By Sean McDaniel: Former World Boxing Organization cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (29-4, 22 KO’s) will be meeting with promoter Frank Warren this week to determine what to do about Maccarinelli’s boxing career.

The word is that Warren will give the go ahead for Maccarinelli to continue his boxing career. Let’s hope, however, that Maccarinelli is given some time, say a year or so, to recover from his recent three knockout losses and learn how to better protect his shaky chin.

At 6’4″, Maccarinelli needs to learn how to fight tall, use his long reach and stop fighting in the pattern that he’s been. To watch Maccarinelli, you’d think that he’s imitating the style of Joe Calzaghe. That’s a great style, but it just doesn’t work with Maccarinelli because he doesn’t have the hand speed, movement or chin that Calzaghe has.

As such, Maccarinelli needs to come up with another fighting style that works for a fighter his size. Ideally, Maccarinelli needs to adopt a fighting style similar to IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, in which he uses his jab and fights strictly on the outside.

Maccarinelli needs to forget all about being a big body puncher because it leaves him vulnerable to getting nailed because he has to stand too close to his opponents in order to land his shots. A new trainer, someone like Emanuel Steward, would also be something advisable for Maccarinelli.

Steward specializes in training tall fighters like Maccarinelli and he could probably work wonders in teaching Maccarinelli to protect his weak chin. Goodness knows, Steward has done a great job with teaching the weak-chinned Wladimir Klitschko how to protect his glass jaw.

It hasn’t been going all that well as of late unfortunately for Enzo. Maccarinelli, 29, has lost three out of his last four fights and looked increasingly vulnerable to absorbing hard blows to the head. One problem with Maccarinelli is that after suffering a really bad knockout at the hands of the knockout artist Dave Haye last year in March, Maccarinelli hasn’t given himself enough of a break from facing big punchers to let himself recover from the bad knockout.

With only one tune-up match between his loss to Haye, Maccarinelli foolishly went up against hard hitting Ola Afolabi in March and was promptly knocked out in the 9th round. I’m sure Maccarinelli may have a small excuse for not being too familiar with Afolabi as he had fought all of his prior fights in relative obscurity in the U.S.

However, if Maccarinelli and his management team had looked team and asked a knowledgeable boxing expert, they would have been told that Afolabi is a big puncher and is someone that is best avoided. As things happened, Maccarinelli was knocked out by Afolabi and further diminished as a fighter.

Maccarinelli’s last opponent Russian Denis Lebedev, a powerful southpaw puncher, was just the latest of bad mistakes that Maccarinelli and his management team have made in selecting opponents. Lebedev is no world beater by any stretch of the imagination but one thing he can do is punch.

Maccarinelli never stood a chance and was quickly battered into submission in a 3rd round stoppage in July 2009. That defeat essentially left Maccarinelli’s boxing career in tatters.