Matthew Macklin

“Mack the Knife”, is an Irish professional boxer and the former Irish, British and twice European Middleweight Champion. He was the 2001 ABA Welterweight Champion and as the World Middleweight Contender is on course to be World Champion.

Despite his Birmingham accent Matthew is a very proud Irishman and travels on an Irish passport. His Mum’s family are from County Tipperary while his Dad is a County Roscommon man and Matthew splits his time between training in Manchester and the U.S., his family home in Birmingham and his relations and friends in Tipperary and Roscommon.

At the age of 18 Macklin started a law degree at Coventry University having acquired nine GCSEs and A levels in English, History and German. However after completing his first year in University Macklin was forced to abandon his studies in order to focus solely on the boxing ring. The University agreed that he could come back and complete the degree at any time but as yet he hasnt had to return to his studies.

As a child Matthew would make regular trips to Tipperary and Roscommon for holidays oftern spending entire summers in Ireland. He quickly proved to be quite handy at hurling (one of Ireland’s national sports) and he played at underage level with Tipperary up to under 16s. Back then Matthew regularly came up against stars of the current Tipperary team however an ankle ligament injury at the age of 16 threatened to disrupt an already promising boxing career and he made the decision to hang up his boots and his hurley. Macklin remains a devoted hurling and gaelic football supporter and regularly attends games in
Ireland.

Before his World title fight with Felix Sturm in Germany Matthew wowed the local media by addressing press conference and media interviews in German! He had studied the language for 6 years at school and took a refresher course prior to the Sturm fight.

Matthew, a twice World Middleweight Challenger, narrowly missed out on the World Title earlier this year in Madison Square Garden against Sergio Martinez. Matthew will be using the MGM as his professional training gym and is where he will train for his World Title Fight next year.

His trainer, two weight World Champion, James “Buddy” McGirt is relocating to Marbella from Brentwood, New York to train Matthew. Buddy, is the former Junior Welterweight Champion and Welterweight Champion. He is now a legendary trainer to many world champions including Arturo Gatti, Vernon Forrest, Antonio Tarver, Paulie Malinaggi, James Toney and more!

The gym will be offering professional boxing camps to world-class boxers and will be used by Sky Sports to record the progress of Matthew and other professional boxers.