For those of you who like to wager on the Sweet Science, you may want to take your chances on this weekend’s underdog, middleweight contender Matthew Macklin. It seems like the luck of the Irish just might be with the Birmingham born Irish fighter, who takes on middleweight king Sergio Martinez this Saturday on St. Patrick’s Day at the Theater in Madison Square Garden. Sources have informed us that Martinez has been looking less than spectacular in his preparations leading up to the bout.
“They’ve been putting hands all over him. He’s just not looking like his normal self in my opinion. I don’t know if he’s up for this one,” said one source as he described some of the sparring sessions that took place during training camp. Of course, sparring is just sparring and is no real indiciation of what will take place in an actual fight. That being said, there are whispers behind closed doors that Martinez was even dropped during one particular sparring session. Fortunately for Martinez, Macklin isn’t exactly the biggest puncher in the sport. In 31 professional fights, he’s only stopped 19 of his opponents, the last time being in September of 2009 when he stopped Amin Asikainen (28-4, 19 KOs) in the first round.
Regardless, Macklin is an opponent that Martinez should not take lightly this weekend. No stranger to controversial decisions, the hungry Macklin is coming off of a split decision loss to Felix Sturm in a fight that many believe he should have won. That fight took place on Sturm’s home turf of Cologne, Germany. On Saturday night, although the fight is in New York, the judges could definitely be swayed by the very pro-Irish crowd that will be in attendance and cheering for every punch thrown by Macklin on St. Patrick’s Day. Interestingly enough, during the build-up for this fight, all the focus – press releases, open workouts, etc. – has been on the challenger Macklin as opposed the champion Martinez.
