Irish Boxing

distintly unwhelmed!

 

he got beaten by the lad that mccullough was beating before he quit in his last fight Juan Ruiz i think his name is?

 

doesnt that just make you want to get sick?

 

Actually just defending the European title(no matter the opponent) will indeed help your ranking with the WBC, and as Paul isn't ranked at all by the other 4 sanctioning bodies getting his ranking improved with them should be his primary concern.

I know most people aren't going to be very happy with this fight, but there are some positives. To me it was looking like he'd have to wait it out till purse bids were called for the mandatory rematch against Lauri, hopefully win those purse bids and then be defending the title against Lauri again probably early next year without having done anything in between.

This situation is certainly preferable to that and I'm glad he's been allowed take a voluntary. Could it have been someone better than Barry Morrison ?, well ya. But Paul will be back fighting on RTÉ, reintroducing him to a large amount of people on this island who'll have forgotten he existed. Infact I think quite a few people may get a shock if they remember who McCloskey is and realised he's won the European title very quietly without hardly a mention from RTÉ or any major media in the Republic.

As long as the opponent after this is a nice big step up(unless it's Lauri, nothing can be done about that) then I won't have a problem.

 

As far as I know McCloskey has a contract of 3 defenses of his European Title with Hearn. Hearn is a decent enough fellow to work with (so I hear) and he has probably let Peters go ahead with this show in Letterkenny. Plus, I hear the actual ticket sales for the Kings Hall Lauri show were not what was hoped for.

But, it looks like Peters will be angling to step in once Hearn's contract is up to drive forward McCloskey's world title surge.....

 

Peters might be just the man McCloskey needs. He might light a fire under him and get things motoring along again.

 

A rematch with Wright of would definetly be a bigger fight than with Morrison if he had been available.Wrights got himself back in the mix with a few nice wins and he gave paul some trouble the first time they met

 

[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/boxingandmma/7952320/Matthew-Macklin-forced-to-fight-without-trainer-Freddie-Roach.html[/url]

Roach not training Macklin

 

Yes he is. He just wont be there the night of the fight

 

:shock::shock::shock::shock: We should have listened to you Rob - you told us like 2 months ago

 

Wont make much of a difference id say Macklin will be fine without him anyways but wonder who will take roachs place now

 

indeed i did. judging by roach's comments he has only watch barkers last fight.

 

:yep:good

 

Macklin v Barker will be very interesting, more so to judge how good Barker actually is. Barker is a nice technician but it is easy to look slick against weaker opponents. Take someone like Steve O'Meara - he is a very nice technician but when he stepped up against a good fighter like Flourney he got hit more that he was used to, and Flourney was countering him and cut him up - nicking the decision.

Macklin will take it to Barker, not wait to counter him, he will push him onto the backfoot - then we will see how good Barker is technically. I think it is a fascinating clash of styles and will likely be fight of the night. But, although Roach is not in Macklin's corner (and I never gave it a second though myself) he will make sure Macklin has a good gameplan and one thing you can count on is that Macklin will have prepared with top notch sparring in the Wild Card.

Barker looked poor in his last outing, but every fighter can have a bad night, so I wouldnt read too much into that. I think Macklin starts as the slight favourite, but it will be a tough fight.

 

Keep the faith boys, Brian Peters knows what he's doing.

Anyway, McCloskey has been rather inactive as we all know so a fight against Morrison is better than more inactivity. He admitted himself he was rusty against Lauri sho sharpen up more. Oh and Letterkenny is a nice spot for a fight as well, so bonus.:nut