"Whos' fighting?"

By Bennie

"Whos' fighting?" Enzo Maccarinelli once asked me in the bowels of the Newport Leisure Centre, as two men duked it out in the ring early in the evening. "Nathan Cleverly," to which Enzo immediately dashed to the seating area to watch his novice of a stablemate outscoring Armenia's Varuzhan Davtyan in a four-rounder.
It was clear that Enzo held great affection for young Nathan but things have changed since that dark November night in 2006 as Maccarinelli, a Welsh fighing hero back then, finds himself desperately clinging on to the sport as Cleverly, the new Welsh hope, challenges for the WBO light-heavyweight title at Wembley Arena on May 21, although both fighters are still friends and stablemates, if trained by different men.
Maccarinelli suffered a brutal seven-round knockout at the hands of Germany's Alexander Frenkel in his last outing, after which there were inevitable calls for his retirement. The 30-year-old Swansea man, a pro since 1999, had already survived an early career knockout to unlikely Lincoln southpaw Lee Swaby to prove himself a world class cruiserweight and a world class puncher, and even after three losses in close proximity - many years later - to Denis Lebedev, Ola Afolabi and David Haye, big Enzo came back to win the European cruiserweight style with a stunning first-round knockout in Russia. However, the Frenkel knockout looked 'career over'.
Instead, after talks with his promoter F rank Warren, Maccarinelli drops down to light-heavyweight in a third attempt to resurrect his career after and already there is talk of him challenging the unbeaten 24-year-old Cleverly, if Cleverly comes through against Germany's dangerous Juergen Braehmer in that WBO title encounter in May, and there is no guarantee of that.
Of course, how strong will Maccarinelli be at his new weight? He was a giant of a cruiserweight at 6ft 4ins, a bit fleshy perhaps, yes, but to drop all the way down from 14st 4lbs to 12st 7lbs without weakening himself, without taking away his noted power, remain the moot questions and the crux of his future aspirations.
I like Maccarinelli: he comes to fight and, win or lose, he is fun to watch at 32-5 (25), your classic big puncher with a classic big puncher's chin. You know, for a moment there I remembered such men as Joe Louis and Floyd Patterson. What's not to like?