Sergio Martinez to stay at middleweight – News
June 16th, 2010
By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KO’s) has decided to stay at middleweight rather than give up his WBC belt and defend only his WBC junior middleweight title, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Martinez, 35, had to make a choice to defend one title or the other or else risk having it stripped him.
Martinez has fought twice at middleweight in the past year, losing a narrow 12 round majority decision to Paul Williams in December and then coming back to defeat WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik by a 12 round unanimous decision in April to capture both of Pavlik’s titles. The WBO stripped Martinez because he couldn’t decide which division he was going to be fighting in.
Martinez chose wisely in keeping the WBC middleweight title because there isn’t any potential big fights at that weight right now unless WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto would show interest in fighting Martinez. That’s not likely to happen because Martinez is a fighter that makes people look bad and he would probably be not someone that Cotto would be interested in fighting.
Besides, Martinez doesn’t fight for Top Rank, so it’s doubtful that Cotto, a Top Rank fighter, will ever be matched against Martinez. However, Martinez is willing to come down to 155 pounds for a catch weight fight if there’s someone interesting to fight from the welterweight division like Manny Pacquiao, Andre Berto or Floyd Mayweather Jr. The same goes for the junior middleweight division. Unfortunately, the junior middleweight division is almost completely barren of stars when you exclude Cotto.
Martinez looked outstanding in beating Pavlik in April, showing a lot of skills in battering the hard hitting Pavlik over 12 rounds. Martinez started off fast in the first three rounds and then let off in the middle rounds to give Pavlik some hope. But in the last four rounds, Martinez stepped it up big time, throwing a lot of combinations and battering the bigger, stronger Pavlik. Rather than use his rematch clause which had had in the contract, Pavlik chose to move up in weight rather than risk getting beat by Martinez again.
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Bob Arum will not put Cotto in there with Martinez. No Way he did the same thing to Paul Williams after Williams beat Margarito. Cotto ducked williams and he’s ducking Martinez. Martinez will pick him apart. When someone asked Arum about Martinez he says he’s a great fighter but not a Pay Per View Fighter yet that’s why he’s not making a Cotto Martinez fight. (Arum has some Mayweather in his blood)
Martinez keeping the title at 160 is a good business move because Paul Williams, Floyd Mayweather nor Pacquiao have titles there and those would be great fights.
great move.middleweight is the second most significant title in boxing history.
pacquiao and mayweather never would have fought him.
cotto never would have fought him either(no way is he avoiding cotto,Im sure hed give cotto a catchweight shot at 155 for the true middleweight title)
spinks probably would never fight him either.
paul williams will probably move up at some point later.
dzindiruk wouldve fought him but the choice here is a no brainer.either be the middleweight champion of the world or hold one of the alphabet titles at jr middleweight and have everyone but dzindiruk avoid him like the plague.
He’s scared to get beat up by Cotto, cause cotto will make him look really bad, Cotto is not pavlik how throw a one two punch combination, Cotto have speed, leg movement and a good punch combinations that will make martinez look like he’s just debuting. Cotto is bringing fear to this division and think some of them already runing away like chicken martinez.
I disagree, this decision surprised me because there are so many options at 154lbs. He could have rematches with Cintron, Williams or Margarito, possibly Mayweather moving up, Cotto or Spinks to unify belts, or guys like Angulo and Mosely. At 160lbs there is no longer Abraham or Pavlik so he’ll have to settle on Euro champs that no one knows…like the proposed Zbik fight.