By Sean McDaniel: Former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (35-5, 27 KO’s) vs. Commonwealth light heavyweight Ovill McKenzie (20-11, 9 KO’s) and welterweight contender Frankie Gavin (13-0, 10 KO’s) vs. former WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter (41-5-2, 22 KO’s) have both been added to the October 27th fight card headlined by WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly vs. Vyacheslav Uzelkov at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.
In addition to those fights, light heavyweight prospect light heavyweight Callum Johnson will be facing an opponent still to be determined.
Maccarinelli, 32, is coming off of a 12 round decision win over Shane McPhilbin from last March in a fight where many boxing fans felt that Maccarinelli deserved to be knocked out in the 1st round after he was knocked down by McPhilbin with the round ending 47 seconds early. There was little chance of Maccarinelli making it out of the round had the round not ended prematurely. He was badly hurt and still didn’t look good after getting back up.
McKenzie, 32, has won his last two fights since losing back to back fights agaisnt Tony Bellew.
Maccarinelli could be making a mistake by taking on the hard hitting McKenzie because this guy can really punch, as we saw in his first fight with Bellew when he knocked him down twice. Bellew wasn’t interested in taking any chances in their rematch last year, as he decided to play it safe by boxing McKenzie instead of punching with him like he’d done in their first fight in 2010.
Witter, 38, has won his last four fights and has turned his career around in a big way. He was considered a shot fighter by some boxing fans after losing four of five fights between 2008 and 2011. To his credit, Witter has really turned it around in winning his last four fights against decent opposition. Witter beat Colin Lynes in his last fight to capture the British welterweight title last May.
Gavin, 26, has yet to be beaten but many boxing fans felt that he deserved to lose his fight against Curtis Woodhouse last year in July. Gavin is a good fighter but he’s too slow and not powerful enough to beat the best fighters in the world.