less than lightning quick reflexes. I personally wouldn’t fight that way if I was as slow at reacting as McCloskey. The thing is he may too old to make changes to his defense. At 32, that’s kind of ancient for someone to be tinkering with his fighting style. It’s too bad because he’s good enough to beat some of the lower level contenders if he could guard his head better, but no way will McCloskey ever be good enough to compete with guys like Marquez. I don’t know what Hearns was talking about there. Marquez is on a different level than McCloskey no matter what McCloskey does. Marquez has great boxing fundamentals, he doesn’t fight with his hands down by his sides begging to be hit in the puss. He’s a professional.

Hearn should have researched Corley better before having McCloskey fight this guy, because if he had looked at Corley’s recent fights, he would have noticed that he can still punch. Corley’s a bigger puncher than Amir Khan, and had Marcos Maidana fighting defensively after eating a massive amount of right hooks and straight lefts. McCloskey was doomed from the start against a big puncher like Corley. He may be a journeyman but he’s a high level journeyman with STILL more ability than McCloskey even at this late stage in his career. Corley is an ex-world champ, so he wasn’t just another run of the mill chop liver opponent for McCloskey.