Matthew Macklin

Matthew Macklin
Data
Birth Name	Matthew Macklin
Fight name	Mack The Knife
Weight class	medium weight
nationality	British
birthday	May 14, 1982
place of birth	Birmingham
style	Left-hand boom
size	1.78 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	41
Victories	35
Knockout victories	22nd
Defeats	6th

Matthew Macklin (born May 14, 1982 in Birmingham ) is a former British professional boxer and current boxing manager of Irish descent. He is a former Irish and British champion, as well as a former two-time European middleweight champion of the EBU . He was also the World Cup challenger to Felix Sturm and Gennadi Golowkin .

Amateur career

Macklin was born to Irish parents in the English city of Birmingham and started boxing at the age of ten. As an amateur boxer, he won several medals at U19 tournaments, including the gold medal at the István Dobó tournament in Hungary in 2000 and the silver medal at the Acropolis Cup in Greece in 2001, where he only just failed on points against European champion Andrei Balanow . In 2000 he reached the round of 16 at the Junior World Championships in Hungary, in 2001 he was English champion in the elite class (adults) in welterweight.

Professional career

Matthew Macklin boxed as a professional under promoter Brian Peters from 2001 to 2016 and was trained by Joe Gallagher , Freddie Roach and Buddy McGirt . After nine wins in a row, he lost in November 2003 in the battle for the English championship on points against Andrew Facey. Then he won again eight fights in a row and secured the Irish championship in May 2005 by knocking out Michael Monaghan.

On September 29, 2006 he boxed in Manchester for the British championship against Jamie Moore , but lost in one of the toughest fights of the year by knockout in the tenth round. The duel was voted fight of the year by several British boxing magazines. With six consecutive wins, including against Luis Campas and Geard Ajetović , he received another title chance for the British championship on March 14, 2009. This time he defeated the title holder Wayne Elcock by TKO in the third round.

In his next fight on September 25, 2009, he won the EBU European Championship by winning against Amin Asikainen early in the first round . In December 2009 he defeated Rafael Pintos and won the EBU European Championship again on September 18, 2010 in Birmingham by an early victory at the end of the fifth round against Schalwa Jomardashvili. In December 2010, he defended the title unanimously on points against Rubén Varón .

On June 25, 2011 Macklin boxed in front of 18,000 spectators in Cologne for the super world title of the WBA in the middleweight division against the German title holder Felix Sturm , but lost due to a split decision. Macklin had taken the initiative in the first few laps and was able to land a few effective hits, but Sturm only got going slowly and was repeatedly forced into infight by Macklin, where Sturm could not use his otherwise superior leading hand decisively. In the end, two of the three judges saw Sturm just ahead, and one had even seen Macklin as the winner. After the fight, the television broadcaster Sat.1 started an internet poll in which 72% of the votes saw Matthew Macklin as the winner. Even WBC manager Lou DiBellas criticized the decision for Sturm and called this a reason why Sergio Martínez (world number one middleweight) will never box in Germany. Ex-world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis described the two judges who had scored for Sturm as "muggers".

A rematch negotiated for November 25 in Germany was canceled by Macklin after he was able to fight against world number leader Sergio Martínez. Against this, however, he lost on March 17, 2012 in Madison Square Garden in New York City prematurely in the eleventh round, but had made the fight evenly by then and achieved a knockdown in the seventh round.

In September 2012 he surprisingly defeated Joachim Alcine by knocking out in the first round. He was thereby again to the world championship challenger and boxed on June 29, 2013 in the USA against Gennady Golowkin for the world title of the WBA and IBO , but lost the fight by knockout in the third round.

Macklin was then able to defeat the undefeated American Lamar Russ and the Spaniard Jose Yebes, but lost in November 2014 by knockout in the tenth round against the Argentine Jorge Heiland. With two subsequent knockout victories, he was allowed to box for the international WBC championship on October 17, 2015 and won the title by a unanimous victory on points against his compatriot Jason Welborn.

On April 9, 2016, he played his last fight. He defeated the Briton Brian Rose and became intercontinental champion of the IBF.

MTK Global

After his active career, he founded the management agency MTK (Mack The Knife) Global , which has developed into the leading boxing management in Great Britain and has training facilities in England, Scotland, Spain, USA, South Africa and Australia. The agency looked after around 120 boxers until 2018, including world champions such as Tyson Fury , Rocky Fielding , Billy Joe Saunders , Liam Smith and Carl Frampton .

Web links

• Profile at BoxRec
• Profile at irishboxers.ie