By Andrew Wake: Birmingham’s Matthew Macklin is hoping that victory over Finnish puncher Amin Asikainen on Friday night (September 25) will put him in line for a world title shot.
Macklin knows that he faces his toughest test to date when he collides with the Nordic puncher for the vacant European middleweight crown on Ricky Hatton’s first Sky televised promotion, but feels he belongs at world level and this the right fight to prove it.
“I think a good win here will put me in the top three of four middleweights in the world,” said Macklin, 24 – 2 (17 KOs). “First of all I just want to win and get the title, but if I can do it in good style I think that will be a major statement.
“I don’t care how the win comes. I think they’ll be times when I have to stand and fight and they’ll be times when I have to get behind the jab and move. Either way I’m ready for whatever he brings and I think he does tire in the later rounds and I’m in great shape so if I can set a fast pace, I think I can stop him late on.”
Macklin switched to Joe Gallagher’s gym in Denton, Manchester at the beginning of the year. The move culminated in Macklin’s best career performance, a third round stoppage of former IBF world title challenger Wayne Elcock for the British crown, and Gallagher believes that the 27-year-old is ready to step up his level even further.
Gallagher said: “The world stage is definitely Matthew Macklin’s oyster and I feel in beating Elcock he’s proved he can beat a top 10 middleweight. Now he’s got his second world ranked top 10 middleweight in Asikainen who is number six in the current Ring magazine and he’s only lost to [Khoren] Gevor and [Sebastian] Sylvester.
“He had Gevor down twice in that fight and he’s beat Sylvester before, knocking him out so if Matthew does come through against Asakainen, although it’s no give me, I see him right bang in there and he’ll take Sylvester as his next fight no problem.”
Like all trainers do, Gallagher has taken time to study his charge’s opponent, but with Asikainen he has found a new more unorthodox way of doing so.
“We’ve got about eight of Asakainen’s fights [on dvd] and we’ve gone through them all, but I’ve even took time out to fight him on the XBOX,” Gallagher revealed. “He’s on the Fight Night 4 game so we just had to look to see what sort of fighter they had him as. You know if they had Ricky Hatton, they’d have him as a body puncher so we had a look to see what EA Sports had built Asakainen like and he’s a sort of tough cookie!”
Until this European title tilt came available, all the talk in the trade was about a major domestic clash with Commonwealth champion Darren Barker. Some people have accused Macklin of using this fight as an opportunity to dodge the undefeated Barnet man. Macklin, however, is keen to state that this fight is better for his career.
He said: “No disrespect to Darren Barker but he’s boxed journeymen and the only real live opponent he’s boxed was Darren McDermott, he’s said that himself. With all due respect to McDermott, he went life and death with Steve Bendall, who is shot and basically a Midlands area or English title standard.
“I see myself mixing it with the very best in the division. In six or seven month, or when the opportunity occurs, I see myself getting in there with [Kelly] Pavlik.
“In terms of chasing honours and title and world rankings, fighting Barker would have been a backwards step whereas in fighting Asikainen, who is proven at European level and is just short of world championship level, I can make a major statement in this fight.
“If I beat Darren Barker everyone in England would have gone ‘That was a good fight, Macklin won.’ But people on the world scene would have gone ‘Darren who?’
“When I beat Asikainen people will realise that he knocked out Sylvester [who is now a world champion] and lost in a war with him the other time and is ranked number six by Ring magazine.”
Despite feeling that he is a league above Barker at this stage in the respective careers, Macklin does not rule out the possibility of the clash happening if other opportunities don’t present themselves – but there is also another name on his radar.
“Once I win this European title my next goal is to fight for a world title. That might not happen in the very next fight. It might be a case of me having to defend the European title a few times and if that’s the case then fine. Then the fights like Darren Barker would be appealing. A fight with Andy Lee in Ireland would be appealing.
“The fight with Lee would be good because we both have good profiles in Ireland and we’ve both headlined on RTE. I have actually have a better profile over there than I have here. When I box over there I get full pages in the nationals.”
http://www.secondsout.com/columns/andre ... orld-title
