By boxflavour: First off, lets get one thing very clear. Martin Murray, put in an absolutely stunning performance against Sergio Martinez on Saturday night, and won that fight. I don’t know what some of the writers are talking about, what fight were you watching.
The scale of this performance as usual, was completely ignored by the Martinez loving American commentators. Martinez looked poor . He was made to look poor, by a bigger, stronger, smarter boxer on the night. Not only this, but the use of Video technology was also used, to decide whether the second knock down was a knock down – so we were in safe hands there, or were we…
Let’s put this into perspective….
Martin Murray came to Buenos Aires, in a stadium filled with 40,000 Argentines, in the rain, and with virtually no fans at all, and took the fight comfortably, and was robbed the result. The scoring was a joke. Here is why.
He had to deal with what was an absolutely farcical display by both the referee, and a childish, whinging Sergio Martinez. I have never seen such a disgusting display of gamesmanship – At a time when Martinez was really in a position to “manipulate” the fight, he did so in spectacular fashion. Twice caught wincing at the corner; he claimed a low shot when it hit him on the thigh, and made a meal of it. When he was knocked down for a SECOND time, and yes, he definitely was, he made an absurd look of protest at the ref, which said “Shit, you can’t be giving that a knockdown, surely that means I’d lose the fight, having been knocked down twice!!” Yep – and here’s the thing, they used Video replays for the first time ever, and adjudged, and here’s the thing, that their feet tangled in the ring.
Watch it back, go on I dare you. This really does put the sport into disrepute. Don’t expect a decent explanation from this one.
Murray was never caught clean, and he was never hurt. Martinez was knocked down TWICE, in his own ring, in his own back yard, he was cut, and he looked visibly shaken a few times. Murrays game plan was superb, and executed perfectly, and for the latter rounds, was actually bossing Martinez. The last 30 seconds of the 12th, maybe Murray looked tired, but Martinez did nothing like enough steal the fight there, and shouldn’t even have been in a position to do so.
The first three rounds were fascinating; Murray with a clear tactic of keeping his hands very high against the all angles Sergio. He did a great job. Watching this from a neutrals perspective, you could visibly see Murray growing in confidence. By the 7th, he was not exactly controlling the fight, but he was certainly winning rounds, and he had started to become the aggressor, smartly jumping away from Martinez’ ‘up jab’ , which mostly caught Murray on the gloves all night.
Had this been in any other stadium, any other venue in the world, Murray wins this by 2-3 rounds on all scorecards. He was not hurt once, and a lot of Martinez’s blows were glancing and without the power we are used to seeing.
Mainly though ,I am incensed that this hasn’t been talked about more. Its total BS that you can’t get a decision away from home in a situation like that. And it’s an absolute farce that the Instant replay technology was used, and then abused, under the radar.
And I can understand how usually it will go the champions way, but come on..this was embarrassing and made Martinez look old.
The real pat on the back must go to Sergio’s best mate, the crowd itself, who did an amazing job all night, of managing to convince anyone who wasn’t that interested, that he had won the majority of the rounds, such was his visible frustration at the ends of most of the latter rounds.
Top marks to Martin Murray – He deserves a shot at 160Lb – A rematch with Felix Sturm, or any of the UK domestic middles, Barker, Macklin, Lee, would be an easy move for Murray – who should walk away from Buenos Aires – with his held well and truly high as the top UK middleweight and a genuine top 5 world contender.
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