by James Slater – Five days on from his shocking 9th round TKO loss to the previously largely unknown Ola Afolabi, and former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli is still at a loss as to what happened. Showing great character, the Welshman who lost in his interim title fight in Manchester was a telephone guest on today’s Steve Bunce Boxing Hour on Setanta TV. While it would have been understandable for Maccarinelli to have preferred to have kept himself hidden away after suffering the kind of shattering loss he was subjected to against Afolabi, Enzo instead wanted to talk about the third defeat of his career..
Maccarinelli, 28, was as shocked as the paying fans were when he was sent down and out in the 9th round. What puzzles the big-hitter more, however, is just why he was so tired in the ring after only a few minutes of action. Maccarinelli did not come across as a sore loser, he simply feels there was something physically wrong with him on March 14th.
Enzo was told he just didn’t look himself in there last Saturday night:
“I can’t explain it,” Maccarinelli said over the phone to the studio. “I’ve just been to the doctors for a blood test, because after the first round I was so tired – there has to be a reason for that. There was just nothing there! In one round, he hit me with a low blow, and I even thought about going down and taking a knee, to try and get him disqualified. That’s how much I wanted to get out of there.”
There was genuine disbelief in Maccarinell’s voice as he recalled the fight. A man known for his vigorous training ethic, the Welshman could not understand why he was so tired after just one round.
He was asked if a lack of sparring may have had something to do with it.
“I did have a lack of sparring for the fight, I hardly had any,” Enzo said. “But that alone would not make me exhausted after one round of boxing. He’s a decent fighter, don’t get me wrong, but he’s no [Wayne] Braithwaite, no [Mark] Hobson and no [Marcelo] Dominguez.”
And against the three fighters Maccarinelli mentioned, Enzo came out on top after long and gruelling type affairs. Enzo is sure he can beat Afolabi in a return, and this is the fight he absolutely craves now.
“The only fight I want now is a rematch,” Maccarinelli said. “I said that to him [Ola] as soon as the fight was over. He said he’d give me one, but whether or not he actually will we’ll have to see. That’s the only fight that can get my head right. I can’t come to terms with this loss. I think that if I fought Afolabi a million times, he would only beat me that one time.”
Again, it must be stressed how Maccarinelli was NOT coming across as a poor sport. He instead is genuinely unsure as to why he, a fighter who aside from anything else is always in tip-top shape, was so badly fatigued so quickly. Maybe when he gets the results back from the doctors Enzo will find out something.
One thing is certain, a rematch between Maccarinelli and the vastly underrated Ola Afolabi would be a most intriguing contest.