Macklin angers a sleeping giant Martinez and gets whipped

By Scott Gilfoid: Matthew Macklin may have wished he had not made the mistake of knocking Sergio Martinez down in the 7th round tonight in their Madison Square Garden fight in New York, because all it was wake up a sleeping giant, causing Martinez to pummel the UK fighter from pillor to post for the next four rounds until stopping him after the 11th.

Macklin took some brutal left hand head shots that would have knocked out a lot of fighters. I give Macklin some credit for being able to soak up some heavy punishment from the 7th through 11thn rounds, because he took some god awful shots. In the 11th, Macklin visited the canvas twice from left hand shots that nearly took his head off.

To his credit, Macklin got back to his feet both times but I think he would have been better off staying down and letting the referee give a 10 count on him because he wasn’t go nowhere. He had no chance to win this fight, not with Martinez out for blood after getting knocked down in the 7th round from a shot that caused him to touch the canvas with his glove. Macklin got some confidence from that knockdown and tried to end things but had to settle for eating a left hand.

What I really hated about this fight was Macklin’s trainer Buddy McGirt not sending Macklin out for the 12th round. I mean, there was no resolution by keeping Macklin on his stool, and who knows? Maybe Macklin could have recovered enough to come back and stop Martinez in the 12th round if he got lucky. But to stop the fight before the 12th was horrible. It’s like turning off a good movie just when it gets to the good part. Macklin has been training his whole career for this moment and I’m sure he would have liked to have tried to see what he could do in the 12th. So what if Macklin most likely would have been knocked completely out cold, but at least he’d have a chance to try and win the fight. By stopping the fight in between rounds, McGirt took away Macklin’s big chance to see what he could do. If I was Macklin’s trainer, I’d give him the old ice on the head and neck to wake him up. I’d then have sent him out for the 12th with instructions to swing for the fences with big single shots. I wouldn’t waste time by telling him to throw combinations, because that would have done nothing at this point in the fight. He needed a big knockout.

Martinez didn’t take the fight seriously until he was knocked down in the 7th. It just looked like Martinez wasn’t mentally prepared to get his feet wet. He was dancing around trying not to get hit and not mentally fully into experiencing the pain that he would have to feel by really going after Macklin to stop him. But the 7th round knockdown that Martinez suffered changed things in a big way. He didn’t care anymore what he had to feel after feeling the embarrassment of being knocked down. From then on, Martinez walked through Macklin’s shots to land his own huge punches and Macklin started reeling and looking like he’d bit of more than he could chew. In the 10th round, Macklin seemed to lose his senses completely after getting hit with a big left hand by Martinez. Macklin seemed spaced out from that shot and was in the full panic mode.