MACKLIN 2

If boxing's governing bodies in their infinite wisdom, decide amid there Silver, Diamond and Emeritus to throw in a world title by proxy, they need lob it no further than Matthew Macklin. The middleweight's career, unpaid and paid, has been built alongside some of most succesful fighters of a generation. As an amateur he fought for England along with David Haye and Carl Froch, even rooming with The Cobra. As a professional he has shared the Wild Card with Manny Paquiao and as a friend, he accompanied Ricky Hatton, home and away, as the Hitman took on the world. Macklin has, in more ways than one, been the man looking in from the outside. He was an integral part of Hatton's travelling team, suffering in the team card school and carrying the spitbucket in the corner with equal enthusiasm. His, he still maintains, was the name the promoters wanted, as national champion, when he turned professional in 2001. He has watched Haye and Froch both conquer the world and reap the riches and rewards. Yet on April 16, he can take a giant stride closer to catching and matching his old mates, when he fights for an eliminator for the WBA middleweight title. Even then, he is on the undercard to the real deal as Amir Khan, four years his junior and as many fights into his own championship defence, takes on Paul McCloskey, live on Sky Box Office HD. In Macklin's way stands Korehn Gevor, an Armenian boxing out of Germany, who has taken current world champions Arthur Abraham, Felix Sturm and Dimitri Sartison the distance in unsuccessful challenges. That hat-trick aside, the other two losses on his 36-fight record came eight years ago at the impressive hands of Lukas Konecny. He, like Macklin, is at the business end of the governing body's rankings, and senses a chance to get back into the WBA middleweight mix where Sturm is the Emeritus champion and Gennady Golovkin and Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam are fighting for his 'vacant' WBA belt. Winning a world title is one thing, but having to come through someone of the calibre of Gevor just to get the opportunity to fight for it, proves that if Macklin is to join the boxing elite, he will need a performance worthy of any of his old friends in their prime. There is a seat waiting at boxing's top table, but he is going to have to shove two world-class opponents out of the way to take it. So it's just as well that after a career watching others succeed and the last year hovering frustratingly on the fringes, the 28-year-old's hunger burns as strong as ever. "That's why I'm fighting Gevor. If you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best," he told skysports.com. "I don't want a world-title shot to take part in it, I want to win it - and stay there. Things like that are out of my control though, so all I can do is focus on winning Gevor, get that mandatory position and then I'll get my shot. "A lot of people thought Gevor won the fight with (Felix) Sturm; he gave (Arthur) Abraham a good fight until he got knocked out in the 11th round and he's been European champion as well. If anything I think this is a tougher fight. "He has lost two of his last three fights, so is this a good time to fight him? I don't know because they were both world-title fights and the last one was up at super-middle and realistically he isn't a super-middle; he probably only took the fight because the opportunity came about. "He's back now at middleweight, that's his natural division and he'll probably see this as a fast route back to a world-title shot. He is world-class, he's not the type of fighter that should be messing around with 10 rounders." Nor is Macklin. Yet that is where he found himself no more than three fights ago, being taken the shortened distance in Dublin by Rafael Sosa Pintos, a Uruguayan whose name sounds the part but in reality has lost all four of his fights on foreign soil. That was on the back of flattening Amin Asikainen in a round to win the European title first time around and blowing Wayne Elcock away in three to become British champion in six splendid months in 2009. Since the downer in Dublin, he has won back and defended the European title - the latter a scrappy struggle against Ruben Veron the last night Khan fought - and seen an eagerly-anticpated domestic showdown with Darren Barker fall by the wayside. For every step forward, there has been one sideways at best. "I've been on the fringes probably for the last two years, ever since I knocked Amin Asikainen out (to win the European title first time round). I've been hoping and thinking 'this is the fight, this is the fight', but this time I feel confident it will happen - Golden Boy have made this an eliminator. "It has been hard to keep the focus when you're hanging around for a long time - and I've had injuries and things - especially when I had such a good year in 2009. "I thought 'this is it now, it's going to be massive'. Then I had an injury, the Barker fight fell through and 2010 was a bit of a non-event year; I had two fights, but I didn't really perform and I didn't move anywhere as such. "That's why rather than taking an easy fight, sitting about treading water, I took Gevor. It is a risky fight, it is a loseable fight. I'm not going to lose it, I'm very confident I'm going to win - but it is a loseable fight. "But I know I'll get up for it, big time, and I know that when I beat him, going into a world-title shot, I am there on merit and I know I can win it. I know I'm there on merit and I've not just been gifted it." The tie-up with Golden Boy might just be what Macklin, who took himself off to train with Freddie Roach and Buddy McGirt in the States, needs to finally make the leap. He has seen another friend and member of the Hatton Card School, Matthew, get an unexpected chance to become a WBA champion courtesy of Oscar de la Hoya's considerable influence, only for his brave bid against Saul Alvarez to come up short. His own switch to the promotional giants was based around a chance to raise his profile against former light-middleweight world champion Ronald 'Winky' Wright, before the defensive maestro succumbed to an ankle injury, if not his 39 years, in training. Winky, the latest former great to climb aboard boxing's incessant comeback conveyor belt, has not boxed for two years but would have still been a hard man to master. Easier than Gevor, insists Macklin, and an impressive name on the slate to boot; but not the means to the end, that the likeable and proud Irishman can, at last see. "When there's a title on the line or the chance to really move up the rankings or get yourself a world-title shot, you get an extra spring in your step," he says. "That's where I find myself now. I almost feel like I did when I turned pro again, I'm enthusiastic, so up for this. "I'm moving into a phase of my career that I'm really excited about and like Carl Froch and David Haye, and Amir Khan, I think I'm ready to step forward and win the world title. "Fighters can't kid themselves. When you go to bed at night and then, when you walk into that ring, you know whether you belong there or not. "There's been plenty of fighters that have been given world-title shots and know really, that they're out of their depth." Sink or swim on Saturday, April 16, no-one can accuse Matthew Macklin of treading water any longer.