By Scott Gilfoid: In a total mismatch, former multiple world title challenger Matthew Macklin (33-6, 22 KOs) completely obliterated a badly over-matched 28-year-old German fighter Chris Herrmann (19-7-1, 10 KOs) by a 1st round knockout last Friday night in a contest that was held at middleweight at the H10 Andalucia Plaza, Puerto Banus, in Marbella, Andalucía, Spain.

The 33-year-old Macklin, who is trying to rebuild his career following a stoppage loss to Jorge Sebastian Heiland, flattened Herrmann with a left to the body. The fight, if you want to call it that, was over in just 76 seconds. You can’t even call the 28-year-old Herrmann a journeyman. He’s more like a prospect that was thrown in deep against a far better fighter.

Macklin is kind of ripe to be fighting guys of this left. At 33, I don’t see how it’s going to help Macklin by having him fight 3rd tier guys like Herrmann. I mean, these are the type of fighters that you face when you’re first starting out. You don’t fight these guys in your mid-30s like Macklin unless that’s where your career is heading. But then again we’re seeing old timers like Roy Jones Jr. fight fodder, and he seems to be content with that kind of opposition.

“I touched him [Hermann] with the uppercut to bring his hands up and that gave me the opening to the liver, floating rib area,” Macklin gloated afterwards about his knockout win over Herrmann via boxing247.com. “When you land clean there with a bit of power, not too many guys get up from it.”

Next, Macklin will be fighting Jason Welborn (17-3, 6 KOs) on October 17th at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, UK. That fight is supposed to be taking place at 154, as this is the division that Macklin will be now looking to relaunch his career at. I guess the reason why Macklin is moving down in weight to junior middleweight is because he thinks that those guys won’t have the kind of power that he’s been having problems with at middleweight. Unfortunately, I don’t think it works that way. The junior middleweights are pretty much just as powerful as the middleweights.

“It’s an eight-rounder which I should be winning comfortably,” said Macklin about his fight against Welborn. “This has given me a reason to be in the gym and something to focus on and train hard and diet properly.”

It would have been nice had Macklin at least been fighting a 2nd tier guy instead of some hopelessly over-matched opponent like Herrmann. Instead of fighting this guy, Macklin should have been fighting a fringe contender like Hugo Centeno or Antoine Douglas at 160. If Macklin wanted a junior middleweight, then he should have taken on a bottom dweller from the 154lb division like Brian Rose, Liam Smith, Willie Nelson or Sergei Rabchenko. Those are the near bottom level contenders in the junior middleweight division right now.

The thing is Macklin would be extremely vulnerable against all of those guys. I mean, I think he could maybe beat Rose and Smith, but I believe that Nelson and Rabchenko would destroy him. That’s the whole problem with Macklin’s idea of moving back down to the 154lb division. Those guys are even better than the typical middleweight fringe contenders. I rate the contenders at 154 as better fighters and punchers than the guys that are lurking near the bottom of the 160lb division. But I think it’s painfully obvious that Macklin is likely going to skip over all of the fringe contenders and focus on 2nd tier guys while he waits to get ranked high enough to get a world title shot against one of the junior middleweight champions taking a voluntary defense.

If Macklin keeps fighting fodder, he’ll eventually get another world title shot, but I don’t see it going well for him. It seems pretty obvious that Macklin is going to be targeting one of the world titles that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will soon be vacating at 154. But for Macklin to win one of those belts, he’ll need to beat the likes of Jermell Charlo or Jack Culcay. If Hearn matches Macklin against the winner of the Liam Smith vs. John Thompson fight, I still see Macklin as being way over his head.