BoxRec

Macklin is down to fight Ruben Varon on Dec 11th. I thought Macklin was gonna' be pushed towards World Titles. Boxrec ratings have Macklin at 7th and Varon at 214th. This looks like a step backwards rather than forwards

Matt Macklin makes a quick first defence of his European middleweight title against Spain's experienced Ruben Varon in Liverpool on December 11.
The rugged, heavy handed Macklin picked up the title, which was vacant, brushing aside a disappointing Georgian in his home city of Birmingham in September and is now unbeaten in 10 fights since moving up from light-middleweight in 2007, where he punched out a five-round retirement stoppage of Scott Dixon in 2004 - three years after Dixon had stopped Varon in five rounds in Spain, so already Macklin looks much the better man, although Varon was young and inexperienced when he lost to the useful Dixon, and he put together a good winning run afterwards.
Indeed, the Madrid man secured an unlikely crack at Felix Sturm for the WBO middleweight title in Germany in 2003 but lost comprehensively on the cards before dropping back down to light-middleweight and scoring a close 10-round decision over one Lukas Konecny, now the European light-middleweight champion, which has probably earned Varon this shot.
Varon, 31, remained at 11 stone for a few years but drifted away from the sport in 2007 after breaking his right hand and retiring against Venezuela's Jairo Alvarez in two rounds. He was back last year, and back at middleweight, in an ambitious match against Germany's unbeaten Sebastian Zbik in Germany, and was stopped in four, but Varon has won four on the spin since, all in Spain.
Spaniards, by and large, do not travel well and Varon's two defeats in Germany bode ill for his trip to Liverpool against a battle-hardened, ambitious champion like the 28-year-old Macklin, but Varon has enough experience to stick around before Macklin's big punches take their toll around the eighth round.

Easy win for macklin before barker smashes him in the new year!!!!

Call me cynical but Macklin v Barker seems destined never to happen. I would love to be proved wrong, but I think that in a few years time we will look back & realise what we missed out on.

pyenest77 wrote:Call me cynical but Macklin v Barker seems destined never to happen. I would love to be proved wrong, but I think that in a few years time we will look back & realise what we missed out on.

hope it happens, just like i hope degale v groves
mitchell v murray
cleverly v bellew all happen, but i bet they dont, not untill 2012 anyway !

why do ppl still want sleverly-bellew? cleverly already did something like this, with danny mcintosh on an away show. and the welshman just won a world title elim. so it's either a world title fight, or sit on your ranking. he's gone beyond domestic battles. cleverly moves up, bellew then can move up and look for the titles cleverly vacates, and maybe if it goes well he can create some demand, bring something to a fight like that.