By Scott Gilfoid: #9 WBC Matthew Macklin (31-5, 20 KOs) will be facing WBC International middleweight champion Jorge Sebastian Heiland (24-4-2, 12 KOs) next month in a World Boxing Council 160 pound title eliminator bout on November 15th at the 3Arena, Dublin, Ireland.
The Macklin-Heiland fight was supposed to have taken place on August 30th, but it had to be moved to 11/15 due to Macklin’s trainer Jaime Moore suffering a gunshot wound in Spain.
I’m sure Macklin would absolutely love to get a crack at Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, but I don’t see that happening even if he beats Heiland. Those guys are very, very selective in who they face now, and they’re not going to take a fight against a former three time world title challenger who has lost all three fights.
Heiland is ranked #6 by the WBC, but he’s never beaten anyone of note and he’s plenty of times against obscure opposition with less than stellar opposition.
The winner of the Macklin-Heiland fight will become the mandatory challenger to WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto. It’s unclear how that’s going to work out though because Gennady Golovkin is facing WBC interim middleweight champion Marco Antonio Rubio on October 18th, and the winner of that fight is supposed to be the WBC mandatory challenger for Cotto.
You would have to assume that the Golovkin-Rubio winner will be the No.1 mandatory for Cotto, which means that we’ll likely see one of those two fighters facing Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez before the Macklin-Heiland winner does.
The way I see it we’re likely going to see a situation where Macklin could wind up facing Golovkin for a second time after he either beats Canelo or Cotto or picks up the WBC title after one of them vacates it rather than facing him. So what we’re talking about is Macklin likely getting knocked out in 2 or 3 rounds again by Golovkin, because he clearly doesn’t have the talent to beat him.
It’s hard to understand how Macklin keeps getting world title shots over and over again despite the fact he keeps getting beaten. He’s lost to Felix Sturm, Sergio Martinez and Golovkin. If he beats Heiland then Macklin will be fighting for a world title for a 4th time. Yeah, he’s getting nice little paydays out of the fights, but what’s up with the guys that he keeps getting put ahead of for these title shots? What about them?
Macklin is coming off of a horrible performance in beating the light hitting Jose Yebes last September on the Arthur Abraham vs. Paul Smith card. I though Yebes fought well enough to deserve a win or at least a draw, because he was hitting Macklin at will with shots.
Macklin looked worse in that fight than he did in his fight against Lamar Russ last year in December.
Heiland has won his last three fights since losing to Mateo Damian Veron last year in June. The guys that Heiland has beaten and lost to during his career have been all obscure opposition.
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