Macklin's Take - Boxing Podcast

This week on Macklin's Take me and Matt are joined by Welterweight contender Michael McKinson. Mikey scored the biggest win of his career, a make or break win really, in Gibraltar against fellow unbeaten fighter Chris Kongo recently and has had a very interesting upbringing and journey through the sport so now seemed like the right time to invite him on and let him tell it. Macklin's Take is now a...

This week on Macklin's Take me & Matt Macklin are joined by Boxing News editor and recent SJA award winner Matt Christie. We talk to Matt about his route into the industry, his career, the pressures of his role, the current boxing scene, anything and everything basically. Macklin's Take is now also on YouTube so if you could find your way over there and click subscribe, that would be great.http://...

This week on Macklin's Take me & Matt talk to Professor Damian Hughes, co-host of the High Performance podcast, author, and son of the legendary Manchester trainer Bryan Hughes MBE.Damian grew up surrounded by boxing and has spent his career in large part studying why elite coaches and athletes do what they do and how they go about doing it; the behaviours they insist upon and the logic they emplo...

With Povetkin vs Whyte rapidly approaching Barry Jones joins me and Matt from his bedroom on the Sunborn yacht in Gibraltar to look ahead to Saturday. Barry's been on the ground for a couple of days so was the perfect man to bring us up to date with what's been happening and to give us his verdict on the weekend's fights. He has managed to sunburn his bald head though :)This episode is also up on...

With Povetkin vs Whyte coming up at the weekend we decided to bring you some extra pods this week. In this one we catch up with the 10-0 Fabio Wardley who takes on two-time world title challenger Eric Molina in the chief support. Fabio's route into pro boxing was an unusual one and he's made huge strides since turning over just 4 years ago, in no small part due to his mental approach to the sport...

This week on Macklin's take me and Matt are joined by top trainer Adam Booth. We take Adam on a deep dive back to his days working with David Haye, tracing their journey through from amateur days at Fitzroy Lodge, to the Playboy Mansion, and take it right up to their make or break night in Paris when David dethroned WBC & WBA Cruiserweight King Jean Marc Mormeck to become world champion. Any conve...

This week sees me and Matt welcome former IBF World Middleweight champion and good friend Darren Barker to the podcast for a long overdue Macklin's Take debut. Matt and Darren, were the same weight and their careers ran in parallel lines really. They very nearly boxed at one point, posters were printed and it was all ready to go top of the bill on the much-vaunted Magnificent Seven card, but an in...

This week on Macklin's Take me and Matt are joined by the 15-0 British Super Flyweight champion Sunny Edwards. Getting noticed as a young pro fighter, if you don't turn over with Olympic pedigree, has always been a challenge. Boxing is a business and as a fighter you have to market yourself, promote yourself, drive your own career; in short you have to sell yourself as best you can. And you have t...

In this episode we take you back to Christmas 1997 and NYC for a deep dive into Prince Naseem Hamed's sensational US debut at Madison Square Garden vs Kevin Kelley. There was never a dull moment with Naz and nobody knows that better than Sky Sport's Adam Smith, who was on the inside of the Sheffield fighter's career through its many highs and also its controversial lows. Adam was in New York 24 ye...

This week we welcome Matchroom Boxing CEO Frank Smith back to the podcast. Plenty has happened in the 16 months since we last spoke to him and we talk to him about the challenges attached to promoting the sport during the Covid era and Matchroom's plans to take boxing global over the next couple of years. And plenty else besides. And please do check out our new YouTube channel. Loads of content fr...

In this episode me and Matt Macklin talk the Art of the Deal with boxing Hall of Famer Lou DiBella. With a mega fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury in the pipeline we decided we needed to get the inside track on how fights like that actually get made, how negotiations get over the line and what the major obstacles often are. Lou has performed pretty much every role in the business of boxin...

This week on Macklin's Take we bring you an episode people have been asking for over the last year or so. An in-depth discussion of strength and conditioning training. What is it? What's it designed to achieve? How much should you do and when should you do it? There are plenty of misconceptions out there so we recruited MMA fighter and top S&C coach Chris Miah to guide us through the whole thing a...

Cus D'Amato once said that fear is like fire: If you can control then it can give you heat and light but if you can't control then it will burn you to the ground. This week me and Matt Macklin are joined by former WBC Super Middleweight champion, now clinical psychotherapist Glenn Catley to talk about fear, about how fighters have to be able not to just overcome it but to harness it, control it, t...

This week me and Matt are joined by one of the best commentators in the business; the smooth voice of BT Boxing, John Rawling. John's called countless big fights from ringside over the last few decades and his enthusiasm for the job remains undimmed so it was great to talk to him about the demands of the role and how he believes it should be done. We also had time to have a look at how the industr...

This week me & Matt Macklin bring you our first episode of 2021, so welcome back everyone! And we revisit the Make or Break theme we came up with over the summer where we talk to fighters about pivotal fights in their careers, fights that had they lost them then their lives would not have been the same. Our guest is Curtis Woodhouse, who has one of the best stories in all of sport, not just boxing...

Merry Christmas everyone and welcome to a Macklin's Take Yuletide special. Like last year, our top producer Darren Rees has put together a Festive Selection Box featuring some of the best bits from what has been a highly unusual year. Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren, Conor Benn and Dave Coldwell all feature as do Paul Ramsay, Shaun Cogan and Anthony Maynard who joined us for our This Boxing Life episode...

In this episode me and Matt tackle one of our favourite subjects: Matchmaking. Good matchmaking is crucial not only to the development of individual fighters but to the overall health of the sport. It’s a genuine art and good matchmakers are worth their weight in gold. They know how to pick the right opponents at the right time, how to provide boxers with the in-ring education they need to develop...

This week we celebrate the 100th episode of Macklin's Take by inviting on to the podcast former European Welterweight champ, and old friend of Matt Macklin's, Mr Matthew Hatton. Matt went 12 rounds with Canelo back in the day for the WBC Super Welterweight title so we have a chat about that and the big fight at the weekend between the Mexican and our very own Callum Smith. We also talk to Matt abo...

For this one we welcome Peter Fury back to Macklin's Take. And I ask Peter and Matt a question that's been hotly debated in British boxing over the last week or so. How much can we reasonably expect fighters to give in the ring? How far through the pain barrier can we really demand that they push themselves in pursuit of victory? It was  fascinating to listen to their take on what is a complex iss...

This week on Macklin's Take me and Matt are joined by none other than Top Rank boss Bob Arum. Bob turned 89 this week and has now been promoting boxing for 54 years. During that time he really has been there and seen and done it all so it was great to sit down with him for an hour and get his thoughts on AJ vs Pulev, the current state of the boxing industry, the future for Top Rank and plenty else...

This week me & Matt Macklin are joined by esteemed boxing scribe and author Kevin Mitchell to look back at the two showdowns between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis in 1999 that eventually saw Lewis crowned undisputed King of the Heavyweight division. The 90s was a mad decade in the top division; a 42/1 upset, Fan Man, a belt in the bin, the return of George Foreman, the Bite Fight, Andrew Golo...

This week me & Matt Macklin are joined by Ashley Theophane. Ashley, and I mean this in the best possible way, is not the kind of man you meet every day, even by boxing’s unusual standards. He’s been a pro for the best part of 2 decades, winning a British title almost 10 years ago before leaving these shores to join Floyd Mayweather’s Money Team in Las Vegas, appearing on some huge Mayweather cards...

This week me & Matt Macklin are joined by top boxing writer Ron Lewis as we take a deep dive into the March 2006 World Super Middleweight unification clash between WBO champ Joe Calzaghe and IBF ruler Jeff Lacy. It was a make or break fight for Calzaghe. After years of defending his WBO title finally he had the big fight he’d been waiting for but when he walked to the ring in the early hours in Ma...

This week me & Matt Macklin take a deep dive into the biggest upset in boxing history, James Buster Douglas’ stunning win against the unbeaten, undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world Iron Mike Tyson. Douglas 42/1 with the bookmakers when he walked to the ring in Tokyo in February 1990 and had been written off by everyone. Well, not quite everyone. Tim May was ringside covering the fight for...

This week me & Matt Macklin take a deep dive into another big fight, this time in the company of our good friend Steve Bunce. For this one we turn the clock back 30 years to a Sunday night in November 1990 when Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank met in the ring for the first time. It was the greatest rivalry British boxing had ever seen and probably will ever see. The build-up was electric and the fight...