By Scott Gilfoid: Middleweight Matthew Macklin (30-5, 20 KO’s) had to battle hard last night to defeat little known middleweight Lamar Russ (14-1, 7 KO’s) in winning a 10 round unanimous decision at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
If you wanted to know how things went for Macklin then all you had to do was take one look at his bruised and reddened face to know the full story.
You didn’t even need to hear him utter a word to see that this had been a very tough struggle for the 31-year-old Macklin. The judges scored the fight 96-94, 97-93, 98-92. I think the 96-94 was the most accurate score of the three for this fight.
Macklin won, but barely and he did not look good at all. He was confused looking, slow, and had problems landing his shots against the tall 6’2″ Russ. The thing is it is this was an inexperienced 2nd tier novice that Macklin was fighting last night, not a world class contender.
The fact that it turned out to be such a tough struggle for Macklin suggests that he might not have much left in the tank. I got to say that Macklin is very, very lucky that his originally scheduled opponent Willie Nelson suffered an injury in training camp and had to pull out of the fight, because if that had been the better punching Nelson instead of the weaker punching Russ, Macklin would have likely been knocked out in this fight.
As it was, Russ was able to hit Macklin with a lot of punches, and in the last two rounds of the fight he landed the better shots and had Macklin fighting with a look of caution on his face after eating some hard right hands. In the 8th round, Russ caught Macklin with a shot that snapped Macklin’s head backwards, and from that point on Macklin was playing it safe and not looking to mix it up as much. This seemed to give Russ more confidence because he took the fight to Macklin from that point on, and was punishing him with hard shots.
I’m not sure where Macklin can go from here. He’s been beaten in 3 out of his last 5 fights, and is no longer ranked in the World rankings in the top 15. I guess he can fight the likes of Andy Lee or Martin Murray, but I wouldn’t favor him to beat either of those guys at this point. Lee would be like a better version of Russ, but with more power. Murray would box Macklin’s ears off and stop him. it might be time for Macklin to cash out and retire from the sport.
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