Former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (38-6, 30 KO’s) is counting on his power advantage to bail him out tonight in his title challenge against new WBA World light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer (42-2, 31 KO’s) at the Stadthalle, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.
Maccarinelli, 33, has certainly picked out the perfect champion for him to beat, as Braehmer is considered a paper champion by a lot of fans, and someone who has got through an entire career without really facing anyone good. It’s been a career of careful match-making that has gotten Braehmer to this point, and it’s quite possible he could lose if Maccarinelli can land his big power shots.
“I’ve got the punch that could take him [Braehmer] out, and I’ve certainly got the boxing skills and experience to go with it,” Maccarinelli said to Britishboxers.co.uk. It’s a massive gamble going over to Germany, but I’m supremely confident and ready to win the title and bring it back to Wales.”
It’s actually not much of a gamble for Maccarinelli, because he’s getting a title shot that he would otherwise not be getting given his poor record in the last 6 years, but he’s also not risking much because the chances of this fight going to the cards are very small. This fight is very likely to end with either Maccarinelli knocking out the 35-year-old untested Braehmer or he’ll get knocked out himself.
The southpaw Braehmer has very little in the way of power, so the chances of Maccarinelli getting knocked out in this fight are small. He can definitely take the shots that Braehmer will be throwing because Braehmer fights with an amateur style, and he mainly just bounces around the ring trying to out-box his opponents. Braehmer does have a lot of knockouts on his resume, but in taking a closer look at the opposition he’s knocked out, he’s basically knocked out a lot of C and D level fighters.
There’s no real quality among Braehmer’s past knockout victims, or really among his entire resume aside from his fight against Argentinian slugger Hugo Hernan Garay, who beat Braehmer in 2008. Since that fight, Braehmer has beaten 11 less than dangerous opponents to get to where he is now as the WBA 175lb champion after beating little known fighter Marcus Oliveira last December to claim the vacant WBA title.
Braehmer isn’t the only champion that the World Boxing Association has at 175, as they also have Beibut Shumenov as one of their two WBA 175lb champions. It’s pretty sad how the WBA has two champions in the 175 division, but it’s good for Braehmer, because there is no way that he would have won a title if he had to go through the likes of Adonis Stevenson or Sergey Kovalev to get one.
