Yea look to see mathew hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the next 2-3 years as he goes full time with his best mate dan corleone kinahan.
His performances against the likes of Elc0ck,asikainen, Moore, Martinez and Sturm are some body of work....far exceeding luckier fighters who got the breaks like Barker, Zbik, Chavez Jr, etc etc
Good all action fighter in some really memorable fights ,will say it not for the first time for those that hang up their gloves after thinking about it previously...I hope he stays retired.
****in disgrace that Macklin, barker Murray and Lee never fought each other. Loved them all except Murray, he's ok
I wouldn't count Barker as 'lucky'. Persistent injuries stopped him from becoming a fighter that would have been considered levels above Macklin. I say that as someone who has the utmost respect for Mathhew and his achievements in the ring.
Yeah I would agree, Barker's progress was hampered continually by injuries. Shame Macklin and Barker never boxed.
He was more Darren Anderton than Darren Barker. Barker, IMHO, was an over-achiever. Garbage fighter who took the p*ss with that fight of his when he kept falling over!
Garbage fighter? GTFOH. Anyway this is a Matthew Macklin retirement thread so I'll leave it at that. If you want to make a Barker/Macklin/Lee/Murray thread I'll happily explain to you why Barker was actually the unluckiest of the four and arguably a class above the rest of them as an operator.
It's sad to see Macklin sucking up to Kinahan in his goodbye message. He has clearly fallen in deep with that scumbag.
That's something else we can agree upon. Sadly there's nothing new about organised crime having links to boxing though!
Very flawed and fragile. The Macklin that beat elc0ck, asikainen, and fought. Sturm, Sergio ex would have chewed Barker up. Same for Andy lee. Mack was levels above these guys.