Maccarinelli: I knew I would take Jones out

By Boxing News - 12/13/2015 - Comments

jones4By Scott Gilfoid: Enzo Maccarinelli (41-7, 33 KOs) sounded like he was drunk off the success he had last night in stopping 46-year-old Russian citizen Roy Jones Jr. (62-9, 45 KOs) in the 4th round last Saturday night in front of a packed house of Jones fans at the VTB Arena in Moscow, Russia.

The win by Maccarinelli appears to have planted some ideas into his head, because he’s already jabbering about wanting to fight for a world title. I think someone needs to sit Maccarinelli down and remind him that he’s not ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies in the cruiserweight division, and he only just beat Jones, not a talent like #1 WBO Olesandr Usyk.

I mean, I’d hate to see what would happen to Maccarinelli if he were to share the same ring with Usyk. As bad as Maccarinelli beat Jones last night, I Usyk would beat Maccarinelli even worse. Usyk is on a much higher level than Maccarinelli in my view, and it doesn’t matter how many times Maccarinelli beats Jones, I don’t think that’s going to change.

The 35-year-old Maccarinelli knocked Jones down twice to get the knockout in the 4th. It wasn’t as if it was a difficult task or anything, because Jones was hardly throwing anything at all back at Maccarinelli. If you hadn’t seen Jones for years since his glory days in the 90s, you might have been saddened by how old and feeble he looked in there.

The hand speed was gone, the power was nowhere, and his physique looked much like that of an old man. The fact that Jones couldn’t even fight in the center of the ring was telling. Jones literally had to rest with his back against the ropes the entire fight like an old man. The ropes were literally supporting Jones’ 46-year-old legs. It was so, so sad to see.

“I knew that the opening rounds might be a bit cagey, but I knew that once I sized him up and got my range that it was only a matter of time before I would take him out,” Maccarinelli said via Fightnews.com. “I knew that it hurt him. Then in the fourth I started to connect with uppercuts and he was starting to go so I knew I’d got him and then I landed the hard right to finish him off,” Maccarinelli continued.

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Jones had already been knocked down once in the 4th round from an uppercut by Maccarinelli, when he was finished off by a chopping right hand to the head that he never saw. The punch knocked Jones clean out, sending him to the canvas where he laid there with eyes closed. The referee Ingo Barrabas stopped the fight immediately at 1:59 of the round.

“That ends the year nicely and now I want to keep busy in 2016 and get another world title shot to become a two-time world champion,” Maccarinelli said.

This is what I was afraid of. The win by Maccarinelli over Jones has totally planted ideas into his head, making him think he can win another world title. Oh boy. This is the stuff of dreams. That’s why you don’t like to see fading fighters fight other fading fighters like we saw last Saturday with the Jones-Maccarinelli fight, because it gives false hope for the winners of these types of bouts.

I’d like to give Maccarinelli a suggestion. If he really believes he’s got the talent to win another world title, then how about him fighting Usyk to see where he’s at physically in the division. If Maccarinelli can beat Usyk, then by all means he should go ahead and fight for a world title. But if not, then I think he needs to keep his yap shut. I don’t think I’m asking too much for Maccarinelli to just fight Usyk and prove that he can beat him, am I?

It’s not a big deal. If Maccarinelli really believes that he’s now good enough to win another world title due to his win over 46-year-old Jones, then all he has to do is call Usyk out and prove that he can beat him. I hope Maccarinelli isn’t thinking he’s going to get a world title shot straightaway off the back of a win over Jones, because that would just be wrong. Maccarinelli needs to work his way up the chain the way all fighters do.



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