By Scott Gilfoid: #9 WBC Matthew Macklin (31-5, 20 KOs) had to struggle hard last night to beat little known 2nd tier fighter Jose Yebes (12-5-1, 5 KOs) by an 8 round majority decision on the undercard of the Arthur Abraham vs. Paul Smith fight card at the Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Macklin was shocked after the fight to see the scores of 77-75, 77-75 and 76-76, because he thought that he easily won the fight. But in looking at the fight, I had the 35-year-old Yebes edging Macklin by a round.
A draw would be fine as well, but the reality is that Yebes completely took over the fight from the 4th round on and swept the last 5 rounds. He really got the better of Macklin with his high work rate, and his ability to catch Macklin again and again with head-snapping shots.
Macklin said after the fight that Yebes didn’t have much power, but from what I could see, Yebes looked almost as powerful as Macklin. The difference in punching power between the two fighters wasn’t that much. But what was different was how Yebes was able to nail Macklin with so many shots in each round. It was really, really one-sided from the 4th round on with Yebes battering a tired looking Macklin, and getting the better of him in virtually all the exchanges.
At the end of the 8th, Macklin’s frustration shown through with him throwing 2 extra punches after the final bell. Even when the referee got Macklin to stop throwing punches after the bell, Macklin stood staring at Yebes with an angry look on his face as if to say ‘How dare you make me struggle.’
“I thought I was cruising,” Macklin said after the fight. “I thought the scores were a bit…That was busyness. He was probably getting credit for being busy. The main thing is I got the win and 8 badly needed rounds. I’ve got an eliminator in Ireland if the WBC will sanction a final eliminator.”
I hate to break this to Macklin but he wasn’t cruising by any means. On the contrary, he was floundering and looking incredibly poor against Yebes. I’m not sure what happened with Macklin but he looks to have lost a lot from his game since 2011. It might be age or him being rusty. Whatever the case, he looked plain awful last night and deserved to lose the fight.
It’s interesting that Macklin, #9 WBC, is talking about his next fight in Ireland potentially being a WBC middleweight eliminator bout. I mean, how in the heck can Macklin be fighting in an eliminator bout when he’s ranked as low as he is at #9 WBC? What about the 8 guys that are ranked above him in the World Boxing Council’s rankings? Don’t they deserve to be in an eliminator more so than Macklin?
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