Early Career
On 12 May 2000, Maccarinelli suffered his first defeat at the hands of southpaw Lee Swaby. Swaby, from Lincoln, England, sent Maccarinelli down with a crushing right hand, knocking Maccarinelli down in the third round. Maccarinelli never took the rematch against Swaby.
On 28 June 2003, Maccarinelli, known as "the Big Mac" won the vacant WBU cruiserweight title when he defeated Bruce Scott by fourth-round TKO. He made seven successful defences of his WBU title before vacating.
On 8 July 2006, Maccarinelli fought against former World Boxing Council (WBC) cruiserweight champion Marcelo Fabian DomÃnguez for the WBO interim cruiserweight title. Maccarinelli won the title with a ninth-round TKO. The natural progression was a title fight against the then WBO title holder, Johnny Nelson. Due to several injuries to Nelson this matchup never transpired, and On 22 September 2006 he announced his retirement, automatically relinquishing the belt and allowing Maccarinelli to be promoted to full champion status.
On 14 October 2006 Maccarinelli made his first defence of the WBO title, stopping former opponent Mark Hobson in the first round in a fight that was widely expected to last the distance. This was followed by another first round win over Bobby Gunn on 7 April 2007 at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. The Gunn fight was stopped with just :25 seconds remaining in the first round by referee Mark Nelson, even though Gunn was not down and only had a small cut. It was widely and erroneously reported that Maccarinelli had broken Bobby Gunn's nose, but it was a small cut to the bridge of the nose that caused the bleeding. Gunn's nose was not broken and most observers at ringside thought the fight was stopped prematurely.
On 21 July 2007 Maccarinelli defended his WBO cruiserweight championship against former WBC champ Wayne Braithwaite and won by unanimous decision, after dominating the match. On 3 November 2007 Maccarinelli successfully defended his WBO cruiserweight title against Mohamed Azzaoui winning by TKO in the 4th Round.
In July 2012, Maccarinelli was banned for six months after testing positive for Methylhexaneamine.
Read more about this topic: Enzo Maccarinelli
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