By Alexey Sukachev
At the LG Arena in Birmingham, WBC/IBF #5 and WBA/WBO #7 local boy Matthew Macklin (27-2, 19 KOs) is the new European middleweight champion following his tougher-than-expected sixth-round stoppage of unheralded Georgian Shalva Jomardashvili (27-3-1, 19 KOs).
Macklin, fighting in front of partisan crowd, was the aggressor in the opener but Jomardashvili was eating punches good and didn't hesitate to retaliate. Macklin landed a huge amount of body punches to take some air off Shalva in first rounds. Jomardashvili, on the other hand, proved his padded record wasn't in fact all that padded as he connected with some serious blows in the first four rounds. In the fifth stanza, Macklin hurt Shalva bad with a body punch and landed several important punches to turn him into defensive mode. Shalva tried some wild swings but wasn't that successful. He barely survived till the bell to end round five but retired on his stool just after that. Official time was 0:02 of the sixth round.
