Martinez vs. Barker on Saturday: Does anybody care about this fight?

By Boxing News - 09/28/2011 - Comments

Image: Martinez vs. Barker on Saturday: Does anybody care about this fight?By Scott Gilfoid: Photo credit: Ed Diller/DiBella Entertainment – The sad thing about Saturday’s fight between WBC Diamond middleweight champion Sergio Martinez and Darren Barker is that it’s not even the best fight on the card. The undercard fight between middleweight contender Andy Lee and Brian Vera is far better, and I’d pick either one of those guys over Barker.

It’s just disappointing that Martinez has decided to fight Barker instead of a better fighter like Vera or Lee, but I suppose Martinez deserves to take tune-up fight while he rests from his big fights with Kelly Pavlik, Paul Williams and Sergiy Dzinziruk.

Barker said “I know I have what it takes to pull off the upset. Tune it, it’s going to be a great night.”

I’m afraid to watch this fight. It’s going to be like watching a train wreck where Martinez lands a huge shot and Barker goes crashing to the canvas out cold. There’s no suspense in this fight, because you know who’s going to win this fight. This is perhaps the reason why boxing fans have no interest in watching Martinez destroy Barker.

If you look around the various boxing internet sites, no one is talking about the Barker-Martinez fight, even in the British forums. The fight still hasn’t sold out and the ticket sales are reportedly slow. This is what you get when you pick an obscure fighter Barker, who has spent his entire career for the most part fighting 2nd tier local fighters.

Barker gets a shot against the best fighter in the middleweight division out of the blue, for the newly created WBC Diamond trinket. There’s just no interest in this fight and it’s easy to see why. Martinez is going to go out and put a real hurting on Barker. I just hope that Martinez carries Barker for at least five or six rounds, because it’s no fun when Martinez comes out and knocks his opponents out quickly.



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