Sore hands the only negative for Macklin

BOXING:IRISH MIDDLEWEIGHT Matthew Macklin edged a step closer toward his dream of a world title shot with a comprehensive 99-88 points win over Uruguayan Rafael Sosa Pintos at the National Stadium in Dublin on Saturday night.

Having spent all of nine minutes and 33 seconds between the ropes in his only two fights – both inside the distance wins – this year up to Saturday night, Macklin, the European middleweight champ, was probably glad to get 10 rounds under his belt.

However, injuries to both hands and a cut over his left eye sustained during a mostly one-sided encounter will almost certainly see his mandatory European title defence, scheduled for February 19th in Birmingham against Russian Dmitry Pirog, pushed back.

Pintos, who had won 34 of his 38 previous encounters was floored in the second, fifth and ninth rounds on the Brian Peters promotion.

Birmingham-born Macklin, an ex-Tipperary underage hurler, fighting out of the red corner – the home corner for Irish internationals – dropped the South American with a thudding right to the body and a glancing left hook to the head on the bell for the end of the second.

A further right in a neutral corner saw Pintos visit the canvas again early in the fifth, and a body shot, which Pintos vainly protested to referee Emile Tiedt was below the belt, saw him go down for a third time in the ninth.

Except for the sixth stanza, when Macklin took his foot of the gas, Pintos , who spent most of the fight engaged in what could be best described as belligerent, defence, was mostly outclassed.

However, the ex-Uruguayan light middleweight champion won a lot of plaudits for his gutsy insistence on reaching the final bell after shipping some heavy ordnance from the European champion throughout the ten-rounder.

Speaking after win number 26 from 28 (18 KOs), Macklin, who is promoted by Ricky Hatton and managed by Peters, acknowledged that Pintos, who is looking for a a shot at Andy Lee, was a tough and durable opponent.

He said: “Both my hands are sore. I don’t think there is anything broken but the knuckles on both my hands are swollen right now. My left hand in the second round I could feel the knuckles starting to swell and then the right hand in the third.

“He had a very tight defence and he kept the chin on the chest and I was catching his forehead a little bit, catching his elbows a little bit when I was jabbing to the body but you get bumps and bruises – this is not a tickling contest, this is serious boxing and you are going to get bumps and bruises.

“It probably took away 10 or 15 per cent of my power because, obviously, it was niggling me a little bit but I thought I controlled the fight, boxed well, won every round, dropped him a couple of times. Certainly it was a much more convincing win than Anthony Mundine or Khoren Gevor could do against him and they are top five or top six in the world.

“There’s fights I’ve had that have been harder than that but they have been a bit more offensive minded so you get more openings where Rafael was more offensive minded so it was hard to get the clean punches through.

“The cut is not too bad – maybe two or three stitches. But I would think a February fight is unlikely now. It is going to take six to eight weeks for the cut. I’ll have to wait for the swelling in my hands to go down.

“Hopefully it is just a bit of bruising and that there’s no ligament damage or anything like that.”